Sitting anxiously in her Conyers home, Sandra Stephens-Jordan called the office of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp one day in November. She called again the next day and once more the following week.
Each time, Stephens-Jordan said she asked a staffer if there was anything the governor could do to help her community in the aftermath of a chemical fire that had erupted and sent up a toxic cloud 4 miles from her home. She wanted to speak up for herself and others who were suffering from health complications after the Sept. 29 blaze at a BioLab plant.
Stephens-Jordan, 55, said she was told she could meet with Kemp if she wrote him a letter. She said she was later hospitalized and never got around to it.
In the days after the fire, Stephens-Jordan and other residents across Rockdale County watched Kemp speak publicly about the state’s massive response to Hurricane Helene.
I’ve lived through three BioLab fires in 20 years. I fear the impact
But they only heard the governor make a passing mention of the BioLab crisis — an event that shut down I-20 and led to the evacuation of 17,000 people. The fire also resulted in more than 1,000 hospital emergency room or urgent care visits by residents of 25 Georgia counties…