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On this day in 1948, smog continued to envelope Donora, Pa., plaguing its citizens with deadly air quality.
It was the final week of October in 1948 when a small Pennsylvania town along the Monongahela River was plagued with a thick layer of smog. So how did the smog form?
Donora, Pa., had two main factories, one being American Steel & Wire Co., and another being Donora Zinc Works. Both factories emitted a great deal of pollutants into the air surrounding Donora. The pollutants were trapped near the surface during smog disaster due to a certain weather phenomenon, a temperature inversion.
A temperature inversion is when air temperatures increase when going up in the atmosphere. This is opposite of what is usually expected, with air temperatures cooling with increasing height above the surface. Sitting in a low-lying area near the river, Donora, Pa., was a prime location for a temperature inversion to occur.
When a temperature inversion occurs, the air from the surface is prohibited from mixing with the air above. The air near the ground becomes stagnant, and anything emitted into the air has a hard time being removed. When the copper-filled dust and other pollutants were emitted from Donora’s factories, they had nowhere to go and created a thick smog throughout the town.
Thick smog obscured the streets of Donora for four days from October 27 to October 31, Halloween. Of the town’s 14,000 people, approximately 6,000 fell ill due to the dangerous air quality and 20 people lost their lives. The smog finally lifted on Halloween as the temperature inversion was broken and a thunderstorm occurred.
The Donora, Pa., smog disaster was influential in the passing of the Air Pollution Control Act of 1955. Both labor strikes and new restrictions from the 1963 Clean Air Act led to the closing of the Donora steel mills in 1967, preventing another Donora disaster to occur again.
Sources: psu.edu
---------- Story Image: The Donora, Pa., wire mill pictured in 1910.