Nearly 6 months after the $600 million East Palestine train derailment settlement was approved, residents continue to reach out to 21 News, looking for answers as to why they still haven't been paid.

While looking into why, multiple conversations were starting in a Facebook group with many residents talking about the delay. 

“You should be receiving the payment by the end of the year, and this is the only communication I've had,” said Thomas Shipe, former East Palestine resident. 

The settlement is currently in the appeal process. The East Palestine Train derailment website said the following:

“As a result of the appeal process taking place, Direct Household payments and Business payments are on hold until all appeals are resolved. The Settlement appeal process does not impact the Personal Injury payments that are currently being calculated and distributed.”

While there are pending appeals, they do not directly affect personal injury payments. Still, attorney Dave Betras said the process did slow payments. 

"With these catastrophic injury type of cases where there are class actions. There’s a lot of moving parts. Part of this case got appealed, which kind of threw some gums in the works," said Betras. “You have to sort of, litigate that issue, sort of work that issue out first. So what they said was alright, we're only appealing the property damage and business component. The personal injury stuff you can start paying out."

Betras feels some are confused between a property claim and a personal injury claim.

“I think that's causing some confusion. And people who have a business claim and a personal injury claim, they are getting cross pollination,” said Betras.

Shipe said the uncertainty puts the affected families in a difficult situation.

Grandmothers, mothers, daughters, and I know families like this. They can't just get up and move out. They don't have 401k’s full of money that they can do that with. So they're waiting on this train money to get out of there,” said Shipe.

The payments are being processed and distributed, but Betras did not put a timeline on when residents can expect them.