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  • Do You Know Any of These Donora Smog Victims?

    Do You Know Any of These Donora Smog Victims?

    By

    Andy McPhee

    Donora Death Fog, Donora Smog Event
    May 19, 2018

    Four people are sometimes listed as having perished in smog, but for many reasons finding definitive information on them has proven extremely difficult. They are Steve Faulchak, Ruth Jones, and Alice Ward.

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  • The Life and Death of a Smog Victim

    The Life and Death of a Smog Victim

    By

    Andy McPhee

    Donora Death Fog, Donora Smog Event
    March 27, 2018

    Susan was having trouble breathing that morning, but she kept ironing nonetheless. She also had a headache that wouldn’t go away. She had never had a health problem before, aside from a twisted ankle when she was young, and she had no history of asthma or other lung disease. Yet on this foggy day a…

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  • Saving Donorans on a Deadly Night

    Saving Donorans on a Deadly Night

    By

    Andy McPhee

    Donora Death Fog, Donora History, Donora Smog Event
    February 21, 2018

    He strapped on the oxygen tank he kept at home, the green one, labeled TO BE FILLED WITH COMPRESSED OXYGEN ONLY, and walked out the back door, onto Thompson Avenue, into the dark fog. Bill Schempp at a fire practice Walking had become so difficult by then that he dropped to his hands and knees…

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  • Gone Was the Wind

    Gone Was the Wind

    By

    Andy McPhee

    Donora Death Fog, Donora Smog Event
    January 7, 2018

    If even a slight breeze had strolled through the Donora valley that week the smoke would have broken up, giving residents some respite. But no, there was no breeze to be had, not in Donora, nor in Monessen to the south, nor in Monongahela to the north.

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  • Who Died in Donora’s Deadly Smog?

    Who Died in Donora’s Deadly Smog?

    By

    Andy McPhee

    Donora Death Fog, Donora History, Donora Smog Event
    December 4, 2017

    It seems that not everyone received a death certificate in 1948, or, if they did, it was lost or never archived. Marriage applications, census data, immigration passenger lists, and so forth, are also often inaccurate or provide inconsistent information.

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  • Even Cleaner Air Starts in Donora

    Even Cleaner Air Starts in Donora

    By

    Andy McPhee

    Donora Smog Event, Just Me
    June 7, 2017

    With the EPA undergoing extensive downsizing and the Trump administration wanting to open previously protected lands to oil and shale drilling, Donora continues to remind the nation of the need for clean air.

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  • Still Fighting for Clean Air Today

    Still Fighting for Clean Air Today

    By

    Andy McPhee

    Donora Death Fog, Donora Smog Event
    March 27, 2017

    “People would come to the town, and they would say, ‘What’s that smell?’ And people who lived here would say, ‘What smell?’ And my grandpa would say, ‘Well, it smells like money.'”

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  • Donora: The Birthplace of Clean Air

    Donora: The Birthplace of Clean Air

    By

    Andy McPhee

    Donora Death Fog, Donora History, Donora Smog Event
    March 20, 2017

    Donora, a riverside mill town in southwest Pennsylvania, suffered a prolonged bout of concentrated, toxic smog in late October 1948, during which at least 20 people died and thousands more became ill.

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  • Temperature Inversions and Deadly Smog

    Temperature Inversions and Deadly Smog

    By

    Andy McPhee

    Donora Smog Event
    March 11, 2017

    Common to all three tragedies were two key elements. First, large factories in each area had been spewing enormous amounts of pollutants into the air, the most deadly being sulfur dioxide. And second, Mother Nature came calling in the form of something called a temperature inversion.

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  • Death in Donora

    Death in Donora

    By

    Andy McPhee

    Donora Death Fog, Donora History, Donora Smog Event
    February 3, 2017

    On Tuesday October 26, the air over Donora became foggy from cool air being trapped beneath warmer air above in what meteorologists term a temperature inversion. Normally inversions last less than a day, but this one lasted a devastating five days. Within two days the fog had turned into a stinging, yellowish-gray shroud so thick…

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