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The Ohio train derailment was bad enough. The emergency response made it worse.

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Opinion


THE OHIO TRAIN DERAILMENT WAS BAD ENOUGH. THE EMERGENCY RESPONSE MADE IT WORSE.

Questions about the derailment itself start with Norfolk Southern. But local
officials created an unnecessarily chaotic response.

Smoke rises from a derailed cargo train in East Palestine, Ohio, on Feb.
4.Dustin Franz / AFP - Getty Images file
Feb. 15, 2023, 4:24 PM UTC
By Samantha Montano, assistant professor of emergency management at
Massachusetts Maritime Academy

On Feb. 3, just before 9 p.m., a train carrying a variety of toxic chemicals
derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, near the Pennsylvania border. Though it was
too dark for railway and local officials to fully assess the situation, they
knew enough to call for the evacuation of everyone in one mile radius of the
accident.

As far as disasters go, this derailment should have been relatively
straightforward. It was dramatic, to be sure, but it is exactly the type of
emergency that government officials, led by emergency managers, plan for daily.
In fact, the Columbiana County Emergency Management Agency’s Hazard Mitigation
Plan, last updated in 2019, features hazardous materials incidents, including
those involving train derailments. The plan noted 18 rail incidents from 2010 to
2019 that released hazardous materials in the county, and the agency deemed the
risk of another such event as “medium.” As the next morning revealed the true
extent of the crash, however, expectations of anything straightforward in East
Palestine and Columbiana County faded away.




To be clear, questions about the derailment itself start with the rail operator,
Norfolk Southern. Efforts to hold those at fault accountable — via congressional
hearings, class-action lawsuits and so on — are essential and changes to
national policy are needed. But what has unfolded over the last 10 days is,
unfortunately, also a case study in how government’s inability to communicate
risk to the public, reactionary law enforcement agencies and unchecked corporate
power can create an unnecessarily chaotic response.

In any crisis, whether a pandemic, a hurricane or an economic crash, there are a
few hard and fast rules emergency managers live by: communication, coordination,
leadership and trust. If you don’t have these, your response won’t be effective.

Take the evacuation, for example. A mandatory evacuation of the area was
absolutely necessary. Ten of the cars that derailed were carrying hazardous
materials, with the most concerning being the five cars transporting vinyl
chloride. Despite local officials calling for a mandatory evacuation, over the
course of the first 72 hours it became apparent that many residents were not
leaving. One news report estimated there were as many as 500 residents who did
not initially evacuate.

In response, the Columbiana County Sheriff’s Office announced on Facebook that
anyone who did not evacuate would be arrested for “misconduct in an emergency.”
That crisis communication approach is wholly out of step with decades of
research on human behavior in disasters.



In any disaster, the first question an emergency manager should ask is: Why
aren’t they leaving? Disaster researchers have spent years trying to better
understand why some people don’t evacuate when told to. The answer is usually a
combination of factors, including either not receiving or understanding the
evacuation notice, a physical barrier like a disability, or a lack of access to
needed resources such as a car or a place to stay. Emergency managers spend a
lot of time working on warning and evacuation plans specifically to meet the
needs of their community. So, what went wrong here?


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If local officials had simply looked through the comments on their own agencies’
Facebook posts, they would have seen this research reflected. Some residents had
legitimate concerns that local government should have the resources to address:
not having the money to evacuate or not being able to return for their livestock
after leaving them. Others were unclear about what resources were available, for
whom, and for how long. Some thought the shelters weren’t open 24 hours. Some
heard that Norfolk Southern was paying for hotel rooms.

And the messaging that officials relayed to the public was often contradictory.
On the one hand, the sheriff’s office was threatening to arrest people who
didn’t evacuate, suggesting an immediate and severe threat to human life. But
other local agencies were sharing information that said there was no threat to
the air and water. For some commenters, it seemed these two different messages
conflicted each other, leaving them to question if there really was a safety
concern worthy of calling for an evacuation.

While other residents did leave comments noting that shelters were open and
trying to connect individuals with resources, local officials didn’t seem to be
monitoring these comments. That allowed rumors and misinformation to spread
unchecked. It also was a missed opportunity to answer legitimate and pressing
questions from the public.



Throughout the following week, the public clamored for additional information
and criticized the lack of national media coverage. On Feb. 6, Norfolk Southern
began releasing and burning the chemicals in the train cars, sending a plume of
black smoke into the air and heightening concerns about the threat to public
health and safety. (As is often the case in a disaster, people need to see it to
believe it.)

Frustrations grew still further two days later when a news conference on the
response was delayed 2 hours with no explanation. Then videos surfaced online
showing officers arresting NewsNation journalist Evan Lambert right as the news
conference began.

The culmination of a week of shoddy public communication, threats to arrest
victims, and the detention of a journalist undermined the public’s trust in what
officials told them. Moreover, it has allowed Norfolk Southern to publicly
dominate the response. Anyone who has had to manage the response to a disaster
involving a private company can attest to the complications they can cause. A
fundamental tension in these situations is that private businesses have
conflicting interests with government and the affected community. At the same
time, you often need these companies to be involved because they typically hold
the technical expertise to address the crisis, and they’re the ones who may be
financially responsible. This means government — and especially local emergency
management — can quickly become dependent on them for information. Practically,
local officials often must work with them to save life and property but must be
careful not to defer to them and allow them to steamroll the local community.

Less than two weeks after the derailment, the mixed signals to the public
continue. While local officials assure residents it is safe to return home,
residents are still experiencing the impact — seeing soot in their homes,
smelling chemicals in the air, and hearing widespread reports of dead animals
turning up throughout the affected area. Instead of building an environment of
trust, local officials have created a hostile relationship that is making the
public suspicious of their claims.



This has been further compounded by the lack of visible attention from the
federal government. While the EPA has shared daily updates, President Joe Biden
has not addressed the derailment, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg
only broke his silence Monday. This lack of visible leadership can contribute to
beliefs that government is not taking the situation seriously, or worse, that
they are trying to cover it up.

In a crisis, clear, complete and truthful communication with the public is key
because the public is a stakeholder in the response. Not only is it their
community, lives and livelihood on the line but officials also need the public
to believe what you say and follow the instructions you give them for the
response to be successful.

From the start of the accident in Ohio, the lack of effective communication
opened the door for legitimate questions regarding the safety of people in the
area but also widespread misinformation and even conspiracy theories. What
should have been a relatively “normal” disaster response instead has become an
example of how to make a terrible situation worse.

Samantha Montano

Samantha Montano is an assistant professor of emergency management at
Massachusetts Maritime Academy and the author of “Disasterology: Dispatches from
The Frontlines of The Climate Crisis”





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