Gasping for Air: The Donora Smog Disaster

Posted by Peter Durantine on Sep 18, 2023 in | Comments Off on Gasping for Air: The Donora Smog Disaster   They couldn’t breathe. During five days in autumn of 1948, the industrial town of Donora, Pennsylvania, became an environmental and public health nightmare when what the national media called a “killer smog” took the lives of nearly two dozen people who died struggling to breathe. “We have had the worst fog in the last four days in [the] history of Donora. About 18 persons have died...
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An Appeal for “Smoke Control”: Lois Bainbridge on the 1948 Donora Smog

Posted by Richard Saylor on Sep 18, 2023 in | Comments Off on An Appeal for “Smoke Control”: Lois Bainbridge on the 1948 Donora Smog   “The zinc works has ruined Donora & Webster,” wrote Lois Bainbridge to Gov. James Duff on October 31, 1948. “There is something in the Zinc Works causing these deaths. . . . [The] awful acid & smoke . . . eats the paint off your houses. Even fish can’t live in the Monongahela River, the bank on which the mill is situated.” Lois Bainbridge was a resident of Webster, a town in...
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