Halloween is a perfect time to dress up, do fun activities and, above all, tell horror stories. But while it is true that many like to tell them, surely no one would like to live one.
It was an October afternoon, when in the small streets of Donora -in Pennsylvania, United States- the children, excited, ran everywhere even though not much was seen in the environment, because strangely a thick dark fog began to invade the town.
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Nobody paid attention to it, since the cold of the time generated this type of phenomenon frequently and more so if winter was only a few months away. The Donora Dragons played their usual Friday night soccer game, as well as the Halloween parade, which hundreds of people had attended.
Everything seemed normal, until death began to take its first steps. The inhabitants reported to the doctors in the region that they could not breathe. Several of the specialists went to the homes of those affected, but they never imagined that it would be the prelude to one of the greatest tragedies in the United States.
This is the story of how a deadly mixture of smoke created a “poisonous fog”, which claimed the lives of twenty people and left nearly 400 residents with severe respiratory problemsall because of human ambition and an extreme case of environmental irresponsibility.
‘Welcome to Donora! America’s best city
Located on the Monongahela River, about 30 miles south of Pittsburghis the cozy Donora, a town of 5.2 square kilometers that, at the time of the tragedy, was home to only 14,000 inhabitants.
Currently, she is recognized for having given the world great baseball players such as Stan Musial and Ken Griffey Jr, in addition to having been a very important agricultural and industrial sector for the region. However, the latter caused his name to be stained by a great tragedy.
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By the 40’s, The region had two large factories dedicated to the production of copper and zinc: the Donora Zinc Works and the American Steel & Wire. Despite their tall chimneys and encroaching smoke, the factories provided the region’s residents with approximately five thousand direct jobs, leaving no one to turn against them despite the noticeable pollution.
In fact, according to the testimonies collected by the American media ‘National Geographic’, it was very common to have to constantly clean the facades of houses due to the dust that stuck to it.
Even, the workers from the few remaining agricultural areas arrived covered in black dust as a product of the ‘smog’ emitted by the factories. This same caused that in 1918 American Steel & Wire Company had to pay its first fine for damage to health, due to the fact that air pollution had affected some workers in the surrounding community of Webster.
However, the company continued its operations, thus preparing the preparations for the tragedy and normalizing the contamination, the danger of which had not been taken into account.
Zinc, steel, a river and the cold: the perfect formula for a tragedy
‘D-Day’ was Wednesday, October 27, 1948., when several natives of the region reported trouble breathing, nausea, headaches and coughing. The cases were increasing until, three days later, the first death was reported.
It was a matter of time before 19 more people joined this fateful event, which in the end left a balance of 20 dead and 400 affected. But what happened?
Twenty people died and at least 7,000 of the 14,000 people living in Donora complained of respiratory problems. The mortality rate of Donora was elevated for years afterward. 2/4 🧵 pic.twitter.com/wqgUrDcCMj
— Pittsburgh DSA (@pghDSA) October 26, 2021
The air, rich in hydrogen fluoride, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, fluorine and nitrogen dioxide, plus a natural effect called ‘thermal inversion’, were the perfect ingredients for the creation of a thick, highly toxic yellowish fog.
According to the Interuniversity Institute of Geography of the University of Alicante, thermal inversion is a phenomenon that occurs when the temperature in the upper layers of the atmosphere is higher than that which occurs on the surface.
US Steel called the event an act of god and never acknowledged responsibility. The Clean Air Act of 1963 was passed in part due to this event. 3/4 🧵 pic.twitter.com/hPM8RJT9xy
— Pittsburgh DSA (@pghDSA) October 26, 2021
Because the bottom of the atmosphere is cold, and the top is hot, a kind of pressure is somehow created, causing pollutants in the air to stay at the surface level and concentrate in a specific area. Secondly, the phenomenon was caused by the cold October winds and the warm temperatures of the river.
In other words, the contamination cannot escape, generating a toxic mixture that is very harmful to human health.
Now, the toxic cocktail arrived on the night of October 27 and poured out for five more days. By then, the United States media were aware of the situation and constantly reported how firefighters and health personnel distributed oxygen bombs without coping.
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#OTD 1948: In Donora, dense smog formed when a temperature inversion trapped hydrogen fluoride and sulfur dioxide emissions from 2 steel plants in the atmosphere causing the deaths of 20 ppl – an additional 50 died within a month of respiratory problems. #DonoraSmog #PAHistory pic.twitter.com/UYyyF8Y5nz
— Tammi Minoski (@TammiMinoski) October 31, 2021
Until the American newspaper’The New York Times’ covered the event, reporting on the toxic cloud that continued to kill the surrounding area. They directly mentioned the company, asking for answers about its impending silence.
It was then that on October 31, the American Steel & Wire Company decided to halt operations and, as if nature had rewarded it, it rained for the first time in a week in Donora, clearing away the fog and making the air a little cleaner (to the extent as possible).
A milestone that made a difference: the ‘Clean Air Act’ project
Although official records show that there were 20 deaths, in the following weeks 50 more people died, according to police records. In addition, in subsequent investigations into the case, scientists were able to realize that, over the years, life expectancy in the area decreased significantly.
Furthermore, it is important to highlight that The Donora Zinc Works did not close until 1956 and all American Steel & Wire Company headquarters only closed until 1996.
With this event, the world realized for the first time that pollution could actually cause deaths. In fact, because of this the ‘Clean Air Act’ was created, which regulates greenhouse gas emissions issued by large factories in the United States.
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This was passed by Congress in 1963 and was supplemented by the Environmental Protection Agency created by Nixon in 1970.
On the other hand, according to the story told at the Donora Historical Society and Smog Museum, in 1950 President Truman convened the first conference on air pollution and the effects it can have on human health.
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LAURA NATALIA BOHORQUEZ RONCANCIO
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