NEWPORT, Ky. — Fire is all too familiar for Jessica Helpy.
Tragedy forced the mother of two to move her family from northern Kentucky to East Palestine, Ohio. After living through the catastrophe that was the Norfolk Southern train derailment, she’s now back in northern Kentucky, trying to find peace.
Helpy wouldn’t be too disappointed if she never saw another fire.
The first major one she experienced was in her Fort Mitchell apartment. She said a stove caught fire while she and her two sons, Will and Terrance, were at the grocery store. The fire ruined just about everything they owned.
“I felt completely and utterly helpless. I just had to watch everything I had slowly fall through my grasp,” Helpy said. “I decided after a great loss like that that I would relocate somewhere where I had a bit of stability and family support.”
That somewhere was her hometown of East Palestine. Helpy bought her first house a block and a half away from her parents. She loved being able to plant flowers and a garden in her yard. She could also grow her interior and exterior house painting business. For about four and a half years, she said things were great.
That was until the night of Feb. 3, 2023. She had just dropped off one of her sons at a sleepover. The other son received a Snapchat, showing a train on fire. A Norfolk Southern train had derailed about a mile away from her home. It spilled over 100,000 gallons of toxic chemicals into the air.
“We drove down to see what all the commotion was about, you know. Major events don’t happen in East Palestine,” Helpy said. “It looked like a wall of fire. I couldn’t tell what was on fire, and what wasn’t. The length of the fire was extremely daunting.”
Helpy was terrified that one of her sons wasn’t within arm’s reach.
“And after about 30 minutes, we had a text message sent city-wide to everyone’s phone that suggested that the town evacuate,” she said.
Helpy went and picked up her son, then drove to a hotel in North Lima, Ohio. Having just paid bills, she had enough money to get a room for one night, but not two. So the next night, she and her boys were back in the house.
“There was no mention that there were toxic chemicals involved [at that time]. It definitely smells weird,” she said. “But without any indication as to why it was, I didn’t think too much of it.”
She woke up the next morning to the sheriff’s office beating on her door, alerting her to the controlled burn that was scheduled later that day.
“We immediately need to leave, because there’s going to be an explosion,” Helpy recalled. “They said if you were within one mile, you suffered an extreme risk of fatality. Anybody within a mile and a half to two miles suffered the risk of skin burns and lesions.”
Helpy, who takes care of cats with special needs, didn’t have time to gather them and bring them along, as she rushed her sons out of the house to go stay with a relative in Pittsburgh.
When she later tried to go back to retrieve her cats, her home was still blocked off. The feeling of helplessness was eerily familiar.
“It was like, ‘here I am again, where everything I have is contaminated. And I can’t do anything to change this. I just have to do what I can to keep my family safe,’” she said.
The fire burned for days. Helpy could see the smoke from several towns away.
“They lifted the evacuation order, but it was, in my opinion, extremely unethical, immoral and irresponsible for them to lift it so early,” Helpy said.
The lifting of the order allowed her to get her cats, and for her younger son to attend a basketball tournament. But things couldn’t have felt farther from back to normal.
“The smell of chemicals was so strong, my eyes were burning,” she said. “I had a headache that was so bad, I thought I was going to pass out in the shower.”
Helpy said she also developed a rash on her arm. Her children were also affected.
“My youngest son, who had been at school for the tournament all day, and school hours, had a headache and was crying. And threw up twice from the headache. And after being told that it’s safe, but seeing my own symptoms, and seeing my son suffer," Helpy said, "There was absolutely no question in my mind that I could not in good faith take my children back somewhere that I could see, and smell, was not safe."
Fortunately, they had somewhere to go, Helpy’s great uncle’s house in Newport. They were away from the smell of chemicals, but also away from the life they’d built.
“I worked really, really hard for the things that I have. For them all to be ripped away, and [they] say, ‘You know what, you’re fine, you’re overreacting. We told you it’s safe. Here’s $1,000. Now go home.’ I won’t, and I cannot do that to my children,” she said. “I loved my little home. And I loved my little life. But until I get clear cut proof that it is safe, and I don’t think that’s something that I am going to expect, I can’t gamble with my children’s health.”
Helpy now drives back and forth to get reimbursements offered by Norfolk Southern, while trying to figure out where “home” will be for her family moving forward.
She said it’s “more than heartbreaking” that more hasn’t been done by government officials to help people in East Palestine.
“There are people that have the ability to help the citizens of East Palestine right now, that are denying the help,” she said.
She’s now trying to establish her painting business in the northern Kentucky and Cincinnati area, and can be contacted via Facebook. She’s also accepting donations to help relocate her family.