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!
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.
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.
Those who serve the public, like fireman, police, emt's, do sacrifice of themselves to help others. I have seen that many times in the past. I have a lot of respect for such individuals.
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.
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.
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.
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
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)
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.
@@Tindometari a significant contribution was made by a small number of large coal-fired power stations e.g. Fulham, Battersea, Greenwich, and Bankside.
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.
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.
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. …..
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.
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
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.
@@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!
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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
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”
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. :-)
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!
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.
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.
@@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.
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.
@@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.
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.
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
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!
@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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Thank you for doing these videos. It helps ensure the efforts people did to survive and then efforts to see others not suffering aren't forgotten nor so wrecklessly rolled back
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.
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.
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!
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.
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 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 RU-vid 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 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😡😱💪👍
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! 🇬🇧 🇬🇧 🇺🇸 🌎 🇺🇲 🇨🇦 🍁 🇨🇦 🇺🇸 🌎 🇺🇲 🇬🇧 🇬🇧
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. 😳
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
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.
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.
I really love your videos and you’re one of my favorite contact creators on RU-vid. I appreciate the history you bring to light and I really appreciate your storytelling and I think the length of your videos are absolutely perfect. I’m really sorry about all of your recent RU-vid drama and just know there are those of us who are willing to wait as long as it takes for it to be set straight. I hope your channel gets to stick around. If not me, and I’m sure many others would be happy to follow you to whatever new channel you create. Please keep us posted and I wish you all the best and I’m so sorry for the dumb unnecessary drama you’re going through with RU-vid.
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!
@@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
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.
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....
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.
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 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.
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)?
@@1961-v9k 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 !
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 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. 🙏🏼
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 ❤️
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.
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.
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.
i've watched a few of your videos. your series is an excellent historical chronicle of things that happened that i would otherwise never have heard or known about, the narration is clear and interesting. i look forward to watching more of your videos.
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.
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.
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
@@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.
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.
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'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.
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…
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.
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 RU-vid. It’s kind of surreal
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!
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
"Private investigators working on behalf of the town found themselves asked to leave... allegedly at gunpoint." Yep nothing suspicious going here, nothing at all. _God that is almost cartoonishly evil._
That's how things actually were in the industrial world back then...Ford Motor Company was FAMOUS for threatening, and in a few instances actually shooting and killing people involved in union activities, and at one point even included the police joining forces with their own security department to gun down demonstrators with SMGs, killing 5 and wounding dozens more.
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
