Within 24-hours of the smog's arrival, police began to receive an alarming number of calls about residents who were having trouble breathing. Schempp described the scene as something "out of this world." He would recall to David Templeton in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that "if you chewed hard enough, you could swallow it." "You couldn't see your hand in front of your face," said resident Bill Schempp in a 1998 Tribune-Review article by Lynne Glover. On October 27, 1948, thick, opaque smog began to cover the small, flat river town. Unbeknownst to the majority of the residents, the factories that sustained their livelihood would also be the cause for illness in a large majority of the town's population and even death for some. In 1948, the town was home to 14,000 residents, 6,500 whom worked for the area's two mills, the American Steel & Wire Co. On the western bank of the Monongahela River lies the small town of Donora. The killer came in without warning and vanished in a puff of smoke. The silent killer took the lives of 20 people and left thousands of others in its wake. Taken at noon on October 29, 1948, this picture shows the deadly smog blanketing Donora.Ī murderous villain terrorized the town of Donora during the last week of October 1948.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |