East palestine ohio movie

Where Was 'White Noise' Filmed? Life Is Imitating Art a Little Too CloselyBy Published Feb. 15 2023, 11:12 a.m. ETSource: NetflixThe derailment of a train in East Palestine, Ohio, has devastated the community and may lead to lingering health problems for many of its residents. As many around the country follow the details of the derailment, and of the toxic chemicals that had to be burned off in its aftermath, some are noticing eerie parallels to Netflix's Adam Driver–led film White Noise, which hit the streamer at the very end of 2022.Just how shocking are the similarities? Well, it even comes down to location. Where exactly does White Noise take place, and where was it filmed?Article continues below advertisementSource: Netflix'White Noise' (2022)Where does the movie 'White Noise' take place?White Noise is set in Ohio in 1984. The film follows a college professor and his blended family as their life is disrupted by a train derailment, which leads to what officials call an "airborne toxic event." This toxic event forces the family to evacuate their home, and eventually the patriarch discovers that his exposure to the toxic air will undoubtedly shorten his life. Article continues below advertisementThe stunning similarities between the events of the movie and the actual train derailment in East Palestine have left many confounded and shocked. Of course, White Noise is based on a book of the same name that first came out in 1985, so it's not as if the ideas in it are brand-new. Instead, the novel tackles the materialist consumer culture of the 1980s with precision, and the movie translates many of those ideas. Article continues below advertisementWhere was 'White Noise' filmed?Many movies often choose to film in other locations in order to save money. In this case, though, director Noah Baumbach did almost all of his filming in Ohio. That included six weeks of filming at the University of Akron as well as some filming in downtown Cleveland.The movie also features scenes filmed on a variety of other campuses, including Kent State, The College of Wooster, and Andrews Osborne Academy.Additional photography also took place in Wellington, Oberlin, Ashtabula Pine Lake Raceway and Trail Riding, Cleveland Heights, Dorset, Hiram College, Lowell Klinefelter Stadium at Canton Central Catholic High School in Stark County, and Perry Township, near Salem.Article continues below advertisementThe Ohio train derailment feels a lot like 'White Noise.'As plenty of people have already pointed out, the actual derailment of a train near East Palestine had some strange similarities to White Noise. The real-life train derailed on Feb. 3, and 38 cars ultimately derailed while another 12 were damaged by the ensuing fires. The train was carrying combustible materials including vinyl chloride, a gas that

Christina Siceloff and her boyfriend Randy Dehaven document the creeks of East Palestine, Ohio. She is Safekeeper115 on TikTok. He is Merica2.0 Media on YouTube.Before any trip into the creeks, Christina is filled with reproach. “Here we go again,” she tells herself, taking that first, chilly step into the water. Armed with a stick, rainbow polka dot boots and an industrial-grade respirator, Christina, 38, uses the stick to disturb the creek’s floor. She pushes against the soil and overturns rocks.Christina is determined to prove that the waterways of East Palestine remain contaminated, long after the Norfolk Southern train derailment of February 2023.With little effort, a rainbow sheen emerges and takes over the waterway. The once clear, undisturbed creek assumes a metallicappearance. At the right angle, it reveals shades of blue, purple, green, and orange. This is the visual beauty Christina and Randy need people to see.Christina started posting videos of the creeks in April, two months after the train derailment. It was her third TikTok video under the handle Safekeeper115. The first two were early responses to the derailment. The rest — more than 50 videos — chronicle the waterways of East Palestine.Christina Siceloff of Darlington, Pa. and Randy Dehaven of East Palestine, Ohio pose for a portrait in a chemically contaminated local waterway on Nov. 4, 2023 in East Palestine, Ohio. (Photos by Alysa Rubin)Photos by Alysa RubinOn the night of the East Palestine train derailment, Christina put her son, Edward, to bed and went to Facebook to scroll

Ohio resident Ben Ratner was excited when he landed a gig as an extra in a Netflix movie about a toxic disaster in October 2021. But now the 37-year-old father of four — who lives in East Palestine, Ohio, less than a mile from the site of a train derailment that led to a massive toxic chemical spill and forced residents to evacuate — is living out a real-life version of the movie's plot that's continuing to unfold. "Talk about art imitating life," Ratner — who plays an evacuee in the film adaptation of Don DeLillo's novel White Noise about a freight train explosion that releases deadly toxins into the air — tells PEOPLE. "This is such a scary situation. And you can just about drive yourself crazy thinking about how uncanny the similarities are between what's happening now and in that movie." Crash site after a Norfolk and Southern freight train derailed on Feb. 3 in East Palestine, Ohio.Gene J Puskar/AP/Shutterstock Like nearly half of the residents in the Ohio village of East Palestine (population over 4,700), located about 50 miles from Pittsburgh, the Ratner family's life was upended around 9 p.m. on Feb. 3 when 50 rail cars filled with chemicals and combustible materials ran off the track. One of those chemicals was vinyl chloride, a toxic flammable gas. And shortly after the derailment, a massive fire erupted, sending enormous clouds of pitch-black smoke into the air, forcing evacuations on both sides of the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. Two days later officials were so fearful that the rail cars filled with vinyl chloride would explode, potentially sending shrapnel over a mile-wide radius, that they vented the chemical into a trench and burned it. Ratner — who owns a coffee shop in nearby Salem — along with his wife and kids, spent eight days living with friends, relatives and in an Airbnb property before finally returning home three days after the evacuation order was finally lifted. "Once we got back, we did a lot of cleaning and let the house air out, but all those chemicals that burned create byproducts, like hydrochloric acid, in the form of a film that's been left on the surfaces of our homes," says Ratner, who is not only worried about the long-term health impacts of the disaster but fears how it will affect the economy of his community. Gene J Puskar/AP/Shutterstock "We still need answers about how to keep our families safe while also maintaining some sort of a regular existence for our kids." The environmental fallout from the derailment is clearly still unfolding. On Feb. 10 — seven days after the disaster — the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sent a letter notifying the Norfolk

It.”Sometimes Christina finds herself laughing — just standing in Sulphur or Leslie Run and laughing. Not because what she sees is funny but because, she says, it’s just too “disturbing.”Sulphur Run enters East Palestine from the Pennsylvania side of town. It travels along the northern side of the railroad tracks for just under a mile, and then dips south, under the tracks. It continues parallel, along Taggart Street, until it makes its way south again, through and around homes in the center of town. It passes through East Palestine Park and meets Leslie Run just south of the business district. From there, it is 17 miles to the Ohio River, one of the most — if not the most — polluted rivers in America.Chemicals float on the water of a local waterway on Nov. 4, 2023 in East Palestine, Ohio. (Photos by Alysa Rubin)Photos by Alysa RubinSulphur Run happens to be at ground zero of the train derailment and the entry point of chemicals into East Palestine’s waterways.The Ohio EPA, in its own words, described Sulphur Run as “grossly contaminated.” It is also one of East Palestine’s easiest waterways to access.Leslie Run is approximately 1.5 miles west of the derailment site, but an entry to Sulphur Run is a stone’s throw from the spill.Many sections of Sulphur Run are accessible by just stepping off the sidewalk, and three sections — or culverts — run underground through town. Many of these travel under homes and one stretch runs as long as

Home “in a panic.” She rushed around the house packing bags and thought through where she could go. She called friends and family, looking for help or a place to be safe.“There was nowhere to go,” she said.The three of them stayed home.Norfolk Southern, East Palestine announce $22M settlement after 2023 derailmentAppeal delays $600 million class action settlement payments in fiery Ohio derailmentEast Palestine residents want more time and information before deciding to accept $600M settlementThat afternoon, the vinyl chloride at the site of the derailment was burned. The result: a dark plume of smoke that lifted over East Palestine and made its way east, over the border into western Pennsylvania and then south. It was so dense, meteorologists picked it up on radars.Christina went outside just after sunset and wasn’t able to see the moon or the stars. Around midnight, the skies cleared.That night, she had watery eyes, a “burning” throat and a cough.“I couldn’t talk for like a week,” Christina said.When the EPA and Norfolk Southern began cleaning up contaminated soil near the tracks, Christina said, everyone in her house had diarrhea and were vomiting.She took Covid tests and had multiple doctor’s visits; months later, she was diagnosed with chemical exposure.Christina first heard that the fish were dying. Skeptical, she wanted to see for herself. It was 11 days after the train derailment in East Palestine. Her son and father accompanied her down to Sulphur and Leslie Runs. They could all tell something was wrong.“Even the rocks didn’t

When a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in a small town in eastern Ohio on February 3, reports soon appeared in national news outlets. They showed how a fire followed the wreck, with ominous dark smoke clouds billowing over the town of East Palestine. Officials evacuated the region and began what they called a controlled release of chemicals from the train cars. But the disaster, in a town of fewer than 5,000 people, didn’t dominate mainstream news coverage.That changed after Nick Drombosky, an engineer and entrepreneur who has made a hobby of studying industrial accidents, gave a science lesson on TikTok. His video breaking down the chemicals found at the scene has been viewed millions of times, and people have posted countless other videos about the derailment to the platform. “If I didn’t come out and say something, I think that this could have just been swept under,” says Drombosky, who has a personal connection to someone affected by the disaster in East Palestine who alerted him to the derailment. “The nature of TikTok is so unique, that me—essentially, on paper, just a guy in my home office reading what’s going on—I was able to reach millions of people.” TikTok is increasingly becoming a go-to news source. Ten percent of all adults say they get news from the app regularly. That figure jumps to 26 percent for adults under 30. Meanwhile, local news outlets have been financially decimated, creating coverage gaps. But the train derailment disaster has particularly resonated on social media. It comes as people are seeing lots of weird news about UFOs and spy balloons, potentially shaking confidence in the government even further. The circumstances of the derailment are particularly strange, and they uncannily mirror White Noise, a sci-fi movie released last year that follows a family living in the aftermath of a dangerous chemical leak in Ohio. After the wreck, there was a dearth of easily digestible, detailed information. All of that propels a story on apps like TikTok. “It feels like an inflection point for this new news media ecosphere,” says Paul Matzko, a research fellow in mass media studies with the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. “This has always been happening: TikTok creators commenting on local news stories. What’s interesting is we’ve got a feedback loop. The felt lack of reporting is commented on by TikTok creators, which then has led to more reporting by traditional media outlets.” Through TikTok, people have been able to call for more information about the derailment, potentially leading major publications to devote more coverage than they would have. But the popularity has also led to alarmist posts and conspiracies.It’s been a perfect storm. Anecdotal reports of animals dying