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CONGRATULATIONS, TULLY! ....right on!
Centralia is a ghost town in Pennsylvania. Its population has dwindled from over 1,000 residents in 1981 to 12 in 2005 and 9 in 2007, as a result of a mine fire burning, as we speak, beneath the borough since 1962 sending smoke up through homes and streets and most recently up into a cemetery...the smoke visibly wafting from up through gravestones.
When you go there it's like stepping into another world. Don't go! It can kill you...the ground can cave in underneath you if the toxins don't kill you first!
One theory asserts that in May 1962, Centralia Borough Council hired five members of the volunteer fire company to clean up the town landfill, located in an abandoned strip mine pit next to the Odd Fellows Cemetery. This had been done in previous years, when the landfill was in a different location. The firefighters set the dump on fire, and let it burn for a time. Unlike in previous years, however, the fire was not extinguished.
The fire remained burning underground and spread through a hole in the rock pit into the abandoned coal mines beneath Centralia.
Attempts to extinguish the fire were unsuccessful and it continued to burn throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Adverse health effects were reported by several people due to the byproducts of the fire, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide and lack of healthy oxygen levels.
In 1984, Congress allocated more than $42 million for relocation efforts. Most of the residents accepted buyout offers and moved to the nearby communities of Mount Carmel and Ashland. A few families opted to stay despite warnings from state officials.
This fire is expected to burn for a couple of centuries...until it has expended all the coal veins
The residents plan to return in 2016 to open a time capsule.
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..."Say what you think. Those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind" ~ Dr. Seuss
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