Grandmother still living in hotel 7 months after East Palestine train derailment
By Tara Morgan
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EAST PALESTINE, Ohio (WEWS) — A grandmother is still living in a hotel more than seven months after a toxic train derailment in East Palestine.
She’s part of a class action lawsuit against Norfolk Southern that is now re-creating what happened with the train.
Christina Dilworth says she struggles to sleep.
“I didn’t ask for this. I deserve to go home to a clean house, a house before Feb. 3rd,” Dilworth said.
Dilworth says she’s been in a hotel about 10 miles from East Palestine in Columbiana County since April.
She says Norfolk Southern has been paying for her room, food and gas so far but doesn’t know what will happen next.
“They’re telling us it’s safe, and right away, I got a red rash on my face, my throat swelled up, headaches, nausea. It’s just I have not felt safe. Every time I come to town, I get sick,” Dilworth said.
She is part of a federal class action lawsuit against the railroad.
The suit alleges families were exposed to cancer-causing chemicals that contaminated their homes.
“We’re looking for, and it’s expensive, monitoring to go forward in the future,” said attorney Jayne Conroy with the firm Simmons Hanly Conroy.
In late February, News 5 Investigators first spoke with co-lead attorney Conroy and her expert, who collected water and soil samples around the village.
“We have to keep sampling and testing to see if it’s going into different places and that it might be changing,” Conroy said.
Conroy’s colleague with the class action lawsuit returned to East Palestine and the derailment site with more experts.
They spent two days mapping out the area so they could do a reconstruction of what happened.
The law firm sent new pictures from the site mapping showing the experts right near the tracks.
Attorneys say it’ll take months to recreate the derailment.
“Our approach is to get at the truth and to find out what the situation really is, even if it’s difficult to hear,” Conroy said.
Conroy and her team have been meeting with families and business owners. She says people are still living in fear.
“The difficulty in something like this is you can’t really see the toxic chemicals, and so you don’t know you don’t know where they are,” Conroy said.
People like Dilworth, who grew up in the village.
“It’s just been the perfect town to live in,” Dilworth said.
News 5 Investigators asked if it was anymore.
“No, it’s it just gets me teared up,” Dilworth said.
Dilworth wants to continue family traditions at the house she inherited on Alice Street.
It sits two streets over from the derailment site.
“It’s the unknown,” Dilworth said.
The EPA says there’s no evidence of indoor contamination of concern.
Dilworth isn’t convinced or satisfied with what Norfolk Southern is offering.
“I don’t know what my future is right now. I certainly can’t go home without having my house cleaned.”
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