Even Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw was spooked when he saw the massive plume of smoke filling the air near the infamous train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, this February. In an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the embattled executive said he’d “never seen anything like it” in his 28 years with the company, adding that the derailment—which sparked a political firestorm between Ohio Republicans and the Biden administration—was “startling and terrifying and disturbing.” Shaw acknowledged that the fallout from the wreck, which miraculously injured none and appears not to have caused long-term damage to the city’s soil and water supply, painted Norfolk Southern in a negative light, but he says the rail company is working to change that perception. “There is a lot of concern for the environmental remediation, and a lot of concern for what we’re going to do in the longterm,” he said. “We’re gonna make it right.”
