Bye bye
Posted on 06/30/2020 7:29:05 PM PDT by DoodleBob
An abandoned stretch of roadway that snakes through a mountainous region of Pennsylvania known as "Graffiti Highway" is now getting covered in dirt after a reported spike in crowds during the coronavirus pandemic.
Pennsylvania State Route 61 has been closed since 1993 due to damage from an underground mine fire in the nearby town of Centralia, about 60 miles northeast of the state capital of Harrisburg. The pavement on the roadway eventually was covered with graffiti, which then became its own tourist attraction.
In recent weeks, though, as the coronavirus pandemic has swept the nation, closing schools and forcing people to work from home, officials in Pennsylvania said there has been a spike in visitors.
Schuylkill County local news website Skook News reported on Monday that hundreds have visited the Centralia-area site, drawing emergency personnel to various incidents.
“It’s ridiculous,” Tom Hynoski, Centralia's secretary, fire chief and emergency management agency director, told the Daily Item. “Oh my God, it’s crazy. They're supposed to be staying home due to the COVID-19, but they're coming from New York and New Jersey to be here."
The groups proved to be the last straw for the property owner, Pagnotti Enterprises, which purchased the property from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation in 2018, according to the Daily Item.
The landowner hired Fox Coal Company to haul dirt to cover "Graffiti Highway" after people trespassing became a liability, according to Vincent Guarna, the company's president.
"I think a few weeks ago, there was a fire there, people just starting fires," Guarna told WNEP-TV. "They're doing a lot of damage to the community there, and it's time that ends right now."
Guarna said that it should take between three to four days to completely cover the roadway with dirt.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Bye bye
Ping
Don’t think it will slow down the 4-WD’s.
The Centralia fire is one of the weirdest thing’s I’ve ever heard of.
Durn!
It’s been going on for almost 50 years.
re the Centralia coal mine fire that been burning for decades.
I know. I can’t understand why they haven’t been able to put it out. How can it get air to keep burning? Is that entire region a gigantic, porous pile of coal?
Yep. New Jeep trail.
Never underestimate a politicians ability to waste money.
Pennsylvania Ping!
Please ping me with articles of interest.
FReepmail me to be added to the list.
At first I thought that was Joe Biden peeking out of his cellar.
I don’t know a lot about it, but I think it’s just too extensive and there’s lots of fuel. Underground, stuff *smolders* on and on.
RTFA. THIS is in the snippet posted:
The groups proved to be the last straw for the property owner, Pagnotti Enterprises, which purchased the property from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation in 2018, according to the Daily Item.
The landowner hired Fox Coal Company to haul dirt to cover “Graffiti Highway” after people trespassing became a liability, according to Vincent Guarna, the company’s president.
“I think a few weeks ago, there was a fire there, people just starting fires,” Guarna told WNEP-TV. “They’re doing a lot of damage to the community there, and it’s time that ends right now.”
Tell me what politician is spending money here?
This is attracting tourist in that part of the country?
It looks like a dump....Amazing.
FROSTBURG — The Maryland Bureau of Mines is still cleaning up mines in Allegany and Garrett counties that operators walked away from 33 or more years ago.
“And we will be doing that into the foreseeable future,” said Mike Garner, who heads up that effort for the state agency housed in Frostburg. “It’s an ongoing process.”
Tucked up hollows and into hillsides and on ridges in Mountain Maryland are a variety of nasty and potentially nasty remnants of the search for coal.
Until 1977, when federal law made it illegal, coal operators could walk away from failing mines. There were no questions asked. There were no obligations on the shoulders of the diggers.
“We still find old earth-moving equipment, conveyors, buildings, all kinds of items associated with coal mining in the 1970s that were just left there,” Garner said.
Also out there in Maryland’s relatively small slice of the Appalachian Mountains are portals, the openings to the old abandoned deep mines.
“We had a four-year survey done starting in 2000,” Garner said. “Interns with GPS units searched the area and found 798 old portals.”
The good news, according to Garner, is that all but 66 have collapsed, meaning they have closed themselves and prohibited entry.
Of the remaining open portals, some are more dangerous than others because they are vertical, meaning they are holes in the ground into which a fall could be taken.
Some horizontal portals, such as one at a deep mine a couple of miles from Bloomington, are so large that all-terrain vehicles are being driven into them.
“That’s a dangerous situation,” Garner said.
Tom Hynoski a real pussy
no idea that road was closed. I have driven thru there when i worked in upstate PA. wow. and i knew the fires were there but they were shoving box cars down the chutes i think.
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