New videos show towers of fire that prompted evacuations after last year's fiery Ohio derailment

Residents of eastern Ohio can now get an up-close view in newly released videos of the twin toxic towers of fire that forced them from their homes last February when officials decided to blow open five tank cars filled with vinyl chloride they worried might explode days after a Norfolk Southern train derailed.

The National Transportation Safety Board released more than a half-dozen videos of the explosions, fire and huge plume of black smoke generated along with a number of documents unearthed in their investigation about what went into the decision to release and burn the vinyl chloride.

Those documents reinforce the questions raised last spring at the hearings the NTSB held in East Palestine, Ohio, about whether the vinyl chloride tank cars really would have exploded while they were surrounded by the fire from the derailment. The officials who made that decision have defended it, saying they made the best call they could with the information they had available that day.

The company that made the chemical, Oxy Vinyls, told investigators they believed the vinyl chloride remained stable and wouldn't explode, but it was revealed last year that the opinion of Oxy Vinyls' experts wasn't shared with key decisionmakers. Instead, they decided to blow open the cars because of the concerns about the cars' temperature readings and whether pressure relief valves were working.