Few remain as 1962 Pa. coal town fire still burns

[ck4829]

Standing before the wreckage of his bulldozed home, John Lokitis Jr. felt sick to his stomach, certain that a terrible mistake had been made.

He'd fought for years to stay in the house. It was one of the few left standing in the moonscape of Centralia, a once-proud coal town whose population fled an underground mine fire that began in 1962 and continues to burn.

But the state had ordered Lokitis to vacate, leaving the fourth-generation Centralian little choice but to say goodbye — to the house, and to what's left of the town he loved.

"I never had any desire to move," said Lokitis, 39. "It was my home."

After years of delay, state officials are now trying to complete the demolition of Centralia, a borough in the mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania that all but ceased to exist in the 1980s after the mine fire spread beneath homes and businesses, threatening residents with poisonous gases and dangerous sinkholes.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100205/ap_on_re_us/us_centralia_s_final_days

[Richardo]

1. James Finney (now Jennifer) Boylan used Centralia as a setting for her short stories

Some pretty funny writing too, against such a bizarre backdrop.

[joeybee12]

2. Let's hear it for Clean Coal! n/t

[redwitch]

3. We drove through Centralia at dusk many years ago.

Very spooky. Smoke and fire ghost town.

[old mark]

4. I used to know a very nice young lady from Centrailia, went to her home, and

was just depressed to see what was happening to this once pretty old town - Homes werea ctually sinking into the ground as the old mines beneath were being eaten away by fire. Huge areas where it was almost impossible to be, because you could not breathe for the sulphur fumes from the underground burning coal. I was there maybe 1980 or so, and have never forgotten it.

Parts of that town were beautiful like the old 19th century towns on a christmas card.

Rec.
mark

[WeDidIt]

5. My father lives in the area

He was born there in a town not far away.

I remember him taking me by the mine and telling me about the fire when I was a young boy in the late 60s.

[Warpy]

6. I've been reading about this one since the 60s

and there was a fight just to get them compensation for their property in the early days. First they tried venting the gases, cheaper than buying up the town, and that's where those steam vents came from. As people continued to sicken from CO poisoning and more ground collapsed, the state realized it was going to be cheaper to buy them out than to put them into bariatric chambers once a week to clear the CO from their systems.

This is all because a bunch of bureaucrats didn't listen to geologists and engineers and spend the money to kill that fire in the beginning, when it was small enough to be controlled.