East Palestine Spox Blasts Biden: He ‘Feels Safer in a War Zone in Ukraine’ Than Ohio

For nearly three weeks, residents of East Palestine, Ohio, have dealt with the aftermath of a severe train derailment that prompted a chemical spill and saw officials opt to conduct a 'controlled' burn of hazardous chemicals. As backlash has grown against government officials and the freight firm, criticism has surged against the US president.

A spokesman for the people of East Palestine spoke with Sputnik News about the “disappointment” surrounding Joe Biden’s decision to travel to Ukraine instead of East Palestine, criticized the authorities’ response to the crisis, and said Ohio communities have had to step up and come together to solve their problems on their own.

“I was out of town on business and my buddy texted me and he says, basically, ‘Hey, there's a train derailment in Palestine.’ But about 15 minutes later, I'm getting probably 10, 15, 20, 30 texts a minute. And it's: ‘your town's on fire.’”

East Palestine, Ohio, has seen derailments before – but none like this.

That’s according to DJ Yokley, an East Palestine resident who’s been appointed spokesman for the village in the days since authorities decided to burn huge quantities of toxic chemicals on a derailed train there, kickstarting a public health crisis that’s caused alarm across the globe.

In a wide-ranging interview, Yokley told Sputnik News that people began returning to East Palestine less than 12 hours after an evacuation order was issued because officials failed to warn them of the dangers they faced.

“They evacuated the town that night and then people came back that morning on Saturday,” Yokley said, “because nobody was communicating as to how bad it was.”

“They just said there's a train derailment,” Yokley explained, adding that people there weren’t given answers about the nature of the chemicals in question.

“Nobody knew what was on the manifest for like a week.”

What’s clear, however, is that authorities wasted no time in getting the train up and running after the derailment:

“They listed the evacuation at about 5:15 p.m. My wheels were in the driveway by 5:30. By 5:41, there was a train coming through back on the tracks.”

According to Yokley, that’s because rail authorities “moved the train just enough to get the train rolling down the tracks and get back in business, because they're losing tens of million dollars a day every time that the trains aren't run on the track.”

In the time since, profits have continued to roll in for Norfolk Southern. But for residents of the small village of East Palestine, their lives have been upended – perhaps permanently.

One such man is Yokley himself, who operates the sports news and streaming website Your Sports Network and emerged as an impromptu spokesman for the village after neighbors urged him to speak up on their behalf.

Having previously served on the council, Yokley says: “I wanted to fight. I wanted to stand up for my town. But I didn't want to lose my business. And I didn't want to lose my family because of it.”

After praying on the matter, Yokley says he got a text from a friend, who asked: “If you're not going to do something, who is?”

“That was the push that I needed,” Yokley says. “I started speaking up and began asking questions on behalf of the residents...questions that I'd want to know the answers to.”

That kind of tenacity was necessary, according to the village spokesman, because of the information blackout that shrouded the incident in the immediate aftermath.

“In the early stages there was no communication – zero,” Yokley says. “My information was coming from Facebook.” There’s still “not enough information,” he says, “but we're getting there little by little.”

Now, after “three weeks almost to the day of the train derailment,” Yokley says “they're still talking about how the best way is to communicate.”

According to locals, there’s plenty of blame to go around for the breakdown in communication.

“Everybody” holds some of the blame, “from a standpoint of government,” Yokley says. “Norfolk Southern, the [Environmental Protection Agency] EPA – nobody has communicated anything very well until the last few days.”

Generally speaking, authorities were dragged into doing their jobs “kicking and screaming,” says Yokley. Only “calling people out publicly” seemed to get results, he adds.

As the crisis drags out, health symptoms have mounted among residents, who’ve complained of chronic headaches and recurring rashes after using the water.

It’s “serious enough that people are having complications,” Yokley says. “It's much like COVID from a standpoint of health issues” in that “some people get it, some people don't,” and “some people are having different symptoms than others.”

Meanwhile, he says “people are getting their independent studies and the independent testing done, but the insurance companies aren't covering it,” and “the government isn't covering that” either.

But for now, Yokley is urging people to follow the guidelines and recommendations issued by federal officials.

“The EPA's told us our water is safe in town. They've told us that our air is safe. They've told us that every box has been checked.”

Given the situation’s parallels to the uncertainty of the COVID pandemic, Yokley says he understands “people are questioning” the narrative, but says “we have to go by what they're telling us.”

“Everybody's waiting” to be told they can “go back, drink the water, do everything, you know, and resume your life,” Yokley notes. “But we want to make sure that you don't grow a third arm and we want to make sure that we don't start dying off.

After weeks of little to no response by the Federal Emergency Management Agency – which claimed the situation was “different” from a natural disaster and thus the village did not qualify for federal assistance – FEMA finally announced Friday night that it would be sending representatives.

The announcement came just hours after former US President Donald Trump declared he’d be visiting the area, leading the former commander-in-chief to conclude he’d managed to get the Biden administration to ‘move’ on the issue.

But while Biden’s Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, has promised to come to town at an unspecified date in the future, the current president hasn’t even committed to that.

Instead, Biden decided to fly to Kiev to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, leading East Palestine Mayor Mike Conaway to declare he was “furious” that Biden is “in the Ukraine giving billions of dollars to people over there and not to us.”

“That was the biggest slap in the face,” Conaway told Fox News, concluding: “that tells you right now — he doesn’t care about us.”

Yokley echoed the sentiment, telling Sputnik “we're disappointed” because “we know we're being politicized.”

“At the end of the day, the leader of the free world feels safer in a war zone in Ukraine than he does in his own backyard.

“It's frustrating because we've felt alone over the last three weeks,” Yokley says, adding “our government was not involved.”

Yokley had even less optimism about Buttigieg, who’s refused to say when he’ll travel to Ohio and repeatedly declined to answer questions from a Daily Caller reporter on Tuesday because he was “taking some personal time” away from the issue.

“I saw that Pete Buttigieg didn't want people asking him about East Palestine because he ‘did it all day’ and he ‘needed some personal time for him,’” Yokley says.

“That's great. Have your personal time,” the spokesman continues. “But we're going to sit here and work, and I'm going to work 24/7 until my town is built back better than ever.”

“And when that happens, don't sit there and wave the magic wand and say that you are part of it if your hands were not in the pile,” he continued.

“I don't care if Joe Biden, our president, comes or not. But if you're not going to come, stop talking about it and let the people that are going to work, work. That's the end of the story.”

Eschewing the labels that have been hoisted on the village, Yokley reminded the press: “We are not a poverty-stricken redneck town of 4,700 – we’re 4,700 people that are strong-willed underdogs that have been underdogs our entire life.”

“We are Anytown, America and every-town America, and we've got train tracks running through our back yard just like everybody else,” Yokley declared with pride.

“The difference is, there is a nuclear explosion on our train tracks and we got to clean it up.”

“Our residents and community members remain committed to making sure that we hold the EPA, our government at the local, state, federal levels and also Norfolk Southern accountable.”

Calling out to “business owners, residents of East Palestine, and the surrounding areas,” Yokley says that “now’s the time that we hold feet to the fire.”

“And if they're talking out of their tail, we have to make sure that they have to answer to us,” he adds.