Donora Smog of 1948
The Donora Smog of 1948 lasted for one day, with the air inversion resulting in a wall of smog that killed 20 people and made over 7,000(half of the towns population) sick. Donora Pennsylvania is a mill town located on the Monongahela River, just twenty-four miles southeast of Pittsburgh. This deadly smog started to build on October 27th, 1948, and the very next day coughing fits and other respiratory began to arise. Sulfur dioxide and hydrogen fluoride emissions from U.S. Steel's Donora Zinc Works and American Steel & Wire plant were frequent occurrences. Along with a temperature inversion, which is when the warmer air above traps the pollution in a layer of colder air near its surface; the pollutants mixed with fog and created a thick, yellowish acrid smog that stayed for five days. In this mix there was sulfuric acid, fluorine, nitrogen dioxide and other poisonous gases ended up being caught. Many of the deaths that occurred were from the victims having asthma. The smog continued to hang over Donora until it rained on the 31st of October, ending the weather pattern.
During the smog local firefighters came to help. Chief John Volk and his assistant Russell Davis of the Donora Fire Department responded to the calls coming in from Friday night until Sunday night, giving all 800 cubic feet of their oxygen to people who needed, plus they borrowed more from McKeesport, Monessen and Charleroi. The eight doctors in Donora made house calls as well, and mid-day one day Mrs. Cora Vernon, who was the executive director for the American Red Cross, had set up calls that went to the doctors offices to the town hall; which had been turned into the emergency center at the time. All driving was almost abandoned, but there was some people that did. Russell Davis said "I drove on the left side of the street with my head out the window. Steering by scraping the curb."
That Sunday, the 31st, a meeting was held between the town officials and operators of the plants. They had asked that they shut the plants down, and the operators had told them that the plants had begun to shut down at six that same morning. The next day the plants had started up again, but if they hadn't shut down in the first place thousands more residents could've died if the smog lasted any longer, and already nearly 800 animals had died. There was lawsuits, loads of them, against U.S. Steel, and settlements weren't settled until 1951. From all the lawsuits a grand total of $235,000 was given to each of the 80 victims that were part of it equally, but when all the bills were paid, they barely had anything left. When American Steel and Wire settled for $4.6 million, 130 damage charges were claimed at five percent of what was asked for. "All of the smog coming from the homes, railroads, steamboats and exhaust from automobiles, plus the effluents from plants." By 1966 both of the U.S. Steel plants were closed.
By 1949 all residential property had dropped by ten percent, and this incident helped to start the clean air movement in the U.S. The Clean Air Act of 1970, was required by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. They developed and enforced regulations to protect the general public from exposure from the hazardous airborne contaminants. In 1998 a historical marker was placed to mark the 50th anniversary.
Ten years after the Donora Smog of 1948 the mortality rates were still sufficiently higher than the towns around it. Then sixty years after the Smog, it was said to be "one of the worst air pollution in the nation's history."
During the smog local firefighters came to help. Chief John Volk and his assistant Russell Davis of the Donora Fire Department responded to the calls coming in from Friday night until Sunday night, giving all 800 cubic feet of their oxygen to people who needed, plus they borrowed more from McKeesport, Monessen and Charleroi. The eight doctors in Donora made house calls as well, and mid-day one day Mrs. Cora Vernon, who was the executive director for the American Red Cross, had set up calls that went to the doctors offices to the town hall; which had been turned into the emergency center at the time. All driving was almost abandoned, but there was some people that did. Russell Davis said "I drove on the left side of the street with my head out the window. Steering by scraping the curb."
That Sunday, the 31st, a meeting was held between the town officials and operators of the plants. They had asked that they shut the plants down, and the operators had told them that the plants had begun to shut down at six that same morning. The next day the plants had started up again, but if they hadn't shut down in the first place thousands more residents could've died if the smog lasted any longer, and already nearly 800 animals had died. There was lawsuits, loads of them, against U.S. Steel, and settlements weren't settled until 1951. From all the lawsuits a grand total of $235,000 was given to each of the 80 victims that were part of it equally, but when all the bills were paid, they barely had anything left. When American Steel and Wire settled for $4.6 million, 130 damage charges were claimed at five percent of what was asked for. "All of the smog coming from the homes, railroads, steamboats and exhaust from automobiles, plus the effluents from plants." By 1966 both of the U.S. Steel plants were closed.
By 1949 all residential property had dropped by ten percent, and this incident helped to start the clean air movement in the U.S. The Clean Air Act of 1970, was required by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. They developed and enforced regulations to protect the general public from exposure from the hazardous airborne contaminants. In 1998 a historical marker was placed to mark the 50th anniversary.
Ten years after the Donora Smog of 1948 the mortality rates were still sufficiently higher than the towns around it. Then sixty years after the Smog, it was said to be "one of the worst air pollution in the nation's history."