EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — A woman in East Palestine says her childhood home isn’t fit for living and she now has greater concerns about her own health, three months after the train derailment and toxic chemical burn.
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Some families are living apart from each other in hotels or rented homes.
Kristina Ferguson says she isn’t about to bring her elderly mother and stepfather to a home she says could make them all sick.
“Those memories, it's very difficult to just throw something away,” Ferguson said, looking across at her family’s home on E. Rebecca Street with a broken heart.
It’s Ferguson’s childhood home.
“It was the home that my mom brought me home from the hospital; when I brought my daughter home from the hospital," Ferguson said.
The home, built in 1930, hasn’t seen life lately.
“We don't go back in now that we have the animals out because you still get that tingling in your lips and tongue and you still get sick when you're in the home,” Ferguson said.
The toxic train derailment on Feb. 3 uprooted Kristina, her elderly mother and her stepfather.
She first shared her story with News 5 on Feb. 16, two weeks after the disaster and the same day the EPA Administrator toured her house.
Trains started running again within a week, but three months later, contaminated soil and water are still being shipped out for disposal.
We know the train that derailed passed through Cleveland, but the exact route still hasn’t been released.
The NTSB Chair spoke on Feb. 23 about holding a hearing as part of the investigation.
"So today I'm announcing that the NTSB will hold a rare investigative field hearing this spring in East Palestine,” said NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy.
The NTSB confirmed the hearing will be in June and will last one to two days. It’s now working out the exact location, times and who will testify.
"We will question invited witnesses,” Homendy said.
Until then, Ferguson wants answers about her health.
Like dozens of others, she went out on her own to get a urine test.
It shows a breakdown product of vinyl chloride in her system. She says she is now trying to find a doctor who can explain what that means.
"At least we've got family life back that we're all in a home and can cook meals and watch TV in the same room together. That's a blessing,” Ferguson said. She and her family spent the first month in a hotel.
"My mother was having trouble with her Parkinson's and not moving enough in the hotel,” Ferguson said. For the next six months, she says Norfolk Southern is putting her up in a rental home.
It is a move that is hard on her stepfather.
"My stepfather, it's hard with his dementia getting used to a new home, and that's in the back of your mind — what happens when the lease is up?” Ferguson said.
Everything of theirs on E. Rebecca Street was left as is.
Sulphur Run Creek, contaminated from the derailment, snakes behind it.
"We're still at a loss right now for the condition of the home because the EPA can not do a wiping or anything to properly analyze the home until the creek is no longer polluted,” Ferguson said. Anything with fabric that absorbs chemicals she’ll need to toss, she said.
"I don't want to set the furniture out curbside,” Ferguson said.
She says that’s easier said than done.
"I don't have the belongings, but I have the memories and I hope I never forget those,” Ferguson said.
Ferguson said some of her neighbors pick and choose which nights they can tolerate at home before going back to a hotel, but then may run into problems with hotels being booked up.
Norfolk Southern says it’s spent more than $30 million in community support to date.
