People are getting sick we we should not have been, like, back into town until all of this was done. This morning, people in East Palestine, Ohio, scared the toxic chemicals from a massive train derailment are putting their lives at risk. CNN has obtained new videos of the train before the crash, and they’re helping us pieced together a timeline. So let’s check out some of this. First, you see videos from along the train tracks This is in Alliance, Ohio, and you see the train passing. This is on the right side of your screen. Now, this was about 15. This was about 57 minutes before the crash. And you can see there are no sparks. The train keeps heading down the tracks. And by eight, 12 p.m. it’s in Salem. Now you can see sparks from an apparent wheel bearing overheating. Here’s another surveillance camera. Same time, same town. The train keeps going for 20 miles after that point. Headed for East Palestine. And that is where it derails at eight 55. A full 43 minutes after we saw those sparks. And Salem. CNN’s Jason Carroll is live in East Palestine. And Jason, we just want to start with what the NTSB is saying about the video and the investigation Well, this is clearly going to be a key part of the investigation into what exactly went wrong out here. And according to the NTSB, that surveillance video that you just referenced there and I’m going to quote here, appears to show a wheel bearing in the final stage of overheat failure. Moments before the derailment. Now, of course, that wheel bearing is a key component. Hopes to connect the wheel to the axle. The parts in question have all been collected They’ve been examined. They’re going to be taken now to Washington, D.C., where they will be examined by investigators there at a laboratory with the NTSB. We should also tell you, Audie, that the NTSB has also collected the locomotive event recorder. That is also going to be key to the investigation going forward in Turin in terms of trying to determine exactly what went wrong. Now, the EPA administrator actually was visiting East Palestine and you got to speak with him. What did he tell you Well, it was a short conversation, but an important conversation. The EPA administrator, Michael Regan, made it very clear that he knows that people are scared, that they are very worried about their health. He also said that he knows that people do not trust the government when they say that the air and the water is safe. Here’s more of what he had to say. You’ve heard some of the stories that are coming in, people talking about having rashes, their pets getting sick, things like that. What I would say is if anyone is experiencing any kind of adverse symptoms, have their pets go to the veterinarian? They should seek medical attention. We need for this information to get to the state health department so that we can coordinate and be sure that people are getting the help that they need to help us clear up what specifically you’re testing for. Is it just for vinyl chloride? We are testing for the full breadth of toxic chemicals that were on that train that was spilled. We have the capabilities to detect every single adverse impact that would result from that spill. And that’s what we’re doing. We will be here for as long as it takes to see this process through. I want to assure the people I just want to say, when you say as long as it takes, I think the question is long term, is someone going to be here a year from now, two years from now to come back? Test the water, test the soil. I’m very clear when I say as long as it takes, we will go through this process. With the citizens of East Palestine for as long as it takes. The federal government will be here for as long as it takes. So, again, you heard it there, Audie. The EPA administrator says as long as it takes, whatever that ends up being. Also want to tell you that Ohio’s governor has asked the CDC to get involved. He wants CDC experts here on the ground to examine people who say they are having symptoms Audie. Jason Carroll, thank you for your reporting. Joining us now is the water quality and treatment superintendent of Greater Cincinnati Waterworks, Jeff Sweat for her. Thank you so much. You serve more than a million people in the Cincinnati area. You get 88% of the drinking water from the Ohio River. So that’s obviously why so many people have questions. I know you’ve been doing testing. What exactly do you test for? What does that look like? So we’re working with a lot of partners here, with regional partners from U.S., EPA, Ohio, and especially or Sankoh, the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission. So we’re going. We’re working with that group, getting samples from all of them down the Ohio River. We’re bringing in here into our lab and doing these analysis. Now, fortunately, we’re not finding the high concentrations that they’re seeing up in up in the East Palestine area. Our concentrations are much less. And as it’s coming down the Ohio River, what we’re seeing is especially one compound that what’s been detected is called futile accolade. that compound is actually decreasing a bit as it’s coming down the river between its apologizing being up, but the concentration becoming less and less as it’s moving towards us. So it’s becoming less and less that you are seeing a difference, though, since this train wreck has happened. Yeah. So this is something that we would not have detected before, but we would the test that we do. We have a suite of tests that we do all the time anyway to make sure that the water’s safe. So if there’s anything in there we don’t know about or detect it. This would, this compound would have been detected in that. And we don’t detect it because we haven’t detected before. But now we’re detecting upstream of of the city, Cincinnati. One thing, Jeff, that we’ve heard from a lot of people is they’re skeptical of the testing I know we hear from you. We’ve heard from officials in East Palestine and the EPA that they’re doing this testing, telling us what they see. But how do people know they can trust the testing Well, I think in our part, you know, we’re drinking the water, too. You know, I’m drinking at my family’s drinking if I don’t want to drink this stuff. So I want to make sure that we’re doing that as good as job as we can to to to characterize what’s happening. And also looking at our treatment, we’ve done a lot of work looking at our treatment plant and making sure that we can remove it. And we feel that where we we have several barriers here. We can we can remove it. And even before that, we can actually shut down and not bring the water in for a while. So if we see the contaminants getting close to us, that’s usually our first action is just shut down and let it go by altogether. And one aspect of this is the rain. You know, I mean, we talked about the soil in East Palestine, the rain happening, washing it down What concerns do you have about that? Well, we have quickly our monitoring system that we have set up will detect something else or something else gets washed into the river. We will detect that and we’ll have a good notice of several weeks notice probably before it will get to us. So because of this monitoring system that we have set up, we feel that we’re in really good condition to be able to detect something if it does get washed out of there. So that sounds like you’re saying that if people are concerned in Cincinnati, people who are downstream from East Palestine, that they should not have concerns. Is that is that what you’re telling me Yeah, very much. We’ve done away in Cincinnati, but we’re working with a lot of utilities up and down the river. About over 5 million people get the water from the Ohio River, and we’re working with the water utilities to send in a group to to make sure that we’re all aware of what’s happening, what treatment is effective, and to make sure that this doesn’t get into the drinking water. How long does this change how you do your job? You know, you’re monitoring now. I know. 24, seven is basically what you are on schedule. How long does this go on for? Because I think a lot of the residents in East Palestine are concerned that it’s a short term attention span and not something that people have been paying attention to as long as it needs to. Yeah. So this particular event, maybe will be, oh, maybe three weeks or so in duration to look for it for us. But again, we had a monitoring system, so something else comes down to check the end of all. Well, we’ll start over then with with the monitoring and some of the residents in East Palestine, just given your expertise on this, they’ve complained about the idea that they’re told the water is safe, but they’re still told to drink bottled water. How did you do if you lived there? How do you square those two? Yeah. Well, I think what the Health Department of Health is saying is get your water tested. A lot of people up there in East Palestine have their own private wells. And that’s a very different situation than what we have where we have a centralized drinking water system. So there is free testing that everybody is doing for those people. So absolutely, they should have the wells tested, not just now, but later on in the future to to make sure that nothing else gets into there. Does it ever become a situation where do you think that is? Palestine should be designated as a Superfund site where it gets the federal attention in its it changes the contamination and how they are allocating resources for it. Should it be a Superfund site? I don’t know about a Superfund site. Both. I certainly think that there needs to be a lot of effort put into it right now to characterize what’s there, to clean up what’s there. But yeah, I think they do need a lot of attention up there. All right, Jeff Fager, thank you so much for sharing that expertise with us and your testing procedures and saying that you and your family are drinking the water. And so you do believe it’s safe Absolutely. Thank you. English
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