Salena Zito in East Palestine: We don't know what we're breathing

For three decades, Barbara Kugler has lived less than a block from the Norfolk Southern railway line that crosses through East Palestine, Ohio. Up until this month, the sound of an oncoming freight train’s warning whistle—long, long, short, long—used to be a comfort.

But now when she hears it, she tenses.

“For thirty years that sound meant home. It was part of the rhythm of our lives,” says Kugler, 52, who was born and raised in a town one mile away and spends her days minding her grandkids. “Now I find myself flinching every time I hear it because I don’t know what is coming next.”

Just before 9 p.m. on February 3, the noise of a train screeching to a halt followed by a large explosion jolted Kugler and her husband off the couch and out onto the street.

“I thought we needed to get out. This is the end of it. The town’s burning down,” she said.