A Brief History of: The Knox Coal Mine Collapse and Flood 1959
Vložit
- čas přidán 25. 06. 2024
- #disaster #mine #coal
The Knox Mine Collapse and disaster was a mining accident on January 22, 1959, at the River Slope Mine in Jenkins Township, Pennsylvania.
Disaster would result in an accidental breach into the Susquehanna River above it flooding the mines, resulting in the death of multiple workers.
It would single handedly end anthracite mining in the region.
Want to become a channel member? / @plainlydifficult
Paypal Donate Link: www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr...
Help the Channel Grow Like, Comment & Subscribe!
Subscribe Here: czcams.com/channels/b0M.html...
Equipment used in this video:
Rode NTG3, Audient ID4, MacBook Pro 16, Hitfilm, Logic X
Check out My Twitter:
/ plainly_d
Check out these other great channels:
/ dominotitanic20
/ cynicalc. .
/ jabzyjoe
/ @qxir
Sources:
usminedisasters.miningquiz.co...
nanticokehistoryonline.org/sit...
www.mhti.org/uploads/2/3/6/6/...
By Vasiliy Meshko - Own work, CC BY 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
By Stanlich - Family Photograph, CC BY 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
Want me to cover more
Mine disasters let me know in the comments!
Check me out on Twitter twitter.com/Plainly_D
Fancy some of my merch?
teespring.com/en-GB/stores/plainly-difficult
Fancy supporting me on patreon?
www.patreon.com/Plainlydifficult
Yes, please!
Honestly would really love to see a detailed video on the hillcrest mining accident from 1914 in Alberta , Canada.
Check out the Lake Peigneur drilling and mining disaster, where a whole lake and canal drained into a salt mine due to a oil drilling rig in the wrong place. I think it would make an amazing episode.
@@bartfoster1311 I think he did it already
So many coal mine disasters in the UK alone, would keep you busy for a while!
"Never dig straight up, or straight down".
If only they had played more minecraft back then ;P
Yeah, if you dig straight down you'll fall through the bottom of the flat erff.
@@dsandoval9396 no, you'll get to the turtle shell
get it right!
if you want to dig straight down, stand in the middle of 2 blocks, its fool proof.
Also never dig too close to the surface in a river or ocean biome. ;-)
What a surprise. No one was found guilty or served timed for the deaths of the miners, but a few served time for tax evasion. Gotta love the American justice system.
While some kid caught with less than an ounce of pot gets thrown into jail for 5 years.
We have a two tiered legal system.
One for the peasants to extract resources and keep them in check.
One for the elites when they step out of line and cross the overlords..
@@electriceyeswatching4415 The only people who get justice in this country are the rich, because they can afford to hire good lawyers to get them off.
@@dx1450
Not true if the rich have the wrong opinions they will be put against the wall just the same.
And the peasants who are useful idiots for the tyrants will find a revolving door.
I believe most of them were able to get a change of venue which gave favorable outcomes.
What corruption causing a disaster NEVER. Oh wait its almost every time.
Corruption always wins!
one of the most annoying things in this planet.
Paying extra for disposal?, Nah. Loosing profit by following safety regulations?, Nah.
Being corrupt, Paying as little as you can?, YES!.
What about the demands of the masses?
@@PlainlyDifficult except in Zelda games
"River slope" mine, what could go wrong?
Yeah, that definitely sounded like foreshadowing in the video. That was some HEAVY foreshadowing.
Hmmm. Rivers, slopes, and mines. Three things I avoid separately, much less all of them poured in a bottle and shaken.
The entire valley is undermined, u see the river, homes, schools, hospitals, etc. As is much of the anthracite region and the bituminous fields of western PA
Check out the Lake Peigneur mine flood.
lol good ole capitalism
“Uh just throw some trains in it and hope the government doesn’t notice” - someone, apparently
Yeah, what was the logic with doing that? "Yeah, let's throw some rail car loads of dirt and rock into the hole... and if that doesn't work, through the rail cars in too."
Cars. A train is a locomotive upfront.c
Even on the logic that they needed to throw in something to plug up the hole, trains are not known to be good at blocking water.
“We’ve got no choice left. Throw the trains in!”
@@alex_zetsu What do you mean? I've been using a train as a sink stopper for the past 23 years.
I met a man who’s father died in this disaster, he was 12 when it happened and went to the railroad by the river to watch them dump the railroad cars into the hole. The really sad thing is the guy went down the mine to fix a minor electrical fault, nothing serious, and just as he was about to make his decent down the shaft, he saw one of his friends and they decided to tag along with him down the mine… tragic
His name was Benjamin Boyer, and those bastards spelled his name wrong on the memorial too.
"The mine was located under the Susquehanna river..." I think we know where this is going.
And yet somehow the miners didn't.
@@johnladuke6475 the miners probably knew it was getting risky, but (from what i heard from the old timers) if there was one person they trusted less than the company bosses, it was the safety inspectors. So when OSHA or a mine inspector or whatever said something wadn't safe, the workers were -more- likely to go along with the bosses. Its just the culture that was around then.
I love the way he pronounces "Susquehanna". Sus-key-hanna
@@ericsmith8373 Aye... Foreigners always struggle with those Indian names...
In the UK there are many mines that go under the sea, in particular copper and tin mines in Cornwall, the potash mine at Boulby in North Yorkshire, and several coal mines in the north of England.
Id love to see a video on that old salt mine that sprung a "leak" and created a crazy whirlpool and sucked everything down into what was once the mine. I wanna say it was in Louisiana. A guy and his son/grandson were fishing and barely escaped. Once the mine was filled, the small boats and crafts it had consumed popped out like a cork. I think an oil company had triangulated incorrectly and drilled into the mine, which caused all the hoopla. I wanna say I say it on an old "Seconds To Disaster" or Modern Marvels' engineering disasters
This pretty much has to be Lake Peigneur. And while the salt mine was old, it was still operating at the time. Fortunately, all the miners made it out.
There are several videos about it out on youtube already. czcams.com/video/2-N2TrcxkOA/video.html
wtyp podcast has a pretty great episode on this, lake peignoir, it'd definitely be cool to see pd's take.
@@tz8785 Thats it. I always wanna say Lake Pontchartrain but I know thats not it. Yup, it was a salt dome. Watchin that vid now.
It was featured on a show about sinkholes on UK tv - fascinating.xx
Yep, Lake Peigneur. It was a freshwater lake at the beginning of the day, and became a saltwater lake by the time it plugged up.
Criminal negligence, resulting in deaths: nah, you are fine.
Tax evasion: PUNY MORTAL, YOU SHALL PAY FOR YOUR TRECHERY!
All people care about is fucking money. As shown when you can butcher loads of people like animals and walk away whistling without a thing happening. But lord fucking help you if you fuck with an 'important' someone's money.
I mean, it was the same thing with Al Capone. He was the most notorious gangster ever: dealing tons of alcohol to speakeasies during Prohibition, murdering those who did him wrong, taking walks in the middle of the street, and many other things leading to a rep sheet several miles long. Despite all of those crimes, the only thing the CIA could nab him for was tax evasion because he covered his tracks so dang well, save for the ones leading to the IRS.
You don't mess with the IRS.
@@SupersuMC The CIA didn't exist until about 20 years later, and is breaking the law if it operates inside the US. It was IRS agents working with the FBI that were after Capone - basically what would eventually become the ATF.
Never fuck with the IRS
@@masonmunkey6136 The IRS is peanuts compared to local taxing entities like the state comptroller or the county/city tax assessor. You can go for years or even decades without filing a federal income tax statement with the IRS. I know quite a few people that don't file regular tax returns with the IRS with no repercussions at all.
The state comptroller and the local tax assessor are a completely different story. You miss one payment and expect massive fines, interest on the fines, compound interest on the interest and fines, fees and more fines. If you don't pay those, they'll come and take whatever property is deemed of equivalent value to what they say you owe and you have no say in it. They have armies of lawyers and will crush you in a quagmire of suffering. I've seen what happens when you get cross with the comptroller and local taxing authority, it's not pretty.
History may not always repeat itself, but it sure Rhymes a lot.
_Thanks for bringing history back to people's memories, dare we forget lessons learned from man's ever-growing collection of plainly difficult fails._
Just ask George Lucas
Having grown up in Pennsylvania I appreciate the effort to pronounce our weird words correctly. We have a couple dozen town and river names that are tough on non PA people. Sadly, if you ever hear Pennsylvania in the news it is usually followed by corruption. Once corruption is discovered an official investigation board is formed. A month later another board is formed to investigate the first corrupted board. I blame it Punxsutawney Phil. Love your videos. Keep doing what you're doing.
I was told a story by an old-timer during the brief time I lived in Pennsylvania. He said that his father was part of a coal mining crew that suffered for some time a belligerent mine foreman/manager. Fed up with the lack of safety concerns by the foreman, and, after the foreman had gone too far with something insulting said towards the miners and safety, the miners took action.
The next morning the foreman came to work to find his entire office had been moved to the bottom of the mine; Right next to the elevator shaft. During the night, the miners had disassembled the foreman's trailer office and reassembled it at the bottom of the mine--working phone and all. Ownership could do nothing, as they counted their blessings that moving the office was the worst that had transpired, so far. A strike, sabotage, or worse might be next. So the foreman went down every morning with the miners, and came back up at the end of the day. Needless to say, the foreman's attitudes and practices towards safety much improved, as did communication between management and the miners.
The office stayed "down hole" for years, until a new owner brought in a new trailer for their foreman.
That honestly the most justified assholery I’ve ever heard. I bet that foreman was far more open to hearing about safety concerns from the miners
This is one of those few times in history where 18" was FAR from enough 😂
Wow!
Talk about seeing things from their point of view!😂
I can remember, as a kid in the 80's, watching the burning mines over the hills in Western PA...
In Centralia?
The Centralia mine fire is still burning to this day.
@@MAOofDC they say it’ll keep burning for another 350 years.
@@SQUAREHEADSAM1912 South of Pittsburgh. Centralia was the most spectacular, but mine fires are not uncommon throughout PA.
Alot went wrong in the 80s.
* throws everything under the sun into the hole * - "the bodies were never found"
Yeah it’s a mystery and a shame
They're in the hole
And what about the evidence of ineptitude and corruption?
In the hole.
The victims' identities?
Hole people.
@@anoninunen *Bwaaaam*
@@anoninunen I'm more worried about the space octopus...
@@Bonderoev “The what?”
theirs some thing missing in this video .......the patented plainly difficult scale 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. and the hand pointer hand thingy 👉 very interesting disaster and never heard of before
My bad :(
@@PlainlyDifficult lol your excused
And the "about here" on the Google Earth feed, North American scale. Those are sometimes the greatest moments on CZcams.
and the russian guys =(
Dodgy lab coat guy, too.
I can just imagine one of the managers saying this;
"Huh, I wonder if that's why they said not to dig past those lines they drew?"
More likely they all just cursed at the river for ruining their profit.
They would have acted surprised and pretended that they told them not to dig past it.
Business suits are to morality as Faraday cages are to electricity.
They say, "My conscience is clean, I never use it."
That's because the only bones who make the news are the bad ones. Also because Hollywood always makes comp0any executives the villains. 99% of those people are hardworking people who try to do the right things. My boss had the attitude that his job was to make sure the employees got paid and had continued employment. Of course in order for this to happen - the company had to be in the black.
Don't let the Hollywood BS decide for you what kind of people they are.
@@colincampbell767 Oh, I get it. There are a few bad apples. Where have I heard that before?
@@colincampbell767 I spent my whole career in corporate america. In I.T. where I was exposed to all the communications between the suites.
Most of them are terrible people. Unless you view vanity, ego, and greed as positive attributes.
The things they say about employees are despicable.
I've seen managers get employee's "resigned" simply because they didn't like the same sports teams.
"resigned" is what they call making an employees life hell so he'll quit. Avoiding firing them so the company doesn't have to contribute to unemployment insurance.
There were a few who were very decent, but the majority, not so much.
Employees in most companies I was in rarely advanced on merit, it boiled down to who you know or who you blow.
@@loughkb Then you were in a really crappy company. The corporate culture needed to be changed. Of course failure to promote on merit will eventually doom a company.
The corruption must have been next level seeing how they went above and beyond to seal up the hole.
They tried hard to seal it because the whole valley is interconnected through one way or a thousand. Idle mines still ran pumps to keep the water level manageable, when Knox broke through, pumps could not keep up, flooding neighboring mines and eventually working through a good part of the valley.
northeast pa has a long and storied history of corruption.
I live in the Wyoming Valley. The entire valley is undercut by mines. We have an air shaft in my back yard actually. If they didn't seal it fast, the damage could have been catastrophic. We already have mine subsidences constantly as is.
@@bigb9272 i came to say this lol. Whoo nepa
It's sad how corrupt the mining industry was (and still is). It's got to be one of the most dangerous jobs and the miners are treated so poorly.
True. Google Twin Shaft disaster, was about 2 miles upstream from this.....58 men entombed, they knew it'd happen too. 1898 I believe..
Apparently their union was corrupt, too. I was always told unions were there to protect workers... Oh, wait, no I wasn't because I'm from NH.
@@judeodomhnaill9711 yes or Avondale.
I'm a coal miner of 11 years and you couldn't be more right and it is only getting worse ever since Obama was sworn in to office.
@@Tiny_Boats_And_Bikes mining companies couldn't convince their workers that water is wet. Most consider anything said by a mine boss bullshot until proven otherwise.
It's mostly environmental regulations that cause friction in the US I believe.
I find it really interesting to learn about mine disasters, especially here in the US, because I get to learn a little bit about how said mines operate, where we get our resources, and how we can improve current mine setups. Excellent work, and keep em comin!
Simple suggestion for improvement: Do not dig under a river bed and then mine upwards.
@@johnladuke6475 These rules are always written in blood
So this is what my dad was talking about when he said the school of hard knox
😂😂
Your name just made the list.
That's it. Take your 👍 and go elsewhere.
I live on the susquehanna. Literally right at the edge. This makes me so happy to see PD, Thank you. Now i know why that dam was put in, neat!
Hello from a born-and-raised in Bloomsburg expatriate temporarily existing in Michigan. Small world.
I was raised in the house that our local mine manager lived in - my dad got it cheap when the mine closed (too expensive to compensate home owners that suffered subsidence despite massive reserves of quality coal).
Not a disaster like a shaft failure - but I remember that some of the kids at school were VERY poor - closing the mine knocked the wind out of the local economy and it took about twenty years to recover.
Although nobody died from the mine closure I have a different perspective from most people - all of these disasters result in dire consequences for the local community - a lot of people get trapped in unsaleable houses, shops close, crime rises (and I get moved into the big house, making me a target at school).
I didn't realise how bad it was until we moved away - if you live somewhere squalid you don't really notice it while you're there, especially as a young child.
That makes criminal negligence that much worse... mining companies doing the wrong thing and having to close affects all those people, so why does anyone think they can run their business terribly.
I actually live directly next to where this happened in Wilkes Barre PA. It’s pretty scary because there’s mine shafts underneath basically all of our houses but they’re completely filled with water because of the mine disaster. There’s a plaque right where they ran all of the trains into the water to plug the hole.
Corporations as they are designed to operate, "work" is too good a word for them.
Privatize most of the gains and get subsidizes for most of the positive externalities, socialize most of the losses and the negative externalities (i.e., be a parasite and get rewarded for it).
@@NathanDudani "but... but... but muh prawfit motive!!!😢"
-Basically anyone involved with Stateside "education" on any Level and/or from any direction
I've lived in Wilkes-Barre pennsylvania my whole life, and remember learning about this in elementary and high school
As someone who also lives in Wilkes-Barre I can safely say our area is no stranger to disasters lol
I remember it by watching it. The whirlpool was mind blowing.
Bloomsburg native checking in to the "This is local history to us." crowd. Temporarily existing over in Michigan right now but can't wait to return at the earliest opportunity.
Slight correction: at 0:40 you say "northwestern Pennsylvania", when I think you meant northeastern. Northwestern Penna. is more about oil drilling history (look up Drake's Well) than coal. And then there is steel in various parts of the state as well as railroads... For a state that is mostly trees when seen from space, it sure has a huge industrial history.
Anthracite Northeast, Middle and Western part Bituminous Coal.
@@recoveryrider6183 I think Europeans don't realize how huge some of these states are......as big as many European countries or close. Pennsylvania is about 300 miles wide, about the same as the UK (which is only 600 miles at it's longest)
@@ian3580 When I lived in Germany, not a few times I heard a German or European speak of driving across the States stopping to see many of the cities and sights in just a few days. I got a sense that many of them had confabulated the time and distance of going from the middle of Germany to, say, Paris, with going from New York to Chicago, etc. They just had no clue.
It was the opposite for we Americans. We could not believe how close everything really was in Europe. We had confabulated the typical distance between cities and sights in the states with those of Europe. _"Paris or Amsterdam in 5 hours or less?! Vienna, not much more. Rome, London, or Madrid in a day?! Wow!"_
I remember a German couple coming back from a trip to Utah. They had planned to visit Utah's Canyon Lands, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco in 10 or so days. All they got to see was Bryce Canyon, the Grand Canyon, and a quick look at Vegas before their flight out. They were absolutely gobsmacked as to the size and distances of everything.
I remember them commenting on how they came to realize the vastness of the states. It was when they wanted to take a "day trip" up to Yellowstone, but found that it was around 300 miles each way from Southwest Utah. _"So far. Everything is so far."_
They understood then why I did not hold that driving to Paris from Frankfurt was a bonafide roadtrip.
@@k.chriscaldwell4141 You’re right. I’ve driven all 48 Continental States and this country is huge beyond anything I saw in Western Europe. I flew in a small plane and helicopters in Africa and that was also mind boggling just how huge that Continent is. Beautiful too.
@@recoveryrider6183 central, not middle
Ohhh, Northeastern PA could provide a year of content for the channel for sure... I was born and raised in Columbia county and you've done very well with your presentations, (Knox disaster + Centralia Fire.) Starr Tire Fire/superfund site might be worth having a butchers for potential episode content, just off the top of my head. I'll shout you a beer and pronounce Susquehanna the "correct"( Northeastern/Central PA resident "correct") way. (You're closer than how the average american attempts to pronounce it, good on yer!)
Don't forget the Mollies.
Never been this early, crazy
You’ve done well!
I used to live in Wyoming county. The memorial site was a small walk from my grandmother's house and I used to cross the Susquehanna river nearly everyday. In one of the photos I believe you showed the 8th street bridge, which also collapsed during deconstruction as a result of super storm sandy. Thank you for the video you're bringing back memories of my childhood.
I grew up in western Pennsylvania and I knew about Centralia, but I had not learned about the Knox disaster. Thanks for the lesson.
Practically any 12-year-old today could've seen this result coming.
We're I work, we are under a lake and everything is just fine here. Benn here since the 60s
They knew it could happen as well you smug weirdo. $ makes people cut corners or ignore common sense. 12 year olds don’t get paid to dig mines. You might botch it yourself if circumstances arose. Pud.
"The Hoyt shaft at 528 feet, the Schooly shaft at 579 feet, and the Eagle shaft at 60 feet..."
My ears are already popping...😬
There’s a mine near me, that goes 3,600 feet underground. 500 feet is considered a small mine.
@@SQUAREHEADSAM1912Yikes!! I think I'll stay above ground please. ⛏
500-600 feet is nothing lol. If you want a real deep mine, there are ones in South Africa that go down over 12.8K feet
@@epicspacetroll1399 the empire mine, in California goes down 11,000 feet and has 110 different floor levels.
The Bingham Canyon mine is 1,200 m (4000ft) deep - and it’s an open cut.
Born and raised one mile away. My great grandfather and his brother were killed in a mine explosion in the area in 1919
I just moved to Lackawanna County, just a few miles from this. Thanks for teaching me my new local history!
What, no disaster scale?
My bad!
dammnnnn
@@PlainlyDifficult your mistake ranks extremely low on your disaster scale, keep up the good work
@@PlainlyDifficult By the way, if you haven't done so already, please do a video on the West 7th Street, Fort Worth tornado. One of the barbers at the local barber shop (appropriately named the West 7th Street Barber shop) was in it when it collapsed on him, and he survived and recovered. (He recently retired, but that's beside the point.) When it reopened at a temporary location, the line of men with long hair and beards stretched around the block.
The area used to be the warehouse district, but after the tornado demolished them it has been revitalized as a big part of the shopping and night life in the city. The barber shop is back in its old location as part of a parking garage and business complex, with a salon next door for the ladies.
The tornado may have been an immediate hit on the economy of the city, but it had cleared the way for better use of the downtown area. (Besides, who wants warehouses in the middle of town, anyway? ;-))
I love the way he pronounced Susquehanna. Although it’s pronounced wrongly I won’t judge since you’re not a Pennsylvanian native.
Also God bless Pennsylvania, the best state in the Union.
Having grown up in Rio Grande near Gallipolis, OH, I wonder how you lot mispronounce shit.
I'm so glad we're getting a range of topics lately from you! Excellent work, as always ❤️🤘
My sister lives in that county. A friend was downstairs doing her laundry when she heard a loud boom. She tuned around and thank God didn’t move. A giant subsidence hole had opened up behind her.
I was 9 years old and lived in Wilkes-Barre at that time. I remember watching this on the news.
Living in north eastern pennsylvania and only 20 minutes away from the knox mine disaster sight (you said north western pa not trying to be rude just pointing it out) you covered this well and i would love to see more videos on anthracite mine disasters
I live less than two hours from this. I also used to work for a company headquartered near there. Never heard of this. Thanks for the video.
I took my kids through the Lackawanna Coal Mine Tour today. This was mentioned on the tour. Thanks for the great video!
Heading to bed, tired, 130am
* Plainly Difficult uploads *
Aight. Imma head back out... To the lounge to watch
Love ya work, John :)
@Hawt Ballz perfection in timing!
Good morning!
@@PlainlyDifficult great video as always, John! Now I can sleep with the echo of your outro music :)
“HEY GUYS WE ARE RIGHT UNDER A RIVER!” “Uh ok, let’s just try to not flood the place-“ “TIME TO DIG UP TO THE RIVER!”
"...but, but, the sweet sweet coal!"
Thanks Plainly! It was a welcome surprise to see my family's home-county featured in one of your videos!
Another excellent video. I grew up in that region. On the mountain behind my childhood home you could see massive sinkholes from where they finished mining underground and pulled the support timber to allow that section to collapse. In fact, there is still a working mine on that mountain in full operation.
Hello again
Hello
👋
Very good video, thanks for posting. Just for the sake of information, in the states it's pronounced, Sus-kwuh-hanna, but I'm not from the region and don't actually know which is the correct pronunciation.
Im very excited for these mining disaster videos. My great grandfather died in a mining accident in Harlan County Kentucky in 1947
They are fascinating, especially for a Londoner as mining isn't a big employer in the London economy!
My brother and myself visited the area a few years back and it was impressive. The lifestyle they live in Appalachia is far different then anywhere else in the states. The mountains were literally black with coal and had great big conveyors running from them.
And also.. we couldn't get beer because it was a dry county...
I live here...all my life. My ancestors were part of this disaster among more in the area. Thank you for covering it.
I grew up in western PA and we used to take field trips to retired coal mines. It's quite a site to see.
"BOSS...BOSS!! Since when did we allow fish in the mine?" "BOSS?!..oh bollox."
It's northeastern Pennsylvania, not northwestern. Bonus tip- if you want to see the effects of mining in PA, Google Earth the town of Duryea. The Lackawanna River goes from clear to suddenly orange.
We had a copper mine not far from my home town that got flooded way back in the 30ies or maybe 50ies, now i know only the story from what my grandfather told me of the incident . Tiny strip mine in a silt/sand layer on the side of a rock face. There were shafts going in the rock face when they hit the vein, it was around 200ish meters in diameter, was not the biggest business nor a huge vein but enough for a local company to make a pretty penny. However, one day, they hit an underground river passing through a soft layer and the whole lower mine got completely flooded in less than a day. They were very lucky that everyone made it out alive but most of the gear stayed at the bottom of the lake. Over the years the mine pretty much filled completely and i have always known the place as Green lake since the copper and sulfur tinted the water a pale green. Funniest part of this is it became quite popular because people would let their pet goldfishes free in the lake once they... didn't love them anymore i guess? And i remember fishing an almost 50cm long goldfish/koi out of the lake when i was a kid.
There was something similar to this that happend in Louisiana. It was mining a salt dome somewhere in South Louisiana and it caused the whole salt dome to become flooded. I'd be interested in you covering that one as it's really not that well known. I can't remember if it was a lake, river, or swamp that collapsed into the mine. I know it was fairly recent, like 1990s to 2000s and they have video of the whirlpool.
Lake Peigneur.
Reminds me of the Lake Peigneur disaster, which is just insane. You should cover that one...
Well done, once again John. Cheers!
We’re all sorts of messed up here in PA. We got eternal fires that can’t be extinguished, mining disasters, the Johnstown Flood, knives, sharp sticks...
Starr Tire Pile/Fire/Superfund...
And trying to stop a fire with a nuclear bomb.
You can tour the mine by where this happened.
Sounds similar to the “old Mohawk mine” collapse in the same year.
Well made video with clear explanations of the area, and the conditions which resulted in the disaster. Thank you for your work.
For years, residents of the Wyoming Valley used the flooded mine shafts as their sewage system I lived in Dupont, Pa. and every home had a bore hole drilled down to a mine shaft, which they attached to their waste water lines. This went on for years until an auto repair shop dumped cyanide - a byproduct of the business - down his bore hole. The raw sewage emptied into the Susquehnna in Pittston. When the cyanide ended up in the river, suddenly there were thousands of dead carp floating on the surface, which drew the notice of environmental officials and eventually made this bore hole sewage system illegal. All of the bore holes - thousands and thousands - had to be sealed shut and residents had to eat the cost of sewage systems being hastily built to accommodate the homes and businesses which had used the bore hole system.
I live 3 minutes from this disaster. There have been so many coal mine related accidents within 5 miles of here. Unreal how much greed and disregard for han life went on underground. I've learned a ton researching a lot of the incidents and accidents that have happened and it's sad to see all of the lives spent on a resource we'll never get back and money that is long spent. Now left with unstable ground, polluted waters and culm banks higher than buildings that take up acres of land. Sorry for rambling.
Notification gang represent.
🤛🏻👌🤏🏾🤌🖖🏻🤙🏻SE side
@@PlainlyDifficult 😂
Always a great production thank you
Much appreciated!
These videos are so interesting. You go into such great detail about how these events went wrong and could have been avoided. I'd love to see you do a video on the Aberfan disaster from 1966.
so this is what the comment section is like 8 minutes after upload
It’s a strange place
Yeah
@@PlainlyDifficult yes that it really is
I love these videos, but the mispronunciation of Susquehanna hurts me.
My bad!
@@PlainlyDifficult it's okay! It's not an English word and comes from the local tribes that were here. In case you need ever do a video about the area again it's pronounced Sus-kwa-hanna!
@@PlainlyDifficult no problem, it's an obscure tribe, and unfortunately to the best of my knowledge the susquehannock tribe no longer exists due to colonial genocide.
@@PlainlyDifficult It wasn't that bad. I mispronounce places in England.
And the native name for the Delaware River is the Lenapi-hanna.
My compliments on Pennsylvania Pronunciations! I can attest, I crossed the River daily. Thanks for the history !
19 inches of soil won't hold back an entire river? Who woulda thunk it?!
Honestly I'm shocked, I was expecting they were all going to get their coal just fine and the disaster would be that lunch was cold that day.
Plenty of small mountains of mining waste lining waterways all across the state to this day.
What? Union bosses and government regulators being corrupt? Nooo, that neeeever happens.
Hi Plainy_D I'm a long time watcher of your channel. I love it! Thank you so much.
Wow! Your research and story combine to create excellent video essays! Thanks for this!!
"Don't dig up while mining under a river" thought it was a minecraft video, then I saw who posted it.
You should do a video on the Johnstown flood of 1889!
You do great work John, I love the channel. Very informative and well made videos.
Always nice to see "local" history on the channel
Best wheeling territory in the anthracite vally love taking the jeeps out there
I can imagine!
@@PlainlyDifficult there are 3 parks in that are all old strip mines
And no justice was served. Typical.
A few deaths is no big deal. But not paying your taxes? Yeah definitely deserves some time behind bars.
Love all your videos great work man
Thank you!
Last time I was this early I saw my dad leaving to get milk
mine left for cigarettes
Wondering if you could cover the Great Fire of 1910 in the northwest US
Cool seeing a video about my hometown!
i went to college in that area. no one, and i mean NO ONE of the local students had heard of this disaster. it just wasn't talked about. everybody knew that the area was founded and lived on coal mining for a century, but no one ever thought to ask why it ended.
You should do a story about how the Eagle Shaft miners escaped.
The hero of that lived in my immediate neighborhood. What a legend.
It's always the tax evasion that gets 'em.
Lol
Everything is cool until the government doesn't get its cut. Then the heads start rolling.
@@Amehdion tax evasion is what they charge you with when you hid your crimes too well to convict of anything else. They got al capone on tax evasion.
sidenote; I find it interesting! I live near the Susquehanna (I'm in upstate new york) and when I dig for things, I often find coal. My family and I joke that we're sitting ontop of a mine. Now we know!
I grew up in the Wyoming Valley, and my ancestors worked in the coal mines in the area. This disaster happened when my mother was a young girl . Her great uncle John, a coal miner who would also lose a brother in another mine colapse,, took her to watch the dumping of the train cars into the hole to try stop the influx of water into the mine. She said it was unbelievable.
10:23 “odds and sods”. This will probably be the most British thing I hear today.
And today it's tally ho, pip-pip and Bob's your uncle.
Never heard Susquehanna pronounced that way. Must add a tick to my list!
I never get tired of hearing people from outside the area, try to pronounce "Susquehanna". Great video!
I'm from Luzerne County. Our last breaker in the area was demolished around 10 years ago because a local high school student went exploring and fell through 9 floors. It was a cool structure
With
L names like Jenkins and Griffiths, you can tell where the big coal mining money came from in the area (they're Welsh names)
Original miners were the Welsh immigrants, former tin miners and Welsh anthracite. Not known for their compassion to be honest, that old school Protestant work ethic. Lots of religious strife here back then. Was like the North Ireland Troubles on crack and meth. Heh.
That's why there are so many Swanseas and Bangors etc around the southern part of the north east (Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, etc)
Death Underground would make a cool grunge band name
Not cool to see though. My buddy got caved in on and I had to dig out his lifeless body along side his twin brother.
@@tonysloan7043 bro like im really sorry to hear that but why you gota drop that on me like I was trying to insult you on purpose
Great, thanks John 👍
Another great video!👍♥️ Most of that area in PA is still sinking into the ground because of past mining.