EAST PALESTINE, Ohio (WKBN) — Vice President J.D. Vance made a trip to the Valley Monday for the second anniversary of the Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine.

This was Vance’s second trip to the village since the disaster, but this time he arrived on Air Force Two as Vice President.

Vance was greeted on the tarmac by local and state leaders including Senator Jon Husted, Ohio Attorney General David Yost, Congressman Michael Rulli and Vivek Ramaswamey.

Flanked by Secret Service members, Vance and his wife Usha greeted a crowd that had gathered at the airport to watch the vice president’s arrival before they got into vehicles lined up for a motorcade headed to East Palestine.

Vance arrived in East Palestine about 12:45 p.m. where he was greeted by Ohio Governor Mike DeWine and other local officials.

East Palestine Fire Chief Keith Drabick and Mayor Trent Conaway spoke with Vance near the derailment site before they made their way to the fire station where Vance took to the podium just before 2 p.m.

Vance said he talked to President Trump about his upcoming visit and said that the President loves this community and that “it will not be forgotten.”

“President Trump, me, and the entire Administration are committed to ensure to the people of East Palestine that the government does right by them, and we will be working in the months and the years to come,” Vance said.

Vance said that the Trump Administration is committed to East Palestine, saying that they both support the Rail Safety Act and want to see that legislation come up again for a vote.

“We had that legislation. It was bipartisan but Chuck Schummer refused to bring it up to the floor for a vote,” Vance said.

Vance went on to say that while things will not happen overnight, resources will be deployed to East Palestine for infrastructure, long-term health monitoring and economic support.

“People have to be confident that they can build a business here, raise a family here. That is going to take a long-term commitment, and that is something people should expect,” Vance said.

Vance spent a half-hour meeting privately with about a dozen local and state officials as well as several local business owners about life in the community over the last two years since the train wreck. He says the common complaint was Norfolk Southern executives making promises they haven’t kept, adding that it is unacceptable that some first responders have not been compensated in the settlement.

“And you can be damn sure that over the next six months, you are going to hear a lot from the vice president of the United States and the entire Administration. If Norfolk Southern doesn’t keep those promises, we are gonna talk about it and we are going to fight for it,” Vance said.

EPA Administer Lee Zeldin also addressed the crown at the conference.

“I will make sure for the EPA, it is the highest priority, day in and day out — doing everything in our power to make sure that this is completed as quickly as possible. Anything that is left will be done as fast as we possibly can,” Zeldin said.

Shortly after Vance’s remarks, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy issued a statement saying that the East Palestine community has shown “resilience” in its recovery from the derailment that “changed its residents’ lives forever.”

“In partnership with the Trump-Vance Administration and Congress, USDOT will work to advance rail safety. As President Trump has pledged, we will ensure the people of East Palestine are not forgotten, and we will use every resource to prevent other communities from enduring what they experienced.”

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy

Although there’s been progress since the derailment two years ago, Mayor Conaway said the community is still picking up the pieces. Conaway says the visit was Vance’s idea, adding that he feels reassured that the Trump Administration hasn’t forgotten about East Palestine.

“It was 100% [Vance]. He wanted to come and see the progress so far after two years and to make sure the village residents know and the surrounding residents of the area know that he is with us and he’s still here,” Conaway said.

Residents of East Palestine were cautiously optimistic about the vice president’s visit.

“At the end of the day, he’s still a politician, and we’ve been led down so many times by people who said they were going to help,” said former East Palestine resident Jami Wallace. “If he doesn’t do something, it’s going to make him look bad. But I don’t think that’s the reason he’s going to do something. I think he’s going to do it because he truly cares,”

Anna Doss, the owner of the Marathon gas station in town, said the accident derailed her future with countless losses to the point where she had to give the business up.

“Oh God, I cried forever to make decisions like that. I didn’t want to. I would have liked to keep it until I was ready. I wasn’t ready. I did it, but I wasn’t really emotionally ready to do it,” she said. “We never know if we’ve had the worst of it or not. We’re not sure.”

East Palestine’s toxic past doesn’t just impact its current or former residents. It also clouds the future. Laura Horne just bought a house in town this summer and is well aware of what happened two years ago.

“I don’t know everything that everyone was told that night. I do trust who I’ve been talking to because they’ve been open and honest about it,” Horne said.

After hearing so many in the community talk about how their businesses are even worse off now than they were two years ago, WKBN 27 First News asked the vice president what he can say to convince locals he’s not simply paying more lip service.

“It’s not always gonna be easy, and I’m not gonna be able to take away the two years of economic pain that has been caused by this train disaster, but you now have a government that cares about you –that’s going to work with you on those problems,” Vance said.

The NTSB mentioned East Palestine at the end of its press conference Saturday on Wednesday’s deadly helicopter-airplane crash in Washington D.C.

“We got to East Palestine, a community that gets devastated, still nothing has happened. We have several recommendations open for aviation. You want to do something about it, adopt a recommendation from NTSB,” board member Todd Inman said at the briefing.

Mayor Conaway said that although he hadn’t seen that briefing, it was a pleasant surprise.

“I want to see exactly what they said, but they were instrumental in trying to get to some things changed in the railroad industry, and I’m glad they haven’t forgotten us,” Conaway said.

The Ohio Democratic Party submitted the following statement Monday ahead of Vance’s stop:

JD Vance pretends that he delivered real change for East Palestine, but when the cameras are off, he’s nowhere to be seen. Ohioans see right through Vance’s attempts to ingratiate himself with the same folks that the new administration is screwing over every day. Senator Sherrod Brown showed Ohio what it meant to truly fight for rail safety reform, and we’re disappointed that Ohioans don’t have any current senators who are willing to continue to fight for them.

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine thanked Vance for his visit and promised to work with federal officials to continue the work in East Palestine.

“There are many positive things we can do. We will be working with the vice president and the administrator (U.S. EPA) to see what we can do,” DeWine said. “This is a community that continues to need assistance, and we will be continuing to do that.”