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Rating: 
Summary: A Town is Sacrificed to Politics
Review: As a native of industrialized Pennsylvania I'm perplexed by how little is known of the tragedy of Centralia. I was unfamiliar myself until some years ago when I innocently passed through the area on route 61. I found a ghost town with an orderly street grid, with city blocks completely devoid of all but one or two lonely buildings, and vast abandoned fields covering what could have been orderly neighborhoods. I thought, what in the world is this? I also witnessed what I thought was a natural hot spring emitting steam from a hillside. Only over time did I learn that the hot spring was really smoke from the underground mine fire that wiped out what was once a normal small town.DeKok's book is probably the most extensive investigation of the Centralia tragedy, especially with his coverage of the political ineptitude over decades that made a minor problem into a major disaster. Dekok reveals that the town started the fire itself in 1962 by burning trash in a landfill that had an unknown connection to an old mine shaft, which ignited the slow-burning coal in the mines beneath the town. For 19 years the slow fire affected more and more people with toxic fumes, until by 1981 tragedy struck when a gentleman had to be hospitalized and a boy fell through a flaming cave-in behind his house. DeKok covers the years and years of political and bureaucratic ineptitude that merely led to "studies" of the fire rather than action, as the people of Centralia were pawns in a game between apathetic agencies with overlapping jurisdictions, plus buck-passing between the state and the Feds. Even the citizens were torn apart by divisiveness caused by stress and anger. Eventually most of the residents chose to be relocated to other towns by the government, and DeKok's most moving coverage concerns the social agony caused by this final abandonment of the town. As an update since this book, the fire is still slowly burning beneath much of the area. For their own strange reasons, a few residents are still hanging on in their lonely houses and still dealing with fumes and cave-ins. St. Ignatius church was demolished recently and route 61 has been permanently re-routed around the section that kept collapsing. This is the legacy of uncaring politicians and bureaucrats.
Rating:
Summary: GRIPPING TALE OF REAL WOE
Review: This is a fascinating book, and a very easy read for one that delves into the mires of local and state government officials dropping the ball. DeKok's attention to detail paints a picture comparable to a Stephen Soderburg film. And despite the clarity he brings to a tragic situation, he never strays far from the real story: Real everyday folks caught in a quagmire of safety issues, home ownership, health and politics.
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