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!

@Aiden-fz5yv

9 ай бұрын

Thanks for all you do, Why support amazon an evil company though?

@lethabrooks9112

5 ай бұрын

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.

@may-K-47

10 ай бұрын

it must have been in them to do that already, considering theyre firemen. amazing stuff

@gst013

10 ай бұрын

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.

@dr.floridaman4805

10 ай бұрын

​@@gst013nope. Need the air to do my job. Giving it away means I'm done. These firefighters are stupid

@DVincentW

10 ай бұрын

The shots of whisky took the edge off.

@jtgd

10 ай бұрын

They were literally breathless

Over 40% of the town's population received respiratory issues fron this. That's insane.

@smileymalaise

10 ай бұрын

I developed a tickle in my throat from merely watching this.

@ingvarhallstrom2306

10 ай бұрын

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.

@sarge4455

10 ай бұрын

38%

@grmpEqweer

10 ай бұрын

Sulfuric acid and heavy metals will do that.

@Trivial_Whim

10 ай бұрын

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. 🙄🙄🙄

@dixiesmaster

10 ай бұрын

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.

@Earthneedsado-over177

10 ай бұрын

Privatize the profits and socialize the damage.

@guins99

10 ай бұрын

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. …..

@henzoko5946

10 ай бұрын

It could have very well just been the government as well. Research Operation Popeye

@MageMinionsOP

10 ай бұрын

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.

@spiritmatter1553

10 ай бұрын

Nowadays they ship the labor and manufacturing to China or India, the two biggest polluters on the planet.

@RBzee112

10 ай бұрын

Big business privatize profits and socialize the costs.

@Tindometari

10 ай бұрын

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.

@jillwiegand4257

10 ай бұрын

They are so big, they feel they don't have to.

@QT5656

10 ай бұрын

​@@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.

@the-chillian

10 ай бұрын

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.

@jamesharmer9293

10 ай бұрын

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

@elleofhearts8471

10 ай бұрын

and yet there are people who are against environmental responsibility regulations for businesses 😒

@lylarose2696

10 ай бұрын

Everyone was burning coal to heat their homes back then.

@gnarthdarkanen7464

10 ай бұрын

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.

@kennethgates5790

10 ай бұрын

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.

@audraverela3663

10 ай бұрын

Too bad the Supreme Court weakened the EPA’s authority 😒

@martletkay

10 ай бұрын

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.

@jamesfowley4114

10 ай бұрын

​@@audraverela3663if you prefer government agencies to have unchecked power you're living in the wrong country.

@Dherkin_McGhurken

10 ай бұрын

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.

@john2914

10 ай бұрын

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.

@x77punk77x

10 ай бұрын

@@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.

@tonithomas6143

10 ай бұрын

It’s a shame that people have to die before changes are made. Greed is a horrible thing.

@bluejedi723

10 ай бұрын

and what did we learn from this? Nothing. Zero. Ziltch. Nothing at all.

@joeb2

10 ай бұрын

Most safety rules and regulations are written in blood unfortunately.

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.

@markpimlott2879

10 ай бұрын

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!" ✈️ 🛩 🛬 💺 🛫 ✈️ 🛩 🛬 💺 🛫 ✈️ 🛩

@Smedley1947

3 ай бұрын

@Itsgay2read You probably heard that slogan on another KZread 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.

@raretoast2763

Ай бұрын

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 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.

@reverbscherzo7850

10 ай бұрын

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.

@RustOnWheels

10 ай бұрын

@@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.

@danakscully64

10 ай бұрын

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

10 ай бұрын

It still is

@thurayya8905

10 ай бұрын

@@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 love the adoption of British terms when describing a PA mill town, "high street", "football pitch", etc.

@weebunny

10 ай бұрын

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. :-)

@misha2197

10 ай бұрын

I don't have a problem with it , I knew what he meant.😊

@nthgth

10 ай бұрын

"high" street did throw me; what is high about it aside from its importance

@FaustoTheBoozehound

10 ай бұрын

@@weebunny I like to think his listeners are smart enough to pick up on context clues

@weebunny

10 ай бұрын

@@FaustoTheBoozehound Agreed.

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.

@blahlbinoa

10 ай бұрын

Typical USS, still doing it to this day

@stevenschnepp576

10 ай бұрын

@@blahlbinoa *lawyers They're only slightly less scummy than politicians, as a class. USS wouldn't get away with it without their assistance.

@ripvanwinkle2002

10 ай бұрын

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

The next time you hear some politician talking about “cutting red tape,” remember the historical toll people actually pay for such lies.

@MikeCoronaNY

10 ай бұрын

Worker and environment legislation is written in blood unfortunately.

@stevenschnepp576

10 ай бұрын

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.

@TanukiDigital

10 ай бұрын

Red tape exists. Not all regulation is beneficial.

@ripvanwinkle2002

10 ай бұрын

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..

@QT5656

10 ай бұрын

​@@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 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

@charlottemiller7675

10 ай бұрын

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

@gohawks3571

10 ай бұрын

Wow, and I thought the Aroma of Tacoma was bad (pulp mills)! I can't imagine what that smells like...

@ashleya1609

10 ай бұрын

Hello from charleroi!

@ryan1989

10 ай бұрын

​@@ashleya1609former Charleroi resident checking in.

@dancollins8296

10 ай бұрын

Hey I live in perry!!!!

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.

@janicesullivan8942

10 ай бұрын

I believe he has done the Johnstown Flood, maybe some time ago.

@w.randyhoffman1204

10 ай бұрын

@@janicesullivan8942 Nope. The topic has been covered by some of the other "dark channels" on KZread, but never by Fascinating Horror.

@misha2197

10 ай бұрын

Hello fellow western Pennsylvanian! 😊❤

@dougdrazga4461

10 ай бұрын

​@@misha2197Hey, me too!

@MDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMD

10 ай бұрын

Maybe he can do a video on why we still pay the flood tax...

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!

@MrReymoclif714

10 ай бұрын

Chillicothe,Ohio?

@mimib8032

10 ай бұрын

​@@MrReymoclif714I've delivered to the Chillicothe paper mill once. Never again. 😂

@heatherjarvis809

10 ай бұрын

.

@heatherjarvis809

10 ай бұрын

.

@gogreen7794

7 ай бұрын

Would you ever say "Me jokingly call it....?" Probably not. So why write "Me and my coworkers jokingly call it....?"

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.

@mattcat231

10 ай бұрын

Can't forget about the Darr mine either! I grew up in Monessen and moved to Charleroi (well, Fallowfield Twsp)

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!

@princessmarlena1359

10 ай бұрын

Pittsburgh: “The City That Never Breathes!” 😉

@trevorregay9283

10 ай бұрын

@@princessmarlena1359 .....don't forget the "h"!

@princessmarlena1359

10 ай бұрын

@@trevorregay9283 d’oh! Thanks!

@laura121684

10 ай бұрын

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."

@jamesslick4790

10 ай бұрын

@@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.

“Clean air started here” gave me goosebumps.

@ohiostate9156

2 ай бұрын

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”

@clray123

Ай бұрын

@@ohiostate9156 followed by zzzzz and some snoring

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.

@goodemily

10 ай бұрын

I’m from PA too and never heard of this either.

@Beardwhip

10 ай бұрын

​@@goodemilysame. Definitely had some bad wildfire haze this year, still dealing with sinus infections...

@micksterboone4517

10 ай бұрын

Monongahela resident here my whole life and knew people that worked at the Donora mill.

@teaguejelinek4038

9 ай бұрын

Quit lyin

@bentleybarskite8532

4 ай бұрын

@@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

You hear about the great smogs of London but this is the first time that i have heard of it occurring somewhere else

@Grinningfartking6969

10 ай бұрын

California gets it

@onbearfeet

10 ай бұрын

​@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.

@macdietz

10 ай бұрын

Ok...maybe look at Bejing

@tinastagg6258

10 ай бұрын

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.

@icarusbinns3156

10 ай бұрын

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

Donora firemen: "I heard whisky is a good alternative to oxygen tanks, trust me"

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.

@johnmills34YT

10 ай бұрын

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.

@B-and-O-Operator-Fairmont

10 ай бұрын

@@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.

@bee5440

9 ай бұрын

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

@Smedley1947

2 ай бұрын

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

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

10 ай бұрын

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.

@austinlawler3739

10 ай бұрын

@@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.

@QT5656

10 ай бұрын

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 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.

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.

As an American- I love the narrator referring to an American football field as "the pitch"... haha

@robertmoffett3486

10 ай бұрын

It's the second time in two days for me.

@ojgsk8ter

10 ай бұрын

Also referring to an office complex / business center as an “industrial park”

@chocolatefrenzieya

10 ай бұрын

I giggled at that, too.

@chatteyj

10 ай бұрын

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.

@dixiesmaster

10 ай бұрын

Thought they were playing baseball for a moment

I've lived near Donora almost my entire life and we never learned about this in school or anything!

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.

This may be kind of insensitive, but "Danora Death Smog" would make for a sick band name.

@g.sergiusfidenas6650

10 ай бұрын

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.

@bubzilla6137

10 ай бұрын

​@@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...

@P_RO_

10 ай бұрын

"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😡😱💪👍

@wesleysayud419

10 ай бұрын

@@P_RO_ Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo is a real movie

@P_RO_

10 ай бұрын

@@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.

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.

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. 😳

@yvonnecortes_

10 ай бұрын

Holy crap 😮😅

@beckies44

10 ай бұрын

yeah 😂@@yvonnecortes_

@dougdrazga4461

10 ай бұрын

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.

@hawkeyepierce3199

8 ай бұрын

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

@beckies44

8 ай бұрын

Were they huge too@@dougdrazga4461 ? 😅

The 2020 census lists 4,558 residents, one tenth of 1948. Great video

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

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.

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.

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.

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 about 1/2 mile from where the mills and plants were. I am amazed to see this incident on this channel!

@micksterboone4517

10 ай бұрын

Black Diamond?

Glad to hear that they found work after the mills closed

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.

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!

@ripvanwinkle2002

10 ай бұрын

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

10 ай бұрын

i thought the same when i saw the title

@ripvanwinkle2002

10 ай бұрын

@@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

@Geronimo2Fly

10 ай бұрын

The novella was excellent, the movie was terrible. I HATED the ending of the movie; it was nothing like what King wrote.

@Nursesaids

8 ай бұрын

The ending felt like emotional abuse with no payoff. Everything else though is pretty stellar.

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!

@mesalily-TeHWoRld

10 ай бұрын

@martletkay - I completely agree💯

@mikesmith-po8nd

10 ай бұрын

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.

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 🥲

@elizabethsohler6516

10 ай бұрын

I'm sorry you are going through that, take care.

@k.c1126

10 ай бұрын

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. 🙏🏼

@StamperWendy

10 ай бұрын

I'm sorry for your loss

@ReesieandLee

10 ай бұрын

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 ❤️

@GrindHouseBlues83

10 ай бұрын

I’m sorry for your loss. Best wishes to you!

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

10 ай бұрын

It’s like people comment all the time on here. All rules and regulations are written in blood 🩸

@stevenschnepp576

10 ай бұрын

@@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.

@ripvanwinkle2002

10 ай бұрын

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!!!

@MusicoftheDamned

10 ай бұрын

@@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.

@rongreen8962

10 ай бұрын

@@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.

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.

@eadecamp

10 ай бұрын

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.

@lifewuzonceezr

10 ай бұрын

Childhood memory unlocked!

@SilverIchimaru

10 ай бұрын

Ugh, we lived 45 mins from a big town and could smell the darn paper mills. And we lived on a farm.

@LearnCompositionOnline

10 ай бұрын

Exactly, this happens in many things. They wait for the worse happens, than click

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.

@ripvanwinkle2002

10 ай бұрын

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

@mbryson2899

10 ай бұрын

​@@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.

@JohnDoeWasntTaken

10 ай бұрын

@@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.

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.

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.

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

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!

When people ask why we should do what we can to reduce pollution, they should be shown videos like this.

@TrianglePants

10 ай бұрын

Manufacturing processes make Go Green a scam.

@Plasmafox

10 ай бұрын

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

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 those who died was the father of MLB Hall of Famer Stan “The Man” Musial, Lukasz.

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.

@robertmoffett3486

10 ай бұрын

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

@Autistic_Cowboy

10 ай бұрын

UNI MART is still here haha.

This reminds me of The Great Smog of London in 1952. That smog went on for 5 days, killing about 11,000 people.

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.

@biggiouschinnus7489

10 ай бұрын

"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

@batarasiagian9635

10 ай бұрын

Strongly agree.

@MusicoftheDamned

10 ай бұрын

​@@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.

@jimjam6598

10 ай бұрын

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.

@nicwelch

10 ай бұрын

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.

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.

@pmberry

10 ай бұрын

Appropriately, today is ULEZ Extension day.

@henrymanzano2201

10 ай бұрын

Yup! Cartoons from that time,and well into the 50s and 60s would make fun of the smog in LA regularly

@ripvanwinkle2002

10 ай бұрын

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..

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)?

@eveoakley6270

10 ай бұрын

The Great Smog of London was after the Donora Smog.

@AvoidTheCadaver

10 ай бұрын

Try the Plainly Difficult channel for thr Clapham Junction crash

@alexv3375

10 ай бұрын

@@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!

@Mrsjam96

10 ай бұрын

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 !

@ripvanwinkle2002

10 ай бұрын

he did kings cross already

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!

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 :)

@mattcat231

10 ай бұрын

Have a look at the Darr Mine disaster, as well as the Naomi mine disaster.

@1JamesMayToGoPlease

10 ай бұрын

@@mattcat231 Will do, but later. Thank you!

Another fascinating story as always. Love the channel. Now I need a shot of whiskey. Keep up the great work

@Mrsjam96

10 ай бұрын

😂

@eywine.7762

10 ай бұрын

For medicinal purposes, no doubt! 😁

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.

One of my favorite channels. Perfect timing.

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 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.

I had no idea that a shot of whiskey is an effective remedy for exposure to toxic pollutants.

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

Got to love the slogan for the town. That's a very humble sign.

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.

OH MY GAWD Donora iterally is like 10miles away 😮😮

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.

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!

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…

As always, incredible work. I truly appreciate your covering our tragedies as humans with insight, reverence, and the lessons learned.

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.

@markpimlott2879

10 ай бұрын

Hopefully it wasn't called 'THE DONORA DEATH RUN' due to its impacts on the cardiovascular and pulmonary health of its participants!!

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 KZread. It’s kind of surreal

no better way to start a tuesday than learning about a tragedy

@aztec2281

10 ай бұрын

eating breakfast right now

@naw9549

10 ай бұрын

Yo I hope you have a good day though 😘

@lrosario20

10 ай бұрын

🍻

@lifewuzonceezr

10 ай бұрын

Ditto!

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

I live about fifteen minutes from Donora. Thanks for covering this. It’s an incredible historical event that deserves more eyes on it.

I lived near a paper mill in middle school and the smell always made me concerned about something like this.

@jimbeam7636

10 ай бұрын

Damn, I just moved to an area where I can smell the paper mill ....

A large company accepting fault for what their choices contributed to and did ? Unlikely 😔

I grew up in Pittsburgh and never heard of this. Thanks

I have never heard this story. Very interesting.

My family lived on Modisette ave from 1966 to 1970. My father worked in Monesson. I remember being told about this...

“The football players couldn’t see the end of the pitch” it’s okay we forgive you 😅

Another fascinating lesson from history, thankyou.

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.

Yet another great video! Thank you, sir!

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! 🇬🇧 🇬🇧 🇺🇸 🌎 🇺🇲 🇨🇦 🍁 🇨🇦 🇺🇸 🌎 🇺🇲 🇬🇧 🇬🇧

Never heard this story. Thank you for telling it.

Wow! The lengths that the steel mills went to to avoid blame for the smog are amazing! I am so glad some other people learned to act differently than that!

@johnhead1643

10 ай бұрын

Supported by their own workers.

@Herowebcomics

10 ай бұрын

@@johnhead1643 Some other people then them.

I've driven through Donora numerous times, it's hard to believe it was such a prosperous town at one point.