I am tracking and mapping observations of the mysterious odor and residue that is being reported across the Northeast. While most reports are concentrated in NY, I have heard anecdotal reports of the event in PA since the first night the odor cloud rolled in.

Submitted by Ashamed-Reflection-9 t3_11a5p21 in Pennsylvania

I am wondering how many people in PA experienced the bizarre chemical smell and/or residue that people across the Northeast are reporting. Some people were reporting adverse physical reactions around the event. There have also been reports of an unknown substance being noticed on cars.

I live in Orange County, NY and my home was wrapped in a saturated fog of an intense odor that smelled like axe body spray and sandalwood incense had a baby. Others are describing it as soapy, chlorine, perfume, bad cologne, or cleaner. During this time several people reported headaches, sore throats, itchy skin, and burning in their eyes and nose.

Lastly, people have discovered residue on their vehicles. Some have reported a strange film on their windshields. Some have noticed unexplained dirty spots where raindrops evaporated. There is a yellow substance that some people can't wash off of their vehicles. I have a friend who washed her car three times and it still smells strongly of the odor.

While most of the reports are originating East of Pennsylvania, I have seen comments as early as Thursday, February 16th about the odor being detected in Milford, PA as well as deeper into the state.

The origin has yet to be identified as of this time. I'm hoping that I can find more observations to help pinpoint the origin. The minimum that I'm looking for is the date, city, and state of any encounters with this phenomenon. I am curious about more aspects and I have a survey posted on the newyork subreddit if anyone wants to assist me in solving this mystery.

https://hudsonvalleypost.com/what-you-must-do-if-you-smell-an-unusual-odor-in-new-york-state/

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squatcharchist t1_j9qxr4d wrote

Farmers have been spreading manure the last couple weeks, I’m having a tough time smelling anything else in Lancaster county tbh.

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Allemaengel t1_j9qmajs wrote

I live in the Poconos on the Carbon-Monroe County line and nothing here.

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SWPenn t1_j9qn1nw wrote

Are you referring to the train derailment in Ohio? That was three weeks ago, and the wind was heading south-southwest and the smoke dissipated quickly.

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Ashamed-Reflection-9 OP t1_j9qr0hn wrote

I'm referring to a weird odor that is spreading across the Northeast. The origin is unknown despite state and local authorities actively investigating it so, I'm trying to map out a timeline to maybe figure it out.

I want answers and I am making no assumptions as to the source of the odor.

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No-Razzmatazz- t1_j9s5av0 wrote

> state and local authorities actively investigating it so

Which authorities specifically?

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Ashamed-Reflection-9 OP t1_j9sk5nr wrote

I can tell you what I know from my state: NYS DEC primarily but Orange County Department of Health is also involved. The EPA is well aware of it but they feel it falls under the scope of the state.

Town police were investigating as well.

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IamSauerKraut t1_j9qvcbs wrote

Was in Carlisle, Mechanicsburg, Harrisburg and Lancaster today. No odor at all. Not even wood smoke.

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Mtts28 t1_j9stjw6 wrote

It was oddly hazy though down the 81 corridor from Carlisle to Maryland. I’m assuming it was just typical PA stuff though… like poop spreading etc

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tacosandsunscreen t1_j9th46v wrote

My Facebook has blown up with people saying they had a mysterious white substance on their cars in basically this same geographic area.

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Mtts28 t1_j9tkvue wrote

Yeah it was like fog or smog covering the area.

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IamSauerKraut t1_j9tngab wrote

Often hazy along the 81 corridor with all the truck traffic and location in a valley. The haze often stretches up past Harrisburg and into Berks County. You can see the brown soot from the viewpoints on South and Kittatinny Mountains on quite a few days.

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[deleted] t1_j9rszt4 wrote

[deleted]

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Ashamed-Reflection-9 OP t1_j9rz049 wrote

That image is from the article. I did not intentionally use it.

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jballs2213 t1_j9s0wld wrote

There any beet farms by you? If there are a lot of thaw freeze cycles they rot and stink. Happened a few years ago by my place

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Ashamed-Reflection-9 OP t1_j9sob4w wrote

I've lived here my whole life. I have never smelled anything like this. The smell is unique and unnatural.

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jballs2213 t1_j9sw2ex wrote

I also lived in my town my entire life and have only smelled it once.

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Thats_classified t1_j9ujput wrote

What state and local authorities are investigating this smell? I scour local and state news as a part of my job and have heard nothing of this.

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Ashamed-Reflection-9 OP t1_j9us9i4 wrote

Sorry, I originally wrote this post from a NY standpoint. NYS authorities are investigating. Like the DEC and Department of Health. Orange County, NY authorities and affected towns were also looking into it.
https://hudsonvalleypost.com/odd-smell-that-makes-some-feel-really-sick-spreads-in-new-york-state/

Connecticut DEC is aware of the situation as well. https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/strange-smell-in-the-air-residue-on-cars-across-connecticut/2978725/

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amy2373 t1_j9qmiu6 wrote

Nothing in Susquehanna County

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YamPsychological9471 t1_j9rh52c wrote

I bing bop between Lycoming and Lackawanna. Nothing I noticed

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nashuanuke t1_j9rnxoa wrote

Smells like it always has and would frankly be impossible for me in Lancaster to smell something from Ohio

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IamSauerKraut t1_j9rqo7p wrote

True, but every time gym jordan opens his pie hole, a smell comes wafting in.

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W4hl t1_j9rxa00 wrote

We are in Pittsburgh (47 miles away from incident). No strange smells or weird residue on our vehicles.

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ButtBlock t1_j9t3g0z wrote

My dude if you think this is from the East Palestine environmental disaster you are being paranoid. There’s pollution everywhere. I’m not saying that it’s not harmful, on the contrary. But this screams chemophobia because it was “vinyl chloride” and the mechanism of release (derailment) was unusual. What happened there is an absolute tragedy, but every since it happened I keep seeing posts from PA to the tippy top of New England, saying stuff like help I smell chemicals I’m being poisoned. I mean, I’m glad you’re thinking about it now but did you somehow no smell the “chemical” odors everywhere before? Have you never smelled New York Harbor. For example, I live somewhat near a coal fired power plant. There are higher levels of mercury in the top soil where I live. You can’t even smell that stuff, but there it is. If you put top soil in a mass spec, there it is.

If you want something to worry about. Every time you pump your gas, that sweet smell is literally benzene which is a confirmed potent carcinogen. Gas is usually 1% benzene. If you can smell it it means that it’s getting into your lungs and therefore into your blood. Or the smell of diesel soot or woodsmoke. Those are polyaromatic hydrocarbons. Also confirmed carcinogenic. Or that smell of incompletely combusted gas exhaust. Benzene PAH and nitrogen oxides. You guessed it, all very carcinogenic!

The East Palestine stuff derailment is a tragedy but it really looks like this is a local environmental disaster. Like love canal. We should all be aware and outraged, but that’s different than being worried about being poisoned from hundreds of Km away, when there are literally hundreds of sources or types of pollution that you should be more worried about cars most of all.

Just my opinion bro take it or leave it.

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Eisernes t1_j9ui0jo wrote

He's not saying that at all. He asked about NEPA with the assumption this is from NY, possibly Orange County.

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Ashamed-Reflection-9 OP t1_j9uypwg wrote

Not that it matters but I'm not a dude. More importantly, I am in no way implying that this came from Ohio. I didn't even mention Ohio in my post. I realize that the article I linked caused an image to display with my post that is related to the Ohio disaster but that is just a coincidence. That being said, until someone determines the cause of the odor, I'm not ruling anything out. That's why I'm collecting data to map out a timeline.

The reason I personally am so alarmed is that that odor cloud sat on top of my house for well over 17 hours in a literal fog. The smell was very strong, it was chemically, and it burned my throat. My daughter's eyes were burning and my other daughter got an instant headache from it. The day that it rolled in, I had an unusually terrible migraine that kept me in bed for most of the day.

When I heard that other people were posting about it, on Thursday night, I found that it wasn't just my neighborhood, people from across my entire county were reporting the smell and complaining of headaches, burning sensations, dizziness, and nausea. I also saw that phenomenon extended into neighboring counties, as well as PA and NJ. I saw that many people called in the odor and police were already investigating but were unable to locate the source so I contacted the DEC, around 9pm and reported it through the oil spill hotline. I also contacted the NY Department of Health that night as well as my county's department of health. I was hoping to mobilize someone with the ability to determine the health risk that night because it was very intense, it was being reported in such a wide area, and people were feeling sick.

While I was able to speak with actual people that night, it wasn't until late Friday morning that the DEC deployed employees to come out and test the air but by then, it had mostly moved on. There were trace amounts of the odor but at that point, it wouldn't have concerned anyone. Unsurprisingly, the DEC air testing did not result in anything of concern.

Meanwhile, it was moving farther east and north. People were now reporting the smell and the residue.

I also learned that my friend was in their car near my house when the odor rolled in. Their car was covered in residue and it reeked like someone bombed their car with axe body spray. Three carwashes later, the odor was just as powerful. I reported that to the DEC this Monday. I asked if there was a way to test the residue and the DEC employee was like "Huh, I guess I can check the office for testing dishes."

I watched this cloud move across the Northeast with no answers. I also noticed that there is very little news coverage. So, yeah, I'm concerned about it. Lastly, I am not looking for something to worry about; I'm looking for answers so I can stop worrying.

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ButtBlock t1_j9uzpad wrote

I’m sorry to assume otherwise. Looking back on my previous comment I kind of sound like an asshole. I’m sorry. I’ve just seen sooo many posts talking about the “fallout” from East Palestine. All I was concerned about is that you, like many others, were worried about the disaster in Ohio. But it sounds like that’s not your concern so I was making the wrong assumptions.

Like I said there are lots of pollution sources and the health risks are real. I’ve seen New York Harbor foam, and smelled sulfides in the air in New Jersey. It’s bad, but fortunately more rare these days. Can always use more accountability with industry. Hope you’re able to figure something out about the source. Again my apologizes!

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Ashamed-Reflection-9 OP t1_j9v5vv0 wrote

I appreciate that. I can get worked up sometimes. I'm trying very hard to stay in my lane with this especially because my posts keep getting deleted and I really want to sort this out.

I know that there are many things that could be the cause but this is out of the norm. I'm 44 years old and I've lived in Orange County my entire life. I have a pretty good idea of what is normal and what is not.

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Ashamed-Reflection-9 OP t1_j9v6u63 wrote

So, check this out. This is a map that I'm working on whenever I can grab a minute. This isn't my main goal but it does track dates and locations without exposing any personal information that I may have. It may have duplicates because it combines survey results with info that I scraped from comments across social media platforms. It also only contains observations that have enough location data and an accurate date.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1EAtpU7eacd8TZbvjH59ccMsQjcEInWQ&usp=sharing

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bikingwithscissors t1_j9tdm51 wrote

There was a thread yesterday on the Philly sub about people reporting breathing difficulties. Lots of speculation about early allergens, but one of the posts included a satellite map of carbon monoxide concentrations in our region. Yesterday Eastern PA/NJ/NY was the second largest hotspot of CO on the planet next to all of eastern China, and the plume is forecast to return Sat-Sun:

https://www.reddit.com/r/philadelphia/comments/119phph/comment/j9nnt6u/
https://www.windy.com/-CO-concentration-cosc?cosc,40.424,-76.965,8

CO is odorless but I wonder if there's any correlation with other industrial particulates?

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abluecrate t1_j9tmqh1 wrote

iirc; something last year (around this same time) happened in the Philadelphia region and it was due to some form of weather effect involving the layering of hot and cold air. We did just have an oddly warm spike amongst freezing weather, so maybe that’s a contributing factor?

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BamitzSam101 t1_j9rfz5n wrote

Nothing in cumberland county

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vintageideals t1_j9s8nwo wrote

Haven’t noticed anything other than farm smell in Lebanon co

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fishntools t1_j9scdf3 wrote

Lycoming County, nothing here!

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kaylasenjose t1_j9vjf7z wrote

I have noticed a smell in Middletown, PA. Just as it started raining a little bit. It definitely doesn’t smell like manure

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kaylasenjose t1_j9vpavb wrote

Live never smelled anything like in in all the 20+ years I’ve lived here. Extremely chemical like

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Ashamed-Reflection-9 OP t1_j9vpmbs wrote

Thank you. When did you smell it? Can you describe the smell?

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kaylasenjose t1_j9vqen9 wrote

It just smelled like a really strong mixture of random chemicals.. I’ve never smelled anything like it before, ever so I can’t really say I can say what it smells like

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Puzzleheaded_Rub858 t1_j9qjipx wrote

I live in lower Bucks and we smelled something really bad about a day ago. Thought it was Dow Chemical but now I’m not sure.

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Ashamed-Reflection-9 OP t1_j9qjwif wrote

What did it smell like?

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Puzzleheaded_Rub858 t1_j9qln9c wrote

Some said sauerkraut, others said death or rotting take out. It was a strong chemical smell for sure.

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Hopeful_Scholar398 t1_j9t9h2g wrote

Is there a paper mill nearby? The wood pulp often has a cabbage smell and is sprayed with chemicals that have a distinct smell.

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Ashamed-Reflection-9 OP t1_j9r2nlo wrote

I don't think it's the same smell but I will log it just in case.

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stblawyer t1_j9rxsze wrote

Love the place dearly. Have family there. This is not an unusual smell for lower bucks. As the poster said, there are chemical plants (I have family that works at them) as well as heavy manufacturing.

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Ashamed-Reflection-9 OP t1_j9ql3ux wrote

The odor I smelled wasn't bad at first sniff or when it was weak but when it's strong it prolonged it's overpowering. It was like incense.

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ShamokinDunkin t1_j9s3l9k wrote

Smelled weird when I went outside today, but that’s maybe just a shit cric

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