Submitted by darthduder666 t3_114hwyw in RhodeIsland
Anyone else notice a weird smell outside after the rain passed through? I’ve been looking on this sub and r/Connecticut to see if anyone has noticed any smells. Someone in Bristol CT posted a photo of their car with what appears to be some ash all over it.
Just wondering if anyone in our state is seeing or smelling anything that could be from the train derailment?
Don’t forget the factory fire just outside of Chicago, too. The smoke plume was enormous.
Florida?
Ooh that one... No, I don't appear to be affected by it just yet...
[deleted]
I farted, sorry
Most likely answer right here.
There was a white/gray residue on my care this morning. Northern RI.
Same, also Northern RI.
The rain left a lot of residue on my car.
>factory fire just outside of Chicago
Same in the Chepachet area.
Same in Pascoag.
Same for me, I'm in East Bay
The rain reside has been attributed to dust storms in Oklahoma per CT DEEP!
Yeah right, I doubt it. There was a brown/blackish stickiness to it, not sure if it did anything to the clearcoat.
Oh interesting, I was too busy with work this morning to go check my car after seeing other people post about it. I took out some trash around 12pm and it smelled SO badly of chlorine and my throat burned! I worked out shortly after and almost had an asthma attack, which makes no sense for me since mine has been pretty controlled for the past few months. I was happy to see this post since I was a little suspicious after smelling chlorine!
Same. Northern RI
I had noticed this in Providence as well
god,not tha redisue
[deleted]
If you all noticed something “off,” don’t hesitate to report it! You’ll help us all breathe clean air (: EPA National Response Center Hotline to report possible oil or chemical spills/releases: 1-800-424-8802. They’ll get you to the right folks, even if the issue turns out to not be in emergency response jurisdiction. Let us know how it goes if you do it! (: (I’d do it but I haven’t smelled the smell or seen the dust yet myself ): )
Also, EPA conducts thorough air monitoring around every fire, explosion, and gaseous emergency. If harmful plumes were on the move, people would be evacuated. On the other hand, facilities accidentally or intentionally release shit they shouldn’t be releasing all the time, and regulating authorities don’t always know immediately that it happened. Protect everybody and let ‘em know if you see or smell something funky! I like our babies with two eyes, not three (but if any of your babies out there have three eyes, I’m sure they are absolutely ADORABLE (; ) (:
How much does the EPA pay you pretend they actually care about public health?
This is a national ecological DISASTER that our media and government is being dangerously quiet about, and they're just pointing fingers when they get asked questions about it.
It doesn't take NOAA's best and brightest to realize THIS IS BAD. And you come in with some saccharine little jape about deformed fetuses.
This isn't a situation that calls for a "cutesy" response. It calls for a dramatic one.
Federal employees’ pay is public information, dawg! Get on some internet when you have a chance and look up whatever you want to know ha! (;
Also, be the change, my man (: You don’t like what you see, get into it and change it. You can do it. Get after it (:
I just watched Chernobyl and our goverment is treating this the same way Soviet Russia treated that. I'm just waiting for Canada to report toxic air and then it will gain global traction.
my partner gave them a ring and reported what we've been experiencing! outside of our house smells like a pool and it didn't before it rained.
Go you, dawg! Thanks for reporting it!! (: I hope your smell clears away soon ):
Okay same! Thought I was going nuts. My throat also was burning. There was a huge fire in Braintree, MA earlier this morning so it could be that—what happened in OH is more likely to hit ME than us, but I was a little suspicious!
Do you live near any facilities or plants?
we live in providence, so it could be anything really. we're in a mostly residential area.
i'm not sold on the smell originating from the east palestine derailment due to timing and a few articles i've read, but when i saw your comment, i figured why not call it in and let the professionals check it out! it was enough to startle both of us when we went outside.
I definitely think it’s worth a call! The folks who are paid to do that sort of thing (environmental emergency response) really and truly very rarely know unless someone tells them. I also truly doubt it originates from the derailment. I think it’s much, much more likely some facility nearby made a “whoopsie” or something like that. Do you know how to check on the RCRA-regulated facilities near you? There’s an EPA website you can use to check which facilities near you have had violations, as well as check on the types of facilities near you that might one day have an “oopsie!”
Thank you for sharing this with us. I was wondering how we would go about reporting this. I will definitely be contacting them.
Not last night but a few nights ago when it rained I definitely smelled something off (I live in Cranston). It smelled like a weird mix of mold and smoke, but not in an obvious smokey way if that makes sense.
I’m in providence and definitely smelt something weird around 3 am last night. We thought something died in the wall. Smell was gone around 4
Heyo, I have a family member that is getting their PhD studying NO2 air pollution.
Take all this with a grain of salt, this was just a casual conversation not backed by current data.
Rainfall coming from the New York metro area is already going to be more acidic.
3. A way to test this is to find a control of normal rainfall pH then test the pH of rain today. You could do this with pool strips in a puddle and there must be average pH levels some where online
4.General rule of thumb: more reactive something is, the lower its lifetime and less it can travel
​
I am not a scientist.
I can’t attach a screen shot but our air quality ~meh today and the reasoning was: PM2.5, PM10, O3, NO2, SO2, and CO!
I noticed in Woonsocket last night around 5:15 I thought it smelled like gasoline outside. Not sure if that’s what you experienced?
It smelt almost like acetone to me when I left the house this morning
I smelt acetone last night/this morning and thought I was crazy but that’s exactly what it smelled like
Smelled the same this morning.
Same! I got the nail-polish remover smell this AM, and then it smelled like a pool this afternoon.
It was something along those lines
[deleted]
Probably the culmination of the recent ecological disasters. The nitric acid spill in Arizona may be part of the list too. Ugh
Train derailment, large fire in Massachusetts could be any number of things. Definitely noticed some grey residue on my car this morning
Train derailmentS
FTFY
I get why people would want to link to the Ohio derailment but I'm not sure that holds up much. Even the controlled burns after the main explosions were done a week and a half ago.
It doesn't hold up. Supposedly the plume is/was on target to hit Huntington WV at some point today. No way that it's here that fast.
I'm no expert and just did some quick googling, but it seems like this chemical plume would have hit us 3-5 days after the incident?
Typical atmospheric air currents, clouds, weather move at an average of 12 mph or ~290 miles per day as the crow flies roughly west to east. This plum would of course by carried by natural air currents towards us. Maybe the density of the chemical plume is making it move more slowly? Not sure.
I think I misread the original article and it has more to do with the water/Ohio River. That said what I mentioned still stands as the prevailing winds would have brought it south via WV then east until the coast, then a northerly wind would have picked it up and moved it out.
I could be wrong, however.
yeah, most likely the ash car thing was from something much closer (if it even was ash, i only saw the photo briefly before i had coffee and I don't care enough to look it up again). And weird smells can be all sorts of things. That can be filed under shit that happens from time to time in all sorts of random places for all sorts of reasons.
Our brains are wired to link things and create patterns and connections and the modern world of social media tends to feed into that wayyyyy too much.
More than likely to hit ME than RI. Check out Maine’s research on it. They regularly check for some of the contaminates from the OH trains in their air quality whereas I’m unsure if we do!
Cornwall, NY is over the CT border and there's been numerous reports of foul smelling rain from there, too..
Doesn’t end there.
Can smell it here in New Hampshire too
I got into providence around 9:30 last night and immediately when I got off the train I said it smelt like the ocean, the air had a salty tangy smell. Now I’m worried lmao
It could have just been the ocean.
Low tide last night was at 9:54, so there's a fairly good chance you were just smelling that.
Makes sense, it did smell like the ocean
Thought I was crazy. Just smelled it a few mins ago when I let the dogs out. I’m in Scituate. Very interesting.
Are you sure this wasn’t just the smells of Rhode Island? Every time I visit my friends in Woonsocket, it smells awful.
That is the "shit" plant that processes sewage
I definitely smelled an overwhelming rubbing alcohol/hospital smell last night. But I also have pregnant spidey nose senses so I didn't think too much into it.
I think it’s from the big fire at a waste treatment facility yesterday in braintree MA
The whole country is receiving fallout. Now it’s heading over the Atlantic and the Pacific.
Check the Vermont subreddit. Particles from the train derailment are nearly here, there’s a map showing the particles. It’s spreading over upstate NY and NE
Do you have a link to the map?
I got home around 11pm or 12 am and noticed a strong smell of acetone throughout my apartment. Thought it was weird. Went back out to my car and thought "it smells out here too wtf" then went to bed and hoped I'd wake up
What would you say the city normally smell like immediately after it rains?
It’s possible. When forest fires are bad enough we see the effects here days later. I have seen zero evidence by the coast in Charlestown.
Didn't smell anything but I did notice a grey residue on my car this morning. Didn't think anything of it until now, I do wonder if its connected to the recent disasters but really I have no idea.
“Patrolling the Mojave almost makes me wish for a nuclear winter”
Hmmm I thought it smelled like moth balls outside around 330
My backyard has a weird smell. I thought it was wet dog poop.
Yes, everyone saying woonsocket always smells, but this is different
I don’t understand why someone other than the “professionals” can test the residue to see what it’s made of? There have to be some scientists amongst the population up there?
It would have been interesting to test the pH of the rain with paper tests. While they’re not nearly as accurate as a calibrated pH meter, it could have given us an idea of the acidity of the rain water.
Rain water is typically in the 5.6 range. If it was more acidic and truly “acid rain” it would have been lower and around 4.
But yeah it would be nice if someone who has access to equipment capable of analyzing samples could tell us what the chemical content of the recent rainfall.
That would be super interesting to see! Maybe it will rain again soon and someone can at least use the strips to get some kind of info.
I smelled something at around 5pm last night, so I guess just before the rain came in. But I was between a sewage plant and the landfill. However, this particular smell I haven’t smelled before
Shit, I really thought it was just my neighborhood. That's not good.
[deleted]
in ct and yes it smells weird… and has a weird texture. there was also a hazmat plant that exploded in boston last night
I saw several ground fires along the road in south county yesterday in the afternoon... there were some people putting them out but it was super strange. wasnt clear what could have caused them
i didnt smell anything weird, but my car was weirdly streaky brown, but i just chalked it up to not cleaning my car recently.
In western cranston here. It def smelled something foul
When I left work last night (providence) my car was unexpectedly dirty. My windshield had all brown smudges all over it, was not there when I drove there
[deleted]
Northern CT here - went outside sometime after work yesterday, so maybe 5 or 6pm, and did remark that the the air had a smell to it. I thought it smelled like “spring” and chalked it up to warm weather and rain. Suppose it was a little chemically smelling, like fertilizer
FYI this just happened in the r/boston sub too. Same smell
Chemical fire in Braintree mass
I haven’t seen anyone post places that would test well water for these types of things. I have a water filtration system and will call NEWCO to see but their last tests were so basic, doubt they can do advanced searches of more rare chemicals. Anyone know a place that would, just to be safe? I never give my infant well water and try not to give it to my toddler but, I drink it all the time…
I also noticed a smell. The moment I opened the outside door in the morning an odd chemical smell gave me pause. I closed the door and thought of Ohio. I figured it’s probably not that, must be a neighbor doing who knows what. I’m being too quick to connect the Ohio spill.
Maybe I wasn’t being too quick…
I noticed little white flakes that arrived with the cold front- anyone know what those are?
I live in Coventry. I didn't exactly smell anything! Just the outside, That's it
Nothing to see here folks, well done! When will people finally open their eyes?
[deleted]
Same in Ta U nton MA
Acid rain. Classic Pawtucket
Your septic might be flooded
I'm in nyc now but u can't tell if there's a smell from the rain. Everything smells like shit here
Confusing
It smells like failure
OkSalamander8499 t1_j8w69id wrote
Which train derailment? Ohio? Michigan? Texas?