Environmental activist Erin Brockovich holds the town hall in East Palestine 3 weeks after the train derailment.

EAST PALESTINE, Ohio. As Friday marks three weeks since the Ohio train derailment in East Palestine, environmental activist Erin Brockovich attended a city hall meeting.

Her visit comes after Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and former President Donald Trump made stops in East Palestine to deal with a train derailment earlier this week.

Brockovich, who was the focus of the 2000 biopic Erin Brockovich starring Julia Roberts, tweeted several times from East Palestine on Thursday. She spoke of “meeting wonderful people” who “need to be heard.”

“Each of you in this room knows what happened, knows what you’ve been through, knows what you’ve been through,” the 62-year-old said in front of a packed house on Friday. “You understand fear.”

See the full town hall below:

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Those present at the event hung on Brockovich’s every word and were grateful to hear a new perspective on the incident.

“I didn’t think I was going to get a bunch of political responses and a bunch of ‘he said, she said,'” Lelli Grolo, an East Palestinian resident, told 3News. “I wanted to see what people who didn’t have an agenda would say.”

Brockovich didn’t speak much before delivering a presentation that told the story of the train derailment and focused on one thing: “Trust your intuition. If you feel like something is wrong, take action.”

“There is a moment here for this community and for all of us, and this is a moment of learning,” she said. “We cannot afford[ies] or company[ies] keep kicking the jar down the line.”

Grolo has been on a roller coaster of “yes” and “no”, “you should be worried” or “you’re fine” for the past three weeks. In Brockovich’s town hall, she felt noticed.

“We are just a small town that is not going to give up,” she said, “and we do not want people to forget us.”

Brockovich’s other main message on Friday is that it’s a long game with no short answers or solutions when it comes to learning the full implications of the Feb. 3 crash. You can view more tweets and photos from her visit below:

Brockovich tweeted extensively last week about the Ohio train derailment, urging the Biden administration to “ACT NOW.” She also criticized US Senator J.D. Vance for his response to the situation.

The National Transportation Safety Board released its preliminary report Thursday amid an ongoing investigation into the Feb. 3 train derailment.

“This could have been 100% avoided,” NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy told reporters. “We call things accidents; there are no accidents. Every event we investigate is preventable.”

The full NTSB Preliminary Report can be read HERE.

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