On this day in 1948, a deadly smog event began in Donora, Pennsylvania. It was caused by hydrogen fluoride and sulfur dioxide emissions from U.S. Steel’s Donora Zinc Works and its American Steel & Wire plant during an atmospheric temperature inversion. It killed 20 people and caused respiratory problems for 6,000 of the 14,000 people living in Donora, a mill town on the Monongahela River 24 miles (39 km) southeast of Pittsburgh.
Many of the illnesses and deaths were initially attributed to asthma. The smog continued until it rained on Sunday, October 31, by which time 20 residents of Donora had died and approximately one third to one half of the town’s population of 14,000 residents had been sickened. Another 50 residents died of respiratory causes within a month after the incident.
The event is often credited for helping to trigger the clean-air movement in the United States, whose crowning achievement was the Clean Air Act of 1963, which required the United States Environmental Protection Agency to develop and enforce regulations to protect the general public from exposure to hazardous airborne contaminants.
Donora Wire Mill
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Today is the birthday, in 1949, of American musician and record producer Garry Tallent who is the bass player with the Bruce Springsteen E Street Band. He started playing with Springsteen in 1971 and as of 2013, and not counting Springsteen himself, Tallent is the only original member of the E Street Band remaining in the band. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPhWR4d3FJQ
