Thousands of trains have passed directly behind CeramFab since the business was established in 2017, but workers never gave much thought to what came down the tracks until February 3, when a 100-car Norfolk Southern train derailed right behind the business and turned the operation — and their lives — upside down.
Employees at the 80,000-square-foot glass, ceramics, and concrete manufacturing facility, which supplies insulation materials for the steel industry, had front-row seats in the tiny eastern Ohio town of 4,700 when local and state authorities ordered a controlled burn of industrial chemicals on tanker cars.
Officials said the burn was necessary to decrease the risk of an explosion, which could have sent shrapnel throughout the small town.
