EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — For the first time since a Norfolk Southern train derailed in East Palestine, the fire chief sat down with News 5 Investigators.
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“Put us in your shoes for those first 24, 48, 72 hours," News Investigator Tara Morgan said.
“Stress. Lots of stress,” East Palestine Fire Chief Keith Drabick said — stress, chaos and frustration after February’s toxic derailment and decision for a controlled chemical burn.
Drabick says they made the best decision they could and believes it was the safest thing to do to avoid a catastrophic explosion.
With Just over a year on the job, he was faced with a monumental disaster.
“Shocked, shocked is a good word,” Chief Drabick said.
Drabick was several hours away at the time, starting a vacation, when he got the call about the derailment of a Norfolk Southern train.
He says it took him four hours to get back.
"How did they describe it coming up on that?" Morgan asked.
“Chaos, like the world was on fire,” Drabick said.
Soon, the world would be on top of the small village — governors from two states, the federal government and swarms of media.
There were a lot of tough decisions that had to be made pretty fast, and made right.
"Every decision we made was tough, but every decision we made throughout that process was done under a consensus of all organizations here, both federal and state and local,” Drabick said.
One of those decisions was the controlled chemical burn of vinyl chloride.
"It's probably the most misunderstood part is that there was a consensus after a very long discussion about it and whether or not it was the right thing to do, and from the information we had from the experts, it was the only choice we had,” Drabick said.
Drabick said as incident commander, he had the final say.
“Very intense conversation — there were some heated moments of conversation. Governor DeWine, I can't speak highly enough of him, he caused me a little frustration at the start,” Drabick said.
We asked how so.
“Just trying to get things done and him scheduling a meeting,” Drabick said.
One can sense the chief’s frustration in text messages obtained by News 5 Investigators through a public records request.
On March 6, a month after the disaster, the chief wrote: “At what point are we gonna be a unified command?”
He said that’s when bigger agencies started coming in.
“They're trying to do things as they have to according to their rules and regulations, so sometimes the little guy is missing out,” Drabick said.
Morgan asked if he felt missed out.
“At...those points, sure,” Drabick said.
We asked about another text thread where Drabick wrote: “I truly feel defeated and useless.”
“That had to do with some comments (Pennsylvania) Gov. Shapiro made in reference to the decision about the vent and burn where he led into he wasn't notified or knew what was going on,” Drabick said.
He says his biggest frustration was trying to get the right information out at the right time.
“A lot of what you hear from the public is transparency. They want transparency, and we tried to give as much transparency as we could, but we could only give them the information we were 100% validated on — 100% sure,” Drabick said.
Drabick said they have ironed out a better line of communication.
We asked if there was one word to describe himself in that moment as a leader.
“Boy, I don't even know — couldn't even tell you,” Drabick said.
"I hope that I did okay. I don't regret any decision we made. I hope I did right by my department and my people. I guess one word would be honored to have them underneath me,” Drabick said.
Drabick said he also got overwhelming support from around the country.
He told News 5 he is a witness in the upcoming NTSB hearing in East Palestine next month and couldn’t discuss what he would be asked.
He says he still sits on unified command and has a say at the decision table.
