Donora smog disaster of 1948 recounted
The Donora Smog Disaster of 1948 has been called one of the worst air pollution disasters in the nation’s history.
It caused 20 deaths and resulted in respiratory problems for at least 6,000 of Donora’s 14,000 residents at the time. Even 10 years after the incident, mortality rates in Donora were significantly higher than those in other nearby communities.
The disaster, and its impact on the region and country, were the subject of a discussion Wednesday hosted by the Group Against Smog and Pollution (GASP).
Those on the panel were Donora Smog Museum historians Mark Pawelec and Brian Charlton; Scott Beveridge, a retired Observer-Reporter staff writer, and Myranda Fullerton, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
The incident began with the buildup of fog in Donora on Wednesday, Oct. 27, 1948, and continued until it rained four days later, on Sunday, Oct. 31.
Hydrogen fluoride and sulfur dioxide emissions from U.S. Steel’s Donora Zinc Works and its American Steel & Wire Plant were common occurrences.
“These people lived their lives in the shadow of this,” Charlton said. “This smoke is something that is a part of everyday life in Donora (at that time).”
That was the case during that fateful week as a large temperature inversion occurred early Tuesday, Oct. 26, affecting much of Southwestern Pennsylvania.
“Inversions will persist from fall into early winter due to prevailing wind and wind speed and the sun angle,” Fullerton explained. “Because of the sun angle inversions may last a little longer; that’s why we tend to see poor air quality days at this time of year.”
Charlton explained the resulting chaos was nothing for which the residents were prepared. Donora’s 11 doctors made house calls throughout town. Fire departments went from house to house supplying oxygen.
He quoted the number of deaths directly resulting from the smog at 21, while most stories cite 20. However, he added that 56 more people died of respiratory causes within two weeks of the incident.
“We’ve never really settled on a number, but actuary reports in 1948 say 2.38 people should die per week in Donora,” Charlton said. “We have 56 people die in two weeks in Donora, and I’m sure most of them are from the smog disaster.”
Lawsuits were filed, claiming the Zinc Works was responsible for the deaths. Charlton said this resulted in out-of-court settlements for $250,000, significantly less than was sought.
Beveridge won an award in 2014 for his reporting on long-forgotten court documents about the incident.
He said those participating in the suits were threatened with violence, but U.S. Steel did indeed accept responsibility for damages in the settlements.
What amazes him is that as a resident of Webster, he did not know about the disaster until he went to college.
“The lawsuit and the shutting-down of the mill pitted neighbor against neighbor,” he said. “People wanted it to just go away.”
He and Charlton stressed the mill did not close as a result of the disaster. Donora Zinc Works did not close until 1956. All of the U.S. Steel Corp.’s factories did not close until 1966.
Beveridge said the effects of the Smog Disaster were long-lasting and still can be felt today.
“I grew up in an environmental catastrophe,” he said. “There were sickly trees, hardly any grass. There weren’t any birds or bunny rabbits or frogs in the stream. It was a dead zone. The trees and the grass took a long time to recover. If you take a walk on that hill today, a lot of those trees are sickly looking. To this day we still don’t know what was in that air.”
Charlton said the incident did not do much to change people’s values. They worked at the plant because it paid well and take similar jobs with similar results today.
“These people were willing to trade their health and environment for a job,” he said. “People are very much willing to go ahead (today), with the fracking industry, to trade their health and the environment as long as they have a job.”