White Noise | Official Trailer | Netflixhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgwKZAMx_gMThe eerie parallels between Netflix's "White Noise" and the Ohio train derailment disaster | Salon.comhttps://www.salon.com/2023/02/15/noise-ohio-train-derailment/read "White Noise" in San Francisco, miles from home. I was living in the golden state for an all-too brief time, so far from rural Ohio where I was raised and where I would return to raise my child. In the sunshine, the beach a mere drive away, it seemed like a fine place to disappear into Don DeLillo's 1985 novel about an Ohio college professor and his large family whose lives are upended by a toxic airborne event. I enjoyed the novel at the time. I don't think I could read it again, not now, not in this world and not knowing what I do about my home's long history of exploitation by industry and ecological disaster, a legacy that is ongoing.
In the book "White Noise," winner of the National Book Award, Jack Gladney, his wife Babette and their many children from various marriages are forced to evacuate after a train derails near their pastoral Ohio home, causing an explosion which morphs into a dangerous, toxic cloud. Sound familiar?
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Shortly after Noah Baumbach adapted and directed a film version of "White Noise," now streaming on Netflix, starring his partner Greta Gerwig and Adam Driver, a freight train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed in rural Ohio. The story is still developing, and the environmental impact may not be fully known for years, but the tragedy bears an eerie resemblance to many elements of the film.
"How familiar this all seems to us," Jack (Driver) says in the movie. Salon unpacks the similarities between "White Noise" and the ecological disaster in Ohio.
01
The Ohio setting
Image_placeholderWhite NoiseGreta Gerwig as Babette and Sam Nivola as Heinrich in "White Noise." (Netflix)
"White Noise" is set in Ohio, where Jack teaches at a college aptly known as the College-On-The-Hill. He and his family live in the small, picturesque town of Blacksmith, which is fictionalized. The movie was filmed almost entirely in Ohio, a prep school in Willoughby, Ohio, filling in for the College-On-The-Hill. Other classroom, lab and student center scenes were shot at the University of Akron, Baldwin Wallace University and Kent State University while the family home is a real house in the college town of Oberlin.
In real life, the train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, a small town near the Pennsylvania border. Some residents of East Palestine worked as movie extras during the filming of "White Noise" in their home state.
02
Train derailment
Image_placeholderWhite NoiseWhite Noise (Netflix)
"White Noise" is spilt into parts. The second part, titled "The Airborne Toxic Event" concerns what happens when a tanker truck carrying toxic, flammable material crashes into a passing train, due to the truck driver's drunk driving. The train derails in the countryside. Cars smash into each other and the tanker is crushed, releasing a viscous substance. A fireball erupts. The rest of the film deals with the aftermath of the crash, in both large and small, personal ways.
In East Palestine, on Feb. 3, a Norfolk Southern train with 20 cars containing hazardous materials derailed and then caught on fire. As Ben Ratner, one of the East Palestine locals who appeared as extras in "White Noise," told CNN, "The first half of the movie is all almost exactly what's going on here."
03
The cloud
Image_placeholderWhite NoiseWhite Noise (Netflix)
"There's lots of smoke, and I don't like the looks of it," Jack's teen son (Sam Nivola) says to him in the film, after the child has been studying the site of the train derailment through binoculars via the family's roof. In the movie, an explosion from the derailment causes a toxic cloud that can be viewed for miles. It looks uncannily like the real scene in East Palestine of the dark, purple-blue cloud witnessed over farmland and pastures (a cloud that emerged after the so-called "controlled release" of the train cars' chemicals). In the fictional film, the cloud later resembles a massive, purple-tinged storm cloud, which wouldn't be out of place in "Ghostbusters."
04
Conflicting emergency messages
Image_placeholderWhite NoiseChloe Fineman as Simuvac Technician in "White Noise." (Wilson Webb/Netflix)
In "White Noise," the family is first told to evacuate. Hours after the incident, believing the derailment and resulting explosion to be far enough away that it doesn't pose a threat, the family sits down to dinner when air raid sirens go off. Then the fire chief hurries through the neighborhood in his car, blasting a message to evacuate all residents. Jack's family flees in their battered station wagon. They don't get far, jammed on the road with all the other escaping families. But then the emergency broadcast on the radio tells them a different message: to stay inside and shelter indoors. No one should be outside, the new messaging says. Or on the roads.
The people in East Palestine — and possibly, in the entire Ohio River Valley area – are dealing with similar mixed messages. Hundreds were forced to evacuate as Norfolk Southern burned carcinogens from the crash. After merely a few days, people were told it was safe to return. But the EPA continues to monitor the air, residents have described burning in their eyes and fish, livestock and pets have all been reported dead or sick.
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05
Uncertain future
Image_placeholderWhite NoiseWhite Noise (Wilson Webb/Netflix)
In the last part of "White Noise," the main characters deal with their fear of death in various ways — though, as a seminal postmodernist story, perhaps "deal" is too strong a word. Little is truly resolved or seems certain.
So too East Palestine, Ohio, and multiple states bordering the Ohio River, may be facing an uncertain future. The derailed and burned cars contained dangerous chemicals including butyl acrylate, ethylhexyl acrylate, isobutylene, and especially concerning: vinyl chloride, which NPR describes as "a carcinogen that becomes a gas at room temperature." It breaks down in the sun, can cause headaches and dizziness, but it has severe long-term risks as well. NPR writes, "People who breathe the chemical over many years may also experience liver damage," and due to its "tiny atoms," residents can't just clean it off.
GoFundMe pages have been set up for East Palestine, with other charities for people and animals impacted by the disaster accepting donations as well.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/15/us/newsnation-reporter-charges-dropped/index.html
The criminal charges filed against the NewsNation reporter who was arrested while reporting at a news conference in East Palestine have been dropped, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced Wednesday.
Evan Lambert-McMichael was arrested after reporting live during a news conference last week held by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and other officials who were updating the train derailment in East Palestine, CNN previously reported.
Body camera footage shows officials approaching Lambert-McMichael and asking him to stop his reporting as it was too loud during the press conference. The footage also shows an argument break out and Ohio National Guard’s adjutant general, Maj. Gen. John Harris, approaching and pushing Lambert-McMichael.
Lambert-McMichael was charged with resisting arrest, a second-degree misdemeanor, and criminal trespass, a fourth-degree misdemeanor, according to Yost.
“While journalists could conceivably be subject to criminal charges for trespassing in some situations, this incident is not one of them,” Yost wrote in a statement. “The reporter was lawfully present at a press conference called by the Governor of the state. His conduct was consistent with the purpose of the event and his role as a reporter.”
In a statement on Twitter, Lambert-McMichael spoke about the incident.
“It is by design that reporters aren’t meant to become the story,” he began.
“I’m still processing what was a traumatic event fore me, in the context of a time where we are hyper aware of how frequently some police interactions with people of color can end in much worse circumstances. That is not lost on me,” Lambert-McMichael noted.
“I am doing alright. And I will be OK. I will also continue to do my job without fear or favor in service of the public. I also hope what happened to me shines further attention on the people of East Palestine, who rightly have questions about their safety in light of an environmental hazard,” he added.
DeWine said Wednesday on “CNN This Morning” he has “never had a problem” during any of the news conferences he’s held during his tenure as governor.
“This reporter who was reporting live from the back of the room never should have been asked to stop, never should have been told to be quiet,” the Republican governor told CNN’s Don Lemon and Kaitlan Collins. “That was a big, big mistake. And you know, the person who did that, I’ve explained to them and I’m sure that he’ll never, never do that again.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/11/health/ohio-train-derailment-white-noise/index.html“The first half of the movie is all almost exactly what’s going on here,” Ratner said Wednesday, four days into their evacuation.
https://twitter.com/RepTroyNehls/status/1625591924555128832
East Palestine, Ohio, residents can safely go home, officials say : NPRhttps://www.npr.org/2023/02/08/1155570564/east-palestine-ohio-train-derailmentEAST PALESTINE, Ohio — Evacuated residents can safely return to the Ohio village where crews burned toxic chemicals after a train derailed five days ago near the Pennsylvania state line, East Palestine Fire Chief Keith Drabick said Wednesday.
Authorities in East Palestine had warned that burning vinyl chloride that was in five of the derailed tanker cars would send hydrogen chloride and the toxic gas phosgene into the air. They said Wednesday subsequent air monitoring hasn't detected dangerous levels inside or outside the mile-radius evacuation zone, which stretched into Pennsylvania. Drabick said air and water samples taken Tuesday from the evacuation area show it's now safe, and the evacuation order is lifted. He thanked state and federal officials and agencies that helped with the emergency response over the past few days.
Ohio crews conduct a 'controlled release' of toxic chemicals from derailed train cars
NATIONAL
Ohio crews conduct a 'controlled release' of toxic chemicals from derailed train cars
James Justice of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said around-the-clock air monitoring has shown normal, un-concerning levels. Hundreds of data points from that "show that the air quality in the town is safe," he said.
He reiterated that there was a robust air monitoring system in place and data from that showed
nothing at a level that would be cause for health concern. Monitors did detect toxins in the air during the controlled burn at the derailment site, but other samples outside that area did not.
Many nearby residents left shortly after the derailment, and others were ordered out before the controlled release of the chemicals because of concerns about serious health risks from it.
The commander of the Ohio National Guard previously said that members wearing protective gear would take readings inside homes, basements and businesses as officials aimed to ensure the air was safe before lifting the evacuation order.
Some residents have said they were worried about returning even if authorities say it's OK to go home.
The fire from the chemical release is no longer burning, and crews have started removing some of the wreckage.
About 50 cars, including 10 carrying hazardous materials, derailed in a fiery crash Friday night on the edge of East Palestine. Federal investigators say a mechanical issue with a rail car axle caused the derailment.
No injuries have been reported from the derailment or from the controlled release of the chemicals on Monday, but some people have complained about smelling chlorine and smoke in the air and having headaches.
Those just outside the evacuation zone in East Palestine and in neighboring Beaver County, Pennsylvania, had been urged to stay indoors as a precaution. Officials in neighboring counties have said air samples did not show any worrisome levels of contaminates.
At least one lawsuit has been filed over the derailment. An East Palestine business owner and two other residents sued the rail operator in federal court on Tuesday, alleging negligence by Norfolk Southern and exposure to toxic substances as a result. They're seeking to make it a class-action case for residents and businesses in the evacuated area and people who were physically harmed because of spilled chemicals at the site.
Norfolk Southern declined to comment on the lawsuit.