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NTSB TRAIN DERAILMENT HEARING UPDATE: East Palestine, East Liverpool Fire Chiefs say very few of their firefighters have experienced a scene like East Palestine before
Fire chiefs from both East Palestine and its neighboring community, East Liverpool testified that little to none of their firefighters have experienced a scene like this before.
Thursday, June 22nd 2023, 12:47 PM EDT
Updated:
As testimonies continue in East Palestine over the East Palestine train derailment disaster, fire chiefs from both East Palestine and its neighboring community, East Liverpool testified that little to none of their firefighters have experienced a scene like this before.
East Palestine Chief, Keith Drabick testified that out of all the firefighters on staff, only he and one other unnamed firefighter had ever dealt with a HAZMAT scene at a similar to the February 3 train derailment.
Meanwhile, East Liverpool Chief, William Jones testified that neither he nor any of his firefighters have experienced anything quite like this before.
Looking ahead, both chiefs agree that there should be more availability and better access to HAZMAT training, but this could be very difficult due to a multitude of factors.
Chief Drabick says the department already has issues with backfilling for its career firefighters, so this training would require them to accrue even more overtime.
As for volunteer firefighters, they work full time elsewhere, so finding free time for them to do this training could be hard.
On top of that, Beaver County Emergency Services Director, Eric Brewer says legislators mandating HAZMAT training for firefighters could be "political suicide."
Brewer says mandating this training could backfire by pushing volunteer firefighters away since they're already forced to go through regular fire training and this would require even more of their free time.
"I'm not downplaying training. And this is where going to a more career fire department is probably what's needed in some areas of the country," Brewer said.
East Palestine's fire department has 38 firefighters with 37 of them being volunteers and Chief Drabick being the only full time firefighter.
"We're a combination department. The only thing that we staff on a regular basis is Monday through Friday 9-5 and that's an ambulance," Chief Drabick said.
Chief Jones says East Liverpool's department is only a 16-person department including himself and that they're currently down two people. Jones says they're looking to recruit two more for a full staff.
