1953 – Nov 12-23, Smog, New York City –150-260

–150-260 Blanchard.
–170-260 Carlson, Jen. “Flashback: The City’s Killer Smog.” Gothamist, 11-24-2009.
— 240 Karapin. Political Opportunities for Climate Policy…New York… 2016, p. 171.
— ~200 Dwyer. “Remembering a City Where the Smog Could Kill.” NY Times, 2-28-2017.
— <200 Greenberg. Disasters: Terrorist, Natural and Man-Made. 2006, p. 4 -- 200 Popkin. “Two ‘Killer Smogs’ the Headlines Missed.” EPA Journal, 12/10, Dec 1986. --150-180 Johnson. “You Should Have Seen the Air in ’53...” New York Times, 9-29-2002. Narrative Information Carlson: “…."Most of the horrors of New York's environmental past, like the grim air episodes in 1953, 1962 and 1966, were chronic and cumulative. Most past events had a thousand sources and causes — a vague diffusion of responsibility that made no one responsible." “In November 1953, smog killed between 170 and 260 people in NYC…The 1953 smog is often mentioned in relation to Dylan Thomas’s death. He died in November of 1953, and a turning point in his health ‘came on November 2nd,’ when air pollution rose to levels that were a threat to those which chest problems.’” (Carlson, Jen. “Flashback: The City’s Killer Smog.” Gothamist, 11-24-2009.) Dwyer: “Once upon a time, you could touch the air in New York. It was that filthy. No sensible person would put a toe in most of the waterways…. “Thanksgiving weekend in 1966 was warm, and a haze of smog — sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide -- wrapped around the city. About 200 people died, a toll similar to a smog crisis in 1953.” (Dwyer. “Remembering a City Where the Smog Could Kill.” NY Times, 2-28-2017.) Greenburg: “An incident of increased air pollution occurred in November 1953 in New York City. We were first alerted on the morning of November 18. Observations at the New York City Department of Air Pollution Control Laboratory disclosed that the concentrations of sulfur dioxide were considerably greater than those of the previous day and above the range which was considered normal for New York City’s air. At the same time, telephone calls from city residents, reporting eye irritation and coughing, flooded the office of the department. The calls originated from various sections of the metropolitan area, indicating that the phenomenon was widespread….” (Greenburg 1962, 7) “Appreciating the possible influence of meteorologic conditions on the concentration of pollutants in the air, we studied the records of the U.S. Weather Bureau. These disclosed that on November 12 a cold high-pressure mass of continental polar air had moved from its Hudson Bay source region to a center over the Great Lakes… By November 13, the center had shifted to Buffalo and merged with the remains of an earlier high-pressure area over the southeast. This anticyclonic circulation extended from Newfoundland to Tampico, Mexico. By November 16, this high was centered over Asheville, N.C. and its influence in the northern areas of the country was supplanted by a complex frontal system extending from the Great Lakes through the Middle Atlantic States….. “The slow steady anticyclonic circulation brought warmer air and above normal temperatures to New York City. Each night, however, with the radiation of heat from the earth’s surface into space through the cloudless atmosphere, the lower few hundred feet of the atmosphere remained colder than the air mass immediately above. The warmer, lighter air above formed a lid trapping the cooler, denser air near the ground and thus prevented its contaminants from rising and being dispersed. This cooling process at the surface and the warming aloft through subsidence and advection continued in effect throughout the long autumn nights forming an intense nocturnal inversion. The short duration of insolation was not sufficient to warm the air at ground level and terminate the inversion formed during the night. “The presence of this stagnant air mass is confirmed by the smoke, haze, and fog which were widespread during the period… Wind data observations at Mitchel Air Force Base, which is close to metropolitan New York, indicate that during November 16-22 there was little or no wind from the ground level to an elevation of 500 feet….” (Greenburg 1962, 8) “The slow drift of this huge stable air mass, which dominated New York from November 12 to 21, resulted in an accumulation of air pollutants from the entire area it dominated… This area included the industrial regions of Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New England as well as New York…. not until…prefrontal rains reached New York City on November 23 was the inversion broken and the pollutants returned to near normal levels.” (Greenburg 1962, 9) “The effects of air pollution on health may be evaluated by an analysis of morbidity or mortality data…. For this study we were unable to use morbidity data. On the hypothesis that major changes in morbidity are reflected in mortality figures, at least to a certain extent, we investigated the changes in mortality as an indicator of the effects of air pollution during the period of the inversion. “Daily deaths in New York City for the month of November in each of the 7 years 1950-56 provide the basic measure of the effects on health. The data for November 1950 through 1952 and 1954 through 1956 serve as controls for November 1953, when the temperature inversion occurred. Additional controls are the data for the days preceding and following the inversion period in November 1953… In this 7-year period there were only 12 days on which deaths exceeded 250 in number; that is, on only 5.7 percent of these 210 days were the deaths in excess of 250. In the control years, 1950-52 and 1954-56, the November days with more than 250 deaths were distributed sporadically. In striking contrast is the period associated with the inversion. From November 15 through November 24, 1953, there were 6 days, or 60 percent of these 10 days, on which the number of deaths exceeded 250.” (Greenburg 1962, 12) “On the majority of the days from November 15-24, the deaths for 1953 are greater than the number reported for these days in any of the 6 control years….” (Greenburg 1962, 12) “The evidence is, then, that there was an excess of deaths in the November 15-24, 1953 period over the numbers for that same period in the 6 control years. We make this statement with more than 95 percent confidence.” (Greenburg 1962, 14) Johnson/NYT/2002: “A dry, wheezing, watery-eyed cough became common. The number of emergency room visits climbed, and the theaters in Times Square went dark for lack of business. Smoke and haze drifted across the region. Lower Manhattan after Sept. 11? No. It was November 1953, in the middle of a six-day siege of air pollution that fouled the region with a ferocity unimaginable by the standards of today's far cleaner air. Through one bad week, a stagnant stew of soot and lead and who knows what else killed or hastened the death of 25 or 30 New Yorkers a day, according to an analysis conducted years later….” (New York Times (Kirk Johnson). “You Should Have Seen the Air in ’53; After Sept. 11, Considering History’s Lessons on Pollution.” 9-29-2002.) Karapin: “….In the late 1960s and early 1970s, severe air pollution problems arose in the New York City metropolitan area, despite the area’s favorable prevailing wind patterns. A Spring 1966 report by the Mayor’s Task Force on Air Pollution said that under the wrong weather conditions, the city ‘could become a gas chamber,’ and a statistical analysis estimated that a smog event in 1953 had killed 240 people there.” (Karapin, Roger. Political Opportunities for Climate Policy: California, New York, and the Federal Government. 2016, p. 171.) Newspapers Nov 30: “Medical scientists are not the only people who are becoming concerned over the pall of noxious fumes which hang over some of our great cities. Architects are now convinced that unseen ravages are being wreaked on the fabric of our most treasured buildings. In New York some twenty structures, most of the sacred, are found to be decaying and corroding due to the action of acids in the air….Whether you call it fog, smaze, smoze or smog, these acid fumes pressed down by heavy atmospheric covers of warm air, are injurious….” (The Bee, Danville, VA. “Our Corroding Atmosphere.” 11-30-1953, p. 6.) Sources Carlson, Jen. “Flashback: The City’s Killer Smog.” Gothamist, 11-24-2009. Accessed 10-29-2017 at: http://gothamist.com/2009/11/24/smog.php#photo-1 Dwyer, Jim. “Remembering a City Where the Smog Could Kill.” New York Times, 2-28-2017. Accessed 10-29-2017 at: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/28/nyregion/new-york-city-smog.html Greenberg, Michael I. Disasters: Terrorist, Natural and Man-Made. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 2006. Greenburg, Leonard, Morris B. Jacobs, Bernadette M. Drolette, Franklyn Field, and M.M. Braverman. “Report of an Air Pollution Incident in New York City, November 1953.” Public Health Reports, Vol. 77, No. 1, January 1962, pp. 7-16. Accessed at: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pagerender.fcgi?artid=1914642&pageindex=1 Karapin, Roger. Political Opportunities for Climate Policy: California, New York, and the Federal Government. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Google digital preview accessed 10-29-2017 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=fvZFDgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false New York Times (Kirk Johnson). “You Should Have Seen the Air in ’53; After Sept. 11, Considering History’s Lessons on Pollution.” 9-29-2002. Accessed 10-29-2017 at: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/29/nyregion/you-should-have-seen-air-53-after-sept-11-considering-history-s-lessons.html Popkin, Roy. “Two ‘Killer Smogs’ the Headlines Missed.” EPA Journal, 12/10, December 1986. Accessed 10-29-2017 at: https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyNET.exe/93000EN0.txt?ZyActionD=ZyDocument&Client=EPA&Index=1986%20Thru%201990&Docs=&Query=&Time=&EndTime=&SearchMethod=1&TocRestrict=n&Toc=&TocEntry=&QField=&QFieldYear=&QFieldMonth=&QFieldDay=&UseQField=&IntQFieldOp=0&ExtQFieldOp=0&XmlQuery=&File=D:\ZYFILES\INDEX%20DATA\86THRU90\TXT\00000029\93000EN0.txt&User=ANONYMOUS&Password=anonymous&SortMethod=h|-&MaximumDocuments=1&FuzzyDegree=0&ImageQuality=r75g8/r75g8/x150y150g16/i425&Display=hpfr&DefSeekPage=x&SearchBack=ZyActionL&Back=ZyActionS&BackDesc=Results%20page&MaximumPages=1&ZyEntry=29 The Bee, Danville, VA. “Our Corroding Atmosphere.” 11-30-1953, p. 6. Accessed 10-29-2017 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/danville-bee-nov-30-1953-p-6/