The Donora Death Smog | A Short Documentary | Fascinating Horror
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- čas přidán 15. 06. 2024
- "On the 27th of October, 1948, a thick smog descended on the town of Donora in Pennsylvania, plunging the community into a state of semi-darkness..."
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CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Intro
00:46 - Background
02:42 - The Donora Death Smog
07:33 - Aftermath
MUSIC:
► "Glass Pond" by Public Memory
SOURCES:
► "The Deadly Donora Smog of 1948 Spurred Environmental Protection-But Have We Forgotten the Lesson?" by Lorraine Boissoneault, published by Smithsonian Magazine, October 2018. Link: www.smithsonianmag.com/histor...
► Donora Historical Society and Smog Museum Website, published by the Donora Historical Society. Link: sites.google.com/site/donorah...
► "The Donora Smog Revisited: 70 Years After the Event That Inspired the Clean Air Act" by Elizabeth T Jacobs, Jefferey L Burgess and Mark B Abbott, published by the American Journal of Public Health, April 2018. Available via: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
► "Decades ago, this pollution disaster exposed the perils of dirty air" by Cynthia Gorney, published by National Geographic, October 2020. Link: www.nationalgeographic.com/hi...
CORRECTIONS:
► In this video, I state that 26 people died during the smog. In fact, the number of people who died during the smog was most likely 21. The higher number was included in some reports after the smog, and has been reported incorrectly ever since.
#Documentary #History #TrueStories
If you want to learn more about this disaster, I'd recommend "The Donora Death Fog" by Andy McPhee (www.amazon.com/Donora-Death-Smog-Tragedy-Pennsylvania/dp/0822966719). The author has been in touch and sent some lovely notes - including a couple of corrections: initial investigators may have been more warmly received than some reports suggest - and the actual number that died during the smog was likely 21 rather than 26. For more detail, give Andy's book a look!
Thanks for all you do, Why support amazon an evil company though?
You should do a clip about The Children's Leukemia Cluster in Fallon, Nevada U.S.A. in the early 2000s.
The selflessness of those firemen - deciding to sacrifice their own oxygen for others - is astonishing. They must've been exhausted. Just a shame it happened at all.
it must have been in them to do that already, considering theyre firemen. amazing stuff
To be real, giving it to people in medical distress versus those doing their jobs and not being in medical distress seems a pretty easy and clear cut choice.
@@gst013nope. Need the air to do my job. Giving it away means I'm done.
These firefighters are stupid
The shots of whisky took the edge off.
They were literally breathless
Over 40% of the town's population received respiratory issues fron this. That's insane.
I developed a tickle in my throat from merely watching this.
And that's what they released out in the air every hour of its existence. The only difference being it landed straight on top of the town instead of on the surrounding area.
38%
Sulfuric acid and heavy metals will do that.
No. That’s capitalism.
Companies have never and will never accept responsibility for the damage they continue to inflict on the environment and people. They are above the law. 🙄🙄🙄
These days, companies will not accept blame because they are sued for everything under the sun and end up paying out even when it is not substantially proven they are liable. If we had a justice system that sought the truth instead of giving in to public hysteria, maybe they would accept blame more often.
Privatize the profits and socialize the damage.
Yes, companies sole goal is to hurt people and the environment. It’s in their business plan. In fact in their quarterly report they typically discuss how their efforts to harm people and the environment are going, what plans they have. Cause the employees of these companies aren’t people, and they don’t live in our environment. …..
It could have very well just been the government as well. Research Operation Popeye
Yah it's not our fault guys, your cars and devices to keep your houses warm are the problem, that's why they asked us to shut down factories to stop the creation of smoke during the incident, duh.
It reminds me of the Great Smog in England it’s crazy how big companies do not want to take responsibility.
Nowadays they ship the labor and manufacturing to China or India, the two biggest polluters on the planet.
Big business privatize profits and socialize the costs.
The London fogs were the opposite problem. Rather than a few big emitters, the fumes came from tens or hundreds of thousands of small sources -- each building that was heated by coal. (The use of cheap high-sulphur bituminous coal contributed.) That kind of widely-distributed responsibility is difficult to respond to.
They are so big, they feel they don't have to.
@@Tindometari a significant contribution was made by a small number of large coal-fired power stations e.g. Fulham, Battersea, Greenwich, and Bankside.
We lived in Shanghai in 2013 and had a smog/blackout that lasted almost a week (called the "Eastern China Smog Event" on wikipedia) that was identical--lots of us caught pneumonia, and you couldn't see a 20-story building 6 feet away. I've heard that the London fog/smog events were the same types of occurrences--factories pumping out too much hazardous air to dissipate quickly/safely. It's amazing how quickly your everyday environment can be rendered unsafe/uninhabitable, and there's nothing you can do personally to help when it gets to that point.
Contributing to the London smog was the fact that most homes at the time were heated with coal, so there were millions of household coal fires on top of the industrial pollution. This is one reason why, although many older homes in London have fireplaces, "electric fires" are much more the norm. London is "smokeless", meaning you cannot have an open fireplace unless you use smokeless fuels, and electricity is much more convenient.
My mum used to tell me about the London smogs. "Couldn't see your hand in front of your face", she said. The worst one killed 12,000 people and lead to the Clean Air Act. See here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London
and yet there are people who are against environmental responsibility regulations for businesses 😒
Everyone was burning coal to heat their homes back then.
Yeah, really the only difference is that China's event was LATER, so they did all that to themselves, KNOWING what was going to happen and why. Their government just doesn't give a sh*t about their own citizens in the heat of chasing the "mighty" USA for world domination via cheap plastic SH*T...
Make no mistake, I have NOTHING against the people. I have EVERYTHING against Little Emperor Jinping and his reckless endangerment of EVERYTHING the exact same ways it's been endangered AND WE'VE LEARNED from it in the past. ;o)
Back in the 1960's we lived near Charleston WV. maybe 10 miles outside of town in a rural area. In the morning we would walk across the grass with dew on it. Our shoes would be covered with black ash from the steel mills. The Cuyahoga River in Ohio caught on fire at least 13 back around 1969. Our environment has really been cleaned up in the past 60 from what it use to be.
We lived by Lake Erie in the mid 1960’s the lake always had slime on it with telephone poles and dead fish all over the beach. In the summer the water came out of the faucet green everyone drank bottle water out of gallons and the water was so bad it clogged your steam irons . We have come a long way but still need to accomplish a lot more.
Too bad the Supreme Court weakened the EPA’s authority 😒
Amazing and sickening (literally) how much backsliding there has been in the past few years alone.... some people really don't remember, don't care to remember, or refuse to be educated... so many brainwashed by radicalism into thinking this stuff wasn't really a problem and the environment has nothing to do with them.... And yet are probably terrified of vaccines and 5G.
@@audraverela3663if you prefer government agencies to have unchecked power you're living in the wrong country.
We just outsourced it to China...So a few more years and who's going to be around to invade Taiwan?
Glad you covered this event. This was one of the first things I learned about when I started working on my Environmental Science degree. It's literally a textbook example of a temperature inversion, as well as the need for regulations. It's insane that it took a disaster like this to get things changed.
What has been changed? Where is the air and the world not polluted? That particular situation has changed because running things that way stopped making money for the company.
@@john2914You make a good point; this event clearly raised awareness about the public health impacts of industrial pollution but it seems that powerful industrial lobbies have usually been able to deny, delay, and minimize accountability as well as disproportionately harm vulnerable workers and communities (both domestic and foreign) with too much impunity in the United States. It shouldn’t have to take a health, safety &/or ecological crisis to protect workers, residents, and the environment from harmful industrial activity.
It’s a shame that people have to die before changes are made. Greed is a horrible thing.
and what did we learn from this? Nothing. Zero. Ziltch. Nothing at all.
Most safety rules and regulations are written in blood unfortunately.
I was actually one of Ambulance Supervisors in Donora during the 2010s, I currently drive through the town every day to get my kids from school as I live in the Monongahela Valley. There is a small museum and a lot of stories in the town regarding the smog event. It’s honestly kinda surreal seeing a town I drive through every day being covered on your channel
Edit: I shoulda finished before I commented about the museum haha
I live in the mon valley too. Moved here a year ago. I've seen pictures of downtown Pittsburgh like this in the 40s. War time steel production made it terrible. Also no one told me I would smell US Steel now, daily, mostly at night actually. Yinzers don't notice it
Wow, and I thought the Aroma of Tacoma was bad (pulp mills)! I can't imagine what that smells like...
Hello from charleroi!
@@ashleya1609former Charleroi resident checking in.
Hey I live in perry!!!!
This quote from American Steel and Wire people -
The company, American Steel and Wire, was prepared to show at trial that the smog had been caused by a -
"freak weather condition" that trapped over Donora "all of the smog coming from the homes, railroads, the steamboats, and the exhaust from automobiles, as well as the effluents from its plants."
😳🤣
But, you know, it was mostly all of the other stuff and only a little bit us..... but not really.
Typical USS, still doing it to this day
@@blahlbinoa *lawyers
They're only slightly less scummy than politicians, as a class. USS wouldn't get away with it without their assistance.
they were PREPARED to show which means theyd gathered evidence..
but hey its a COMPANY and in communist 2023 there is NO WAY a company can prove itself innocent amirite?
THEY ARE GUILTY MERELY BECAUSE THEY EXISTED!
POWER TO THE PEOPLE!
SMASH THE STATE!
EXTERMINATE THE BOURGEOISIE!
says the clown on a phone made by corrupt greedy men using child slave labor to dig out the shit the batteries use.. who then give it to more kids in another factory to make.. ALL SO YOU CAN BE SO RIGHTEOUS in your anger on social media LMMFAO
I forgot where I saw it but it went along the lines of "rules are written in blood", about how a lot of safety laws and regulations are stained in the blood of people who died because of these lack of precautions. We turn tragedy into something meaningful, even while it continues to hurt.
I'd imagine that you're thinking of the aviation industry!
If only others could be forced to be as responsive!
YES, there have been notable (and intentional) failures such as the Boeing B737-MAX TRADEGIES! The MCAS situation was a Boeing Commercial Aircraft wide conspiratorial fraud! Only their role as a major weapons and death dealing aircraft manufacturer saved the company from their just deserts!
I used to say the opposite, however now:
"If it's Boeing; I'm NOT going!"
✈️ 🛩 🛬 💺 🛫 ✈️ 🛩 🛬 💺 🛫 ✈️ 🛩
@Itsgay2read
You probably heard that slogan on another CZcams channel having to do with safety regulations, basically their motto is "regulations are written in blood". The relaxation of environmental rules and regulations which will happen under Trump's second term will turn this country back to those times that you referenced. They are going to unleash corporations upon us with a vengeance. This is one of the few times in my life that I'm glad I'm old. I am so tired of this shit with irresponsible murderous corporations.
I saw it on a tumblr or tweet where someone listening to a lecture about OSHA guidelines being written in blood. I told a coworker something similar when they were confused about child care licensing rules. We can't be on our phones and must be watching kids no matter what they do because kids died
I love the adoption of British terms when describing a PA mill town, "high street", "football pitch", etc.
A tutorial for our FH friend may be in order, then?
A town's "high street" is called the "main street" in the US. And American football, a sport that has very little in common with its internationally beloved cousin, is played on a "field" rather than a "pitch."
All that being said, it's not really a problem; I suspect 90 percent of Americans watching knew exactly what he meant. :-)
I don't have a problem with it , I knew what he meant.😊
"high" street did throw me; what is high about it aside from its importance
@@weebunny I like to think his listeners are smart enough to pick up on context clues
@@FaustoTheBoozehound Agreed.
oh my gosh I've lived 20 minutes from Donora my whole life and never knew of this. thank you for sharing, been watching your videos for years now.
I’m from PA too and never heard of this either.
@@goodemilysame. Definitely had some bad wildfire haze this year, still dealing with sinus infections...
Monongahela resident here my whole life and knew people that worked at the Donora mill.
Quit lyin
@@micksterboone4517 Ya me to my great uncle lived
In donora my great grandfather worked at the mill in the 40s and 50s I also live in monongahela to
We make deliveries to this area pretty often. Me and my coworkers jokingly call it the stinky side of town because it often smells so bad. Had no idea this happened though. Can’t wait to show everybody this video!
Chillicothe,Ohio?
@@MrReymoclif714I've delivered to the Chillicothe paper mill once.
Never again. 😂
.
.
Would you ever say "Me jokingly call it....?" Probably not. So why write "Me and my coworkers jokingly call it....?"
I grew up in the sixties in Los Angeles county and the smog was terrible! Before the Air Quality Management District (AQMD) was formed, we would have "smog days" when the air was hard to breathe, making me feel sick, and everyone was encouraged to stay indoors and not go out or exercise. If you watch some of the old shows like Columbo, in the long shots you can see a literal gray cloud over the whole city. It must have been terrible for these people to be lied to about safety and then smothered.
Denver is notorious for its temperature inversions. When I moved here in the early eighties, we had many days covered by the “Denver Brown Cloud”. I worked in a building west of Denver, and you could literally see the cloud hanging over the city like some kind of cartoon. Regulations (that many people heavily complained about, go figure) cleaned that up a lot, but we occasionally still have a few brown cloud days here and there, and like your LA, we’re all told to stay inside, limit outdoor activities.
@@reverbscherzo7850yeah people like to talk sh*t about how governments curb the car industry and how woke California is with their pollution regulations. They don’t realize that people died before the govt stepped in.
I grew up in the 90s in Riverside (inland empire) and the smog was so bad, even then. We'd have smog days at school and I always had lung issues/asthma.
It still is
@@thecommonsenseconservative5576 I would never argue that Los Angeles has clean air. It is still bad. But in the sixties and into the seventies, it was literally buried in a brown cloud. If you managed to get above the city and look down, all you could see were the very tops of the skyscrapers.
I’ve lived in the greater Pittsburgh area all my life. I’d never heard about this until your video! Thanks so much for not letting happenings like this fade into the oblivion of history! Good man, FH!
Pittsburgh: “The City That Never Breathes!” 😉
@@princessmarlena1359 .....don't forget the "h"!
@@trevorregay9283 d’oh! Thanks!
Same! I was born in the city, and was raised in, and have lived in, the greater Pittsburgh area my entire life, and I've never heard of this either. I love Fascinating Horror's videos, but I never clicked on one of their videos so fast as when I saw it said "Donora."
@@laura121684 I am from Pittsburgh (the city, proper, North Side, specifically). I had heard of this at a young age in the 1970s from my grandfather. He was a big union guy, and had NO USE for the management of US Steel, although he worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad. The only "good" Pittsburgh corporations in his eyes were Heinz and Westinghouse.
My mother and I lived in western Pennsylvania for many years. We both want to thank you for your informative episode about this sad story from that area -- we both learned a lot that we hadn't already been aware of, including how Donora got its name. We hope that you'll do an episode on another of the region's tragedies, the Great Johnstown Flood of 1889, sometime soon.
I believe he has done the Johnstown Flood, maybe some time ago.
@@janicesullivan8942 Nope. The topic has been covered by some of the other "dark channels" on CZcams, but never by Fascinating Horror.
Hello fellow western Pennsylvanian! 😊❤
@@misha2197Hey, me too!
Maybe he can do a video on why we still pay the flood tax...
Wow, never expected to see a tiny town from my area on here. My aunt lives in Donora so I wandered all over there growing up. But I still didn't learn about this event until a few years ago when I was driving over for a visit and noticed one of those historical signs dedicated to it. After researching it I was like holy crap how did I spend decades here without knowing that?! There was also a very deadly mine disaster not too far from here if you're interested in looking into it, the Naomi mine explosion of 1907. The Mon Valley has had a bunch of incidents due to its coal and steel industries.
Can't forget about the Darr mine either! I grew up in Monessen and moved to Charleroi (well, Fallowfield Twsp)
Donora firemen: "I heard whisky is a good alternative to oxygen tanks, trust me"
The next time you hear some politician talking about “cutting red tape,” remember the historical toll people actually pay for such lies.
Worker and environment legislation is written in blood unfortunately.
Not all legislation exists to protect people. Some of it exists to protect interests, serving primarily to protect big businesses.
I'm perfectly okay with cutting that red tape, and question why you aren't.
Red tape exists. Not all regulation is beneficial.
uh no
thats not true to and you know it
when you hear them talk about cutting red tape most of the time they are talking about unneeded fees and regulations meant to keep money pouring into local govenment coffers and NOT meant for safety..
@@stevenschnepp576 can you provide any examples because generally big business have been only lightly regulated leading to significant and expensive public health problems, e.g. dioxin pollution, PFOAs, Atrazine, opioids.
As an American- I love the narrator referring to an American football field as "the pitch"... haha
It's the second time in two days for me.
Also referring to an office complex / business center as an “industrial park”
I giggled at that, too.
Haha in the UK we plant crops in fields and play sports on a pitch, we don't do combine the two. Although I did play cricket the other say on what is basically a sheep field for most of the year.
Thought they were playing baseball for a moment
You hear about the great smogs of London but this is the first time that i have heard of it occurring somewhere else
California gets it
@herban123 Not as much as we used to, but historically, yes. That's part of why California has the strictest air-quality standards in the US; one of our major population centers is in an air basin where an inversion layer like this one could kill thousands of people. I remember walking outside one Christmas morning in the 1990s, right after a rainstorm, and being shocked to see mountains at the end of a nearby street. I had lived there for several years and, because of the smog, I had never seen the mountains that should have been lining my horizon.
But the laws (and improving technology) have helped! My mother still lives in that house, and now we can see the mountains almost every day.
Ok...maybe look at Bejing
Almost any decent-sized city in a natural basin will get fog, it’s the natural home of a temperature inversion. Add some industrial emissions and domestic use of things like wood heaters and air quality will suffer.
I can recall one really cold morning (breathing hurt) but the valley I lived in was so pretty! Not smog, but plain ice fog.
Coors Brewery always pumps out plenty of steam, and thus morning… it super cooled, and we had this tattered layer of icy fog drifting aling
I love one town over from Donora and they have an amazing museum about this. What these people did for their community to be able to help people is incredible.
When you specifically mentioned that Donora had a Zinc works, but didn't mention anything about that in regard to the toxicity of the smog, I was honestly surprised.
Zinc Oxide, which is generated when melting down zinc, is also highly toxic, and there is no doubt in my mind that it also contributed to the health issues that came about from the Donora smog.
It was mainly the zinc that caused the smog. Also they waited to cease firing of the furnaces because once cooled, they can crack and become unuseable. They did stop firing them but it was a major blow to the zinc works. The steel mill closed later and the town declined.
@@johnmills34YT I heard they took the zinc furnaces down to a "dead heat" which kept them hot but did not smelt any ore. A lot of towns with zinc furnaces had problems.
I'm a foundryman, and when I heard the fact there were zinc works, I said out loud "Yep, that's it. " Been laid low too many times by zinc sickness
There's virtually always lead in zinc ore, so it's possible that in addition to zinc sickness, there may have been more pernicious damage in the form of lead poisoning
“Clean air started here” gave me goosebumps.
A quote from Biden “ we are going zero emissions by 2035 we are it’s no lie hey Jack I’m not kidding we ya back in ok look let’s I’m telling ya that over on the anyway”
@@ohiostate9156 followed by zzzzz and some snoring
This may be kind of insensitive, but "Danora Death Smog" would make for a sick band name.
I don't think many would object the band's name but someone might try to chin check you if you were to appear within the town's limits, someone might think you are mocking the event that killed their grandpappy or something of that sort.
@@g.sergiusfidenas6650I actually think it's a great idea! And anyone who had relatives die should actually appreciate the fact that the band would be keeping the memory of the tragedy alive simply by having the name. But then again, in today's world, people are soft, easily offended, and often unjustifiably so...
"Thirty Seconds over Tokyo", "Rammstein", "Bhopal Stiffs", and the "Dead Kennedys" bands quickly come to mind 😁 I can see it working for a punk or hard metal band😡😱💪👍
@@P_RO_ Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo is a real movie
@@wesleysayud419 Yep- it's about the Dolittle bombing of Tokyo at the beginning of WW2. And a short-lived punk rock band took their name from it.
US Steel still does this shit to this day. The city of Clairton has US Steel's Coke Works plant and it also pollutes the valley Donora is in (The Mon Valley) and it's still hurting residents there. But anytime it's brought up, the workers get pissy because it's the only job in town for them, even though USS wants to cut everyone and leave the Pittsburgh area. They still don't abide by the clean air act, and they still don't take responsibility for anything, even when the coke works leaked sulfur dioxide in the air and got sued, they settled and just shrugged their shoulders and said it wasn't their fault.
Not just PA as well when steel was still in central Indiana the same happened there. I'm sure anywhere else too. My dad was a steel worker but spent a few years as a water treatment technician not far from the mill too (before he started work there). He said that was what turned him wise to how bad the problem is. Even though the water quality reports are publicly available most people don't bother looking into what is in the drinking water, much less where it came from. The steel mill he worked at was right by the river from which many small towns and at least one city downriver drew water from. As well downwind of the plant was notoriously underdeveloped, a lot of cancer is reported in the people who lived there while the mill was still up. The corruption and lack of sympathy from anyone not directly affected was crazy to me growing up, because of what you mentioned. It was lauded as the last mainstay employer in the area and without it the city fell to crime and poverty. Etc. Really sad all around.
@@DJELOK US Steel does this in Gary as well, only its polluting Lake Michigan along with BP in Whiting. It just seems like Indian doesn't care about the pollution, just the money they get.
On the plus side a small number of people can get very wealthy and make donations to the Republican party to own the libs.
I've lived near Donora almost my entire life and we never learned about this in school or anything!
The 2020 census lists 4,558 residents, one tenth of 1948. Great video
There's a big old roller skating rink with a unique floor in Donora, one of only two rinks in the Pittsburgh area. I was just talking about rounding up a posse and going down there to skate.
As soon as I saw Donora in the title I knew I knew the story. Both my parents grew up in Monessen. Grandma used to say they couldn't hang clothes out on the line because they would get covered with soot, but everybody put up with it because it meant people were working. After my dad came home from WW2 my parents got married and moved to Pittsburgh. But they still had friends and family in Monessen, Donora, Charleroi, Mon City, Black Diamond... All along the Mon. My oldest brother was born in 1948. I didn't show up til 1965. I haven't been back to PA in several years now, but I still have family there.
Sadly this is likely one of your more positive videos overall, despite scummy corporation getting away with its crimes and damage like always, between the town not imploding when the factory shuddered and due to contributing to Clean Air Act. Unsurprising that even that act is written in blood though.
It’s like people comment all the time on here. All rules and regulations are written in blood 🩸
@@Mrsjam96 Well, not _all_ - some were written to keep small businesses 'in their place', but that's because politicians are pretty crooked as a class.
i dont understand your logic
if youre told something you do is ok, and legal, and youve paid the fees, and had the inspections, and you do it... how are you responsible if it turns out thats not the case but its not up to you to decide that in the first place?
i have no doubt many companies between the start of the industrial revolution and the 1950s when the world started to actually regulate them. have done irreparable damage..
however i dont understand why you think the people who ran these companies were supposed to have knowledge of pollutants, LITERALLY NO ONE HAD then, just because they are rich and own a company..
try to use you logical brain, grade school gave you, to think these things through, and not the communist brain you got from social media and tik tok. youll find you can make better decisions that way..
there isa a MASSIVE difference between a company doing wrong ON PURPOSE and then covering it up and a company just unaware they were doing harm because they were following the rules THEN set in place..
i suppose you blame every doctor before the 1900 for sepsis deaths, because they didnt mask up and wash their hands too eh?
i men FCK THEM they didnt know about germs and were following all the rules of the day. THEY SHOULD HAVE KNOWLEDGE OF THE FUTURE!!!
@@ripvanwinkle2002 ...You're assuming an *awful* lot here for someone who is implicitly going off on me for supposedly making an assumption just to make a point that's not even connected to what I actually said or even really based in reality; it's a bit telling on top of coming off as both ironic *and* hypocritical. Wanting companies to be held responsible for when they fuck up isn't "communist". It's what anyone who lives in a capitalist society should want since companies *will* screw up big eventually even when they have the best intentions and care about public welfare, which is unfortunately far more rare--arguably nonexistent for big companies---than signifcant company fuckups that negatively impact the public.
Why does everything with you corporatist apologists have to some binary extreme where either someone goes out of their way to deepthroat the boots of even companies knowingly doing horrible wrongs or they're some super communist who looks at social media that I don't use? I could understand the weird, cringeworthy vitriol if I had said "and look what capitalism has wrought once again, comrades", but...I didn't, even implicitly except maybe to someone looking for an argument and not to understand my logic in the first place.
If you're going to try to talk about faulty logic, then *please* look at yourself and then point out where I said in my unedited reply that the company knew about what you're claiming I said they knew instead of putting words in my mouth to make a cringeworthy non-point; I'll wait. All I said is that they "got away with it" like companies in these videos in this case tend to because they *did* (again) and called them "scummy" because I feel that way about anyone who doesn't try to rectify a serious screwup reasonably. It doesn't have to be intentional malice by the company for that to still be true, especially when people were actively styming the local investigationsl at gunpoint to the point that the federal government had to be called in and when it seems rather unlikely that the company ever paid out much to the *almost-half* of the town whose lungs were damaged primarily by their chemicals. I'd be surprised to find they even covered the cost of a single funeral, honestly, given how hard companies tend to try to weasel out of things even when they're clearly at fault, foreknowledge or not. But, yes, I suppose wanting companies to take responsiblity for their fuckups is communism. My bad.
@@ripvanwinkle2002your reply may be a bit over the top, considering how those who’ve poisoned the air and water for profit have always lived far away from the pollution while their workers suffered at the source. These men must have observed what was happening, and had more than a clue about the harm involved. In any case, your excursion into communism and other such things weakens your argument, I think.
My Grandmother on my mothers side was raised in Donora and my Grandfather on her side was raised in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania which was once known as "The Most Radioactive Town in America." Marie Curie even came to do experiments on the soil out there. My Grandfather was known for his vegetable garden due to the extra large vegetables it produced. Everyone thought he had amazing gardening skills, but I think it was most likely the radioactive soil. 😳
Holy crap 😮😅
yeah 😂@@yvonnecortes_
My dad worked in Canonsburg for years and never heard of that. Good thing I never ate the co-workers' tomatoes he'd bring home from work.
It’s a true story about Canonsburg once being the most radioactive town at one point and there is an unusually high cancer rate in the town
Were they huge too@@dougdrazga4461 ? 😅
Pittsburgh native here. Oh yes, the Donora killer smog. My dad told me about this… There was a high school football game happening at the time… I think right around Halloween? Ultimately I don’t think the mills had to pay any restitution to the families... I guess I better watch the video.
I always love how you end your videos with poignant line and the distinct music. Subtle but so effective. Gives me chills everytime.
I live in an ex-steel city that sits on the ocean. I was on a fishing boat about 50 miles off shore and the orange cloud from the mill was still floating along the surface all the way from shore.
Man, I've been here since your first ten videos. You've grown so much! Love your videos for your measured and compassionate content, and for always including how the disaster has changed (or not) laws and outlooks. Yours are always 'must watch' videos!
@martletkay - I completely agree💯
I wholeheartedly agree. I will add that it's also a pleasure to hear someone use proper English, as opposed to so many people today that speak like a child.
Glad to hear that they found work after the mills closed
I live about 1/2 mile from where the mills and plants were. I am amazed to see this incident on this channel!
Black Diamond?
A temperature inversion happened one fourth of July. All of the fireworks smoke got stuck right at ground level and everything looked super spooky. That was a minor annoyance compared to this horrible incident.
I've lived near Donora all my life, and had no idea where the name came from. Thanks! Now I need to look into Nanty Glo.
My grandfather was born and raised in Donora, and I spent a lot of time there as a child. It used to be a very industrial area for sure. Time hasn’t been kind to that area.
I live 20 mins away and work in Charleroi which is only 5-8 mins up the river and this is somehow honestly the first time I've heard about this
I live about 5 miles from Donora. My uncle grew up there, and he was probably around 10 years old when this happened. I might have to ask him about it next time I talk to him.
That incident must have been the inspiration between Stephen King's novella The Mist, which was adapted into a really frightening horror movie!
this mist comes from a government lab experimenting with inter dimensional rifts.. and the threat of the mist is the alien monsters that came through the rift..
oh yea i totally see it! those two stories are identical down to a T!
i thought the same when i saw the title
@@videofrat3115 so youve not seen the film or read the book nor watched this video?
because aside from a mist there is literally no comparison..
you people are the reason people think there is a face on mars made by aliens.. SMH
The novella was excellent, the movie was terrible. I HATED the ending of the movie; it was nothing like what King wrote.
The ending felt like emotional abuse with no payoff.
Everything else though is pretty stellar.
When people ask why we should do what we can to reduce pollution, they should be shown videos like this.
Manufacturing processes make Go Green a scam.
Yeah, so they can reject messages like "we all should do what we can!" and instead take the fight to the industrial polluters dumping poison into the air and water, which were the clear cause of this event. Instead y'all keep trying to just make laws that make life more annoying and expensive for the least powerful, because fighting the oil industry is too hard. Astroturf. Controlled opposition
These days the air pollution can get bad but because it is not visibly bad people don't take it so seriously.
I used to live in central London & the annual limits set by the W.H.O. were exceeded by the end of May.
If you fly into LA you can often see a brown layer of smog above the city.
Back in the early 1990's, maybe late 80's, The Observer newspaper did a piece for the Sunday supplement about the Nowa Huta steelworks, Krakow, Poland (a Soviet copy of Pittsburgh). The air pollution was so bad that dogs never lived much longer than 3 years! The air was a yellowish-brown.
Appropriately, today is ULEZ Extension day.
Yup! Cartoons from that time,and well into the 50s and 60s would make fun of the smog in LA regularly
the WHO? uhuh
yea ever notice they NEVER warn China about air quality or India or Russia?
wonder why that is?
funny too they didnt push COvid crap in those counties either..
wonder why that is?
i mean it COULDNT POSSIBLY BE that the WHO is bought and paid for and says whatever its big donors say to say..
like we all need 47 covid shots a year... that sort of thing..
yea i wouldnt rely on the WHO to give a flying fck about WH
they like all those global organizations only care about wealth and power..
I'm From Uniontown and my mom is From Greensboro and she tells me about this story every time we visit. She said that the fireman went house to house giving each house 15 mins of air. also the football game was against Charleroi which is across the river basically She told me that the football players were fainting from lack of oxygen and the stuff in the air. You did an excellent job covering it adding all the stuff my mom would tell me about it. Another disaster you could cover from this area is the Poland Mines disaster where a truck transporting TNT blew up on route 88 my grandmas house was 2-3 miles away and had all her windows blow out in her house.
I’m from Lahaina, Maui and I can’t watch things like this the same way.
I have friends among the dead and missing and the fact I can’t be there to help them is killing me 🥲
I'm sorry you are going through that, take care.
I can understand your pain. It's similar for people from Caribbean islands who are helpless in the face of cat 5 hurricanes. After that things just hit differently.
My condolences on your loss. I hope there is justice and peace for people from Maui. 🙏🏼
I'm sorry for your loss
Thank you everyone. This is really sanity stealing and I hate everything about it.
But you do find the good people out there when things like this happen ❤️
I’m sorry for your loss. Best wishes to you!
It's INSANELY rare to find a youtube channel that creates compelling content while not whoring themselves out to corporate sponsorship. There are no advertisements added ontop of youtubes ridiculously invasive ad system. I subscribed; and I usually only subscribe to a couple channels a year. Kudos!
The opening of this video had me checking Donora's wiki page; turns out at least three well-known baseball players came from there - Stan Musial (his father Lukasz was a smog victim), Ken Griffey, Sr. and Jr.
One of those who died was the father of MLB Hall of Famer Stan “The Man” Musial, Lukasz.
So much for the old adage,"Money can't buy happiness." I bet the folks in this town would have been thrilled to have had wealth and not been subjected to a livelihood with deadly smog.
you forget the other half of that line
"money cant buy happiness, but it CAN rent it for a lifetime"
im miserable poor
id like to try rich misery just to see if its different
@@ripvanwinkle2002I'm with you. I'd for once like to have the bills paid the pantry & fridge stocked, and a full tank of gas all at once.
My better half and I are professionals, we live frugally, Still, inflation always keeps us a step and a half behind.
@@mbryson2899 Probably one of the largest causes of misery in the US is the wages not keeping up with inflation. It's incredible how people will blame everything else, but not that. Workers in the US just aren't paid enough, period. Compared to other countries they make a killing but the high cost of everything in America cancels out any benefit. Inflation is such a huge problem now meanwhile wages remain mostly stagnant meaning workers are utterly powerless to resist falling into poverty without frequent job-hopping in constant search of higher pay just to keep up.
I'm tired of going to the store and seeing prices going up every single week, little by little adding up to crazy high price increases, while the wages said store pays its workers have only gone up $2 in the last 3 years. If you and your wife are both employed professionals, _and_ living frugally, then inflation shouldn't even be a concern for you. Yet it is, this country is seriously ailing right now.
We had similar Smogs in the UK during the 50's. It's encouraging to see how far we have come, with our understanding and actions taken with the issues of air quality and pollution.
As a side note, in the newspaper front page @7:55, is a small article that states 'Video networks linked Tuesday'. It always is weird to see a 'modern' phrase from over 75 yrs. Peace All
Another fascinating story as always. Love the channel. Now I need a shot of whiskey. Keep up the great work
😂
For medicinal purposes, no doubt! 😁
I live in a valley with a number of oil refineries ( I think one is actually responsible for 15 percent of emissions ) and the air is constantly terrible, especially in winter. It's just terrifying to look into the difference and see the thick dark layer of smog and think "hey, I'm breathing that". I remember this spring I was flying out of state and after takeoff you couldn't really see the city the smog was so bad. It used to be that after it rained or so it would clear out for about a week, now it clears out for less than a day. But hey, at least we get a good sunset out of it!
Been through a thick smog a few yrs ago due to the wildfires. Still had to be out in that stuff due to work and being on transit. I am scared to think about the health implications to come in the future.
One of my favorite channels. Perfect timing.
My parents passing through were trapped there in a small gas station restaurant along with several other travelers. The owner kept the place open all night for them as they waited for the weather to clear. Several people speculated it was from a forest fire in Canada and others claimed it was the end of the world and spent the night in prayer. This is the first historical reference I've seen because I couldn't remember the name of the town. Mom and dad talked about people walking to guide cars along the streets in town. I didn't know so many people were killed.
It's weird what people will acclimate to as 'normal' until something goes wrong.
I used to travel through a town in western MD with a huge paper mill. Tall stacks poured out yellowish smoke, and had signs touting the anti pollution tech of those stacks. But the entire town and valley had a foul acid/vinegar/bleach stench that went right up into the sinuses. If you've ever been near a paper mill, you know the smell, but it wasn't just a smell. You sort of tasted it in your entire head. It was awful, nearly made me nauseous, but we quickly realized that the locals could not smell it al all. Once it somehow blew into the valley where we were camping miles away and settled in for hours, until the winds changed.
I can't imagine it was good for their health.
Same with a paper mill about 40 miles away from Ft Polk, Louisiana. Even that far away we could smell it when the wind was just right, only it had more of a sulphur smell.
Childhood memory unlocked!
Ugh, we lived 45 mins from a big town and could smell the darn paper mills. And we lived on a farm.
Exactly, this happens in many things. They wait for the worse happens, than click
This reminds me of The Great Smog of London in 1952.
That smog went on for 5 days, killing about 11,000 people.
I had no idea that a shot of whiskey is an effective remedy for exposure to toxic pollutants.
Poly com, Elliot, Campi's, Pugi's bakery. This is the only town that had a McDonalds go out of business...I think the uni-mart may still be there.
Not exactly. Staten Island, NY lost one in the eighties. It was busy, but too dangerous. A Burger King and a KFC followed shortly after. A homeless shelter took their place, so everything is wonderful now
UNI MART is still here haha.
I'm local.. I can't speak for how the town was pre smog, but current day, it's not a nice town. The yearly fall festival is nice and really takes advantage of the gorgeous land, but Donora is just run down snd dangerous. It's unfortunate, the land has so much potential.
Damn... even after the Great Smog of London, it's nuts to think that something of a similar scale could happen in a much smaller town.
If you're still taking suggestions as well, might I put forward the Clapham Junction Train Crash (1988), or the Kings Cross Fire (1987)?
The Great Smog of London was after the Donora Smog.
Try the Plainly Difficult channel for thr Clapham Junction crash
@@eveoakley6270 Yup, but it's definitely the more well-known of the two (to the point where it's synonymous with the word "smog"), and more expected in such a big city (and thus, so much coal used for power) compared to a much smaller town. That's what I was getting at!
I feel like he already did Kings Cross fire. I’ve learned more about history from this channel than anything! School history teachers need to use this channel !
he did kings cross already
And now the Donora Smog Museum can add another credit to its website: a segment on Fascinating Horror, one of the classiest documentary series on the web!
I am slightly embarrassed that I didn't know much about this, as it occurred close to my lifetime home of Pittsburgh, PA. Thank you :)
Have a look at the Darr Mine disaster, as well as the Naomi mine disaster.
@@mattcat231 Will do, but later. Thank you!
Due to an unfortunate combination of climate and geography, this happens every winter in the Salt Lake Valley. Fortunately, our city doesn't have this level of industrial pollution, and city programs like "Don't drive days," "No burn days," and government grants for clean furnace upgrades help to keep the atmosphere breathable. Still, we boast the worst air quality in the entire country. People with asthma and other respiratory problems suffer especially because of it.
Thanks for posting this video. It helps to put Salt Lake's troubles into perspective.
I had never head of this. Thank you for sharing!
I grew up in that town my grandfather father when out of WW1 worked at the mill as my father it was a nice place Extremely poor now
OH MY GAWD Donora iterally is like 10miles away 😮😮
Got to love the slogan for the town. That's a very humble sign.
I grew up 10 minutes from Donora. It's wild to see it mentioned in a channel I follow. Unfortunately, there isn't much left to the town these days.
I woke up this morning to a notification for this video and a "red flag fire warning" it's like we haven't learned anything. Either that or those in power are still holding us back.
I remember hearing about this when I lived in Pittsburgh PA! I grew up in Cleveland where my dad worked at US Steel for 30 years. Also he spent a year working at Christy Park in McKeesport.
As always, incredible work. I truly appreciate your covering our tragedies as humans with insight, reverence, and the lessons learned.
no better way to start a tuesday than learning about a tragedy
eating breakfast right now
Yo I hope you have a good day though 😘
🍻
Ditto!
Yep, Donora is a sleepy little town these days.....Steel mills are all shut down and gone......no more air pollution but no more jobs either......Donora was struggling financially for a while there from what I recall, but perhaps has been able to weather the storm and maybe they are not considered a "distressed" community anymore....the vid eludes to some other soft manufacturing or other businesses replacing the mills......and of course, what else does a distressed community do but turn itself into a tourist attraction with a Smog Museum LOL! ....anyway, another great vid and bringing back something that I'm sure many want to forget, but its too important to be forgotten. There are still a few Steel mills in the western PA area that are under very strict pollution controls and even then, there are still violations and they do get fined for illegal emissions from time to time....
I have never heard this story. Very interesting.
Yet another great video! Thank you, sir!
A large company accepting fault for what their choices contributed to and did ? Unlikely 😔
This is a prime example of why some business regulation is imperative. If regulations hadn't been passed these plants would have repeated this disaster denying responsibility everytime.
"Nah mate trust me, the invisible hand of the market will make all of these problems go away! It's like with a housefire - if you do nothing at all, everything will sort itself out in the end!"
- Some Golden Age industrialist
Strongly agree.
@@biggiouschinnus7489If only that type of bullshit had actually stopped in the "Golden Age", then we wouldn't nearly the amount of corporate caused environmental and climate damage that we have today. Today where even now too many people will go out of their way to make excuses for big corporations and decry any regulation as overregulation no matter how short-sighted undoing regulations usually are.
Yes, clearly some industries like this need stringent regulation. But there are some industries that don't need as much regulation, where the market works just fine.
Government regulations haven’t done anything. They never do. Companies respond to market forces and people refuse to do business with those that don’t clean up their practices.
My family is from there. My mother has asthma. Growing up around there, I’d do the run to remember the horrors of the smog and the people harmed from it.
Hopefully it wasn't called 'THE DONORA DEATH RUN' due to its impacts on the cardiovascular and pulmonary health of its participants!!
My family lived on Modisette ave from 1966 to 1970. My father worked in Monesson. I remember being told about this...
I grew up in Pittsburgh and never heard of this. Thanks
Being extremely sensitive to smog I'm soooo not surprised there were deaths. My asthma came late in life. Another gift from the fibromyalgia that just keeps on giving. Thought it was allergies. Nope. Extremely sensitive to bad air. Extremely. My poor dog is stuck inside with me. AQI of 40 or more and I'm in trouble. An N95 mask is always within reach. I never realized lungs could could feel sore like this.
I live about fifteen minutes from Donora. Thanks for covering this. It’s an incredible historical event that deserves more eyes on it.
As soon as I read the title I thought "Let me guess, some awful corporation polluting the people of the town whom all, most likely, work at the mill/factory/plant/foundry causing the pollution?" Let me guess also, without having watched the rest of the vid past the 0:49sec mark...the owners, head company, directors et al got away with less than a slap on the wrist....if they were pushed at all.
My grandpa is from donora. I’m not sure if he was there in 1948 but his family was. I had never heard about this…this was interesting. I haven’t been to donora in about 35 years but maybe the next time I do, I’ll look up that museum…
“The football players couldn’t see the end of the pitch” it’s okay we forgive you 😅
When I was a child in the 50's an American neighbour gave us a 1948 copy of Popular Science along with a bunch of other US magazines. I still remember the headline "Pittsburgh Smog Is Killing You". Donora is 20 miles south of Pittsburgh.
A similar concept happens every winter in the salt lake valley, albeit way more mild. All the refining pollution and cars smog piles up during the winter.
I lived near a paper mill in middle school and the smell always made me concerned about something like this.
Damn, I just moved to an area where I can smell the paper mill ....
I've always heard of the deadly smog in London in the 1950s (although I'd love a comprehensive look at it by you since I know very little). I had no idea the same happened in North America! I can remember visiting New York City in the 1980s and while the air seemed clear, every night, blowing my nose, it came out very black!
I lived in donora for a few years and I currently live 10 minutes away from it and it still feels so weird hearing about it very rarely on CZcams. It’s kind of surreal
I'm so glad to see you were able to dive into this! When we conversed about this via email in 2021, I was worried you wouldn't have enough material to make a whole video on it.
I had never heard the story about the firefighters, that's wild and honestly heartbreaking. "Regulations are written in blood" is a saying here in the US for a reason, and every politician should be forced to watch every single video on your channel.
Thank you again for covering this local event.
Your historical accounts of these tragic events across the planet and during recent centuries, are exceptionally well researched and are excellently narrated and visually presented! Your sensitivity in presenting these human tragedies is also very commendable!
Thank you very much kind sir!
I enjoy your British accent and turn of phrases, especially when they're used to describe North American life. As Canadians, we're more likely to use American terminology even though we've largely retained British spelling and syntax.
Within this short documentary, you use:
"the high street" versus (the North America) 'the main street';
"football pitch" versus 'football field";
"caskets" versus 'coffins';
"steel works" versus 'steel mill';
I should have jotted down them down as there were perhaps a couple of others!
I'm certainly not suggesting changing your speech or approach. I just thought that viewers outside the UK might have noticed and appreciated this diversity of English idiom worldwide 🌐!
Perhaps English usage throughout the former British Empire follows the original traditions. I'd imagine that due to the influence of the cultural elephant next door, that 'Canadian English' is much more Americanized than most!
🇬🇧 🇬🇧 🇺🇸 🌎 🇺🇲 🇨🇦 🍁 🇨🇦 🇺🇸 🌎 🇺🇲 🇬🇧 🇬🇧
Thank you for another good video. I hope some day we can get a twenty minute format from you. Your research is done very well. Love your presentation.
ewww no
i come because it NOT 20-30 mins long
he hits the nascent points, gives the best details, and is done.
i dont need to know the back story and family tree of everyone involved like those other channels
I live up the river from Donora. It's a nice little town. Other than the museum, there are no signs of this ever happening, anywhere in the town.
Another fascinating lesson from history, thankyou.