Posted on 03/30/2006 11:48:26 AM PST by edgrimly78
There is a small town in Pennsylvania called Ashland where Route 61's northbound traffic is temporarily branched onto a short detour. Exactly what the detour is circumventing is not immediately clear to travelers, however few passers-by pay it any mind… a detour is nothing unusual. But anyone who ignores the detour and ventures along the original route 61 highway will soon encounter an abrupt and unexplained road closure. Beyond it lies a town filled with overgrown streets, smoldering earth, and ominous warning signs. It is the remains of the borough of Centralia.
Centralia, Pennsylvania was never a particularly large community, but it was once a lively and industrial place. At its peak the coal mining town was home to 2,761 souls, but today the population of its cemeteries far outnumbers that of its living residents. The series of events which led to the community's demise– slowly diminishing its numbers to less than a dozen– began about forty-four years ago.
Centralia 1962In 1962, workers set a heap of trash ablaze in an abandoned mine pit which was used as the borough's landfill. The burning of excess trash was a common practice, yet at that particular time and place there existed a dangerous condition: an exposed vein of anthracite coal. The highly flammable mineral was unexpectedly ignited by the trash fire, prompting a quick effort to put it out. The flames on the surface were successfully extinguished, but unbeknownst to the fire fighters, the coal continued to burn underground. Over the following weeks it rapidly migrated into the surrounding coal mines and beneath the town, causing great concern.
Soon the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources began monitoring the fire by drilling holes into the earth to determine the extent and temperature of the fire. In retrospect, it was realized that the well-meaning workers may have unwittingly provided the fire with a natural draft by drilling these boreholes, feeding the coal's combustion. As a precaution, the Department also installed gas monitors in many homes within the affected area, but nonetheless many residents complained of symptoms of carbon monoxide exposure.
In 1969– seven years after the fire was started– a more involved effort was made to contain the fire using trenches and clay seals, but the attempt was met with failure. In the 1970s, concerns over the severity of the extensive subterranean fire were stirred when a gas station owner noticed that the contents of his underground fuel storage tank seemed hot, so he measured the gasoline's temperature, and found it to be a troubling 180 degrees Fahrenheit.
Numerous attempts were made to extinguish or contain the underground fire over the next two decades. The mines were flushed with water and the burning coal was excavated, but despite the persistence of the workers, their efforts were unsuccessful. The work continued for years at a great expense, with no appreciable progress.
After burning beneath the surface for almost twenty years, the fire drew national media attention when the ground crumbled beneath the feet of twelve-year-old Todd Domboski in 1981. The sinkhole– about four feet wide and 150 feet deep– had sufficient heat and carbon monoxide concentration that it would have killed the boy had his cousin had not been there to help pull him to safety. It was not the first nor the last sinkhole caused by the fire, but it was the most sobering.
At that point, about seven million dollars had been spent in the firefighting effort. Experts determined that the only option remaining to effectively battle the fire would be a massive trenching operation, at the cost of about $660 million, with no guarantee of success. Left with such limited options, the state of Pennsylvania basically condemned the entire town, and spent $42 million in government funds relocating most of its residents.
The fire still burns today beneath about four hundred acres of surface land, and it's still growing. There is enough coal in the eight-mile vein to feed the fire for up to two hundred and fifty years, but it may burn itself out in as few as one hundred years. A few residents remained in the borough after the buyout, but their numbers have dwindled since then to about a dozen. Most of the unoccupied homes and buildings have been razed, and large portions of the town are being reclaimed by nature, leaving meadows crisscrossed with overgrown asphalt roads and the occasional steaming or smoking hillside.
In its prime, Centralia was a vibrant community with five hotels, seven churches, nineteen general stores, two jewelry stores, and about twenty-six saloons. Today it is a modern ghost town whose guts have been burned out, and whose main path of ingress has been closed and detoured. Residents are expected to return in 2016 to open a time capsule which was buried in the town in 1966, back when the town's future was still somewhat optimistic. Its future now is decidedly more grim… There are currently no further plans to extinguish the fire, and most modern maps no longer show a dot where Centralia once stood.
Don't look at me, I didn't start it.
Grew up about 10 miles away....my grandmother lived there as a young girl
No, but it sounds fascinating.
I'm a firm believer of making lemonade when the universe gives me lemons...
I wonder why they don't consider harnessing the heat by injecting water at controlled rates and generating electricity?
Yep. It's actually kind of hard to tell what is going on as you drive by what is left. And there is a gorgeous state forest just to the north, so folks tend to be driving past on the way to that or other destinations.
Anthracite country is a strange mix of lunar-appearing mine country, broken-down industries, towns struggling to survive along with beautiful forested ridges.
Pennsylvania has suffered far more from coal than from nuclear power.
I live about 30 miles from Centralia. I have been through the town on numerous occasions both before the evacuation and after.
It is eerie. You drive through at night and can see the glowing fire between some of the rock covered hills.
In the winter, it is easy to know where the fire comes close to the surface because the ground will be barren of snow or moisture.
There are areas where you can walk out and not be able to keep your hand on the ground because of the heat.
The evacuation was the best option as the $660 million for the extinguish attempt was a guess (you know gov't, it would have escalated into the billions) and had very little hope of success.
Because the ground is unstable and they do not know where it will collapse next.
Been through there many times.
It was/is weird. Snow covers everything. Except town, it stays green all year.
I think even the last residents are out now, only the dirt bikers and quad guys ride through. The ways in have been bulldozed in the last few years because the fedgov got real serious about keeping folks out.
Good place to go hunting in the late season, because the critters like the warm spots.
Gotta watch the smoke coming up out the ground if you hunt, the monoxide can kill you, as it does to a lot of critters.
There are several mine fires in Pa., but Centralia is the most famous.
Well said.
I grew up jsut down the road on Rte. 61 in Pottsville. Yes, it is a very strange place. Lots of press during the years of people,who chose to stay, being forced out of their homes because the fire was moving directly underneath their homes, etc...
Last time I went there was about 7 years ago. It is very eerie, I'll give you that.
Interestingly, more radiation can be released from NORM in buring coal than from a leaky nuke reactor.
I can remember, oh, 25 or so years ago, people putting their kids to bed with oxygen masks on every night to prevent them from getting carbon monoxide poisoning because the buyout $$ on the house wasn't enough. They wanted more.
I also remember a proposal to backcut and fill in with concrete. But the guy wanted a bunch of money, maybe 5 million and they didn't want to pay it out.
Lots of sad stories.
Yes, I drove by on that highway about 15 years ago, before they closed it. Smoke was coming up from all over the town.
For anyone who is interested, this town was featured in an article in Smithsonian Magazine, May 2005. If you go to their web site and do a search you can find the article entitled "Fire in the Hole".
It should be a no-brainer in choosing power source. That hatred for this country by the left is the only remaining answer as to why common sense doesn't prevail.
What's the motto for Centralia, PA?
"There will be a hot time in the old town tonight!"
Just like old Mother O'Leary's cow said.
Sorry, if gasoline is above room temperature, I'm sure not going to be there to find out that it's at 180 degrees. Troubling??? That's got to be the understatement of the year.
"Interestingly, more radiation can be released from NORM in buring coal than from a leaky nuke reactor."
What's NORM?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.