Centralia - Page 3

REBELFLAG · #41 05-16-2008, 07:44 PM

I have been to Carlisle and its too busy for me.

Summerrain · #42 05-17-2008, 05:05 AM

I am in Newville (with a Carlisle address). It is nice, country living...

Check out my house and land (and dog)...

http://www.talkpa.net/showthread.php...2C+DOG%2C+cars

CentralPALady08 · #43 05-25-2008, 10:08 AM

Northern Dauphin County is definitely laid back, almost a Mayberry atmosphere. Making a living is another story - depends on your skills and how far you are willing to commute. Many, including me, end up commuting to Harrisburg. From Lykens that's about 45-50 minutes one way over two mountains. Other places still in the area, such as Elizabethville, Millersburg, or Halifax are pretty much the same when it comes to the pace, but closer to Harrisburg.

But there is a trade-off for the slower pace. No malls - closest to me are 45 minutes in any direction - Harrisburg, Pottsville, or Selinsgrove. We did get a Walmart about 6 months ago........which made things a little easier when it comes to shopping. No chain restaurants excpect McDonald's (they are building a Burger King....). There are local restaurants that have great food, and of course numerous pizza, sub shops and chinese food places. While the schools are good, they aren't big and don't have swimming pools or artifical turf on the football field. They do have honors level and AP courses, and most participate in the local community college's "College in the High School" program which allows for simultaneous enrollment. My son graduated in 2007 in a class of 86.

Summerrain · #44 06-04-2009, 08:57 AM

Even fewer residents remain in burning Centralia

CENTRALIA, Pa. -- One of the last people remaining in a Pennsylvania town largely abandoned due to an underground coal fire has reluctantly moved out.
Movers took John Comarnisky's possessions out of his Centralia home on Wednesday. He says he'd rather stay for the rest of his life but is following orders from the state to leave.

Centralia was once home to 3,000 people. The underground fire began in the 1960s, is still burning and expected to keep burning for many years. The state began buying and demolishing homes in the Columbia County town in the 1980s and demolishing them. Comarnisky is among the last to leave.

In May 1962, preparing for the town's Memorial Day observance, the volunteer fire company staged a controlled burn at the town dump. The dump sat near St. Ignatius Cemetery and the fire company wanted to tidy up things for the ceremonies. But the fire ignited an anthracite seam -- running deep and along the topography of the land -- in the coal region of northeastern Pennsylvania.

The town turned to state and federal government help. Many former residents said they think the fire could have been put out in short order had officials acted faster with more urgency. But a trench that was supposed to be made in the fire's path to cut off its fuel supply came too late.

For the next three decades, carbon monoxide reached dangerous levels in homes, fire could be viewed beneath the surface, smoke poured from the ground and simple tasks like pumping gas became perilous. The final straw for government officials came when a 12-year-old boy nearly fell into the fire when the backyard in his grandmother's home collapsed.

A mandatory evacuation was ordered in 1992 when the government used eminent domain and condemnation proceedings to remove residents who had not voluntarily sold their properties to the government. As of May, fewer than a dozen remained.

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/ind...remain_in.html

Hunters Eye · #45 06-04-2009, 09:14 AM

I still want to go up there but I can not find anyone to go with me.

roughneck · #46 06-05-2009, 10:11 AM

I have driven through there o get to my brothers house. Its eerie to drive through even during day light. There were a few homes left the last time I went that way. What a way to loose your house.

daisy-dog · #47 06-05-2009, 10:42 AM

Is Route 61 thru Centralia still open?

Naomi · #48 06-05-2009, 10:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by daisy-dog

Is Route 61 thru Centralia still open?

I know 54 is closed not sure about 61 can find out this weekend we will be in Mahanoy City

daisy-dog · #49 06-05-2009, 11:17 AM

Kamma70 · #50 06-05-2009, 11:24 AM

There is only one road that goes through, I think its 61, but its been re-routed through the years.
It is a sad place, to think that so many families lived there, a thriving town at one time is just gone. Sidewalks to nowhere, driveways to nothing, stop signs that no one uses...its a lonely place to be...

daisy-dog · #51 06-05-2009, 12:14 PM

I would like to drive thru the town. Is it possible to get in?

Kamma70 · #52 06-05-2009, 12:22 PM

Oh yes, you can drive through and some "neighborhoods" are still there you can drive around. The houses are gone, but the roads are there.

daisy-dog · #53 06-05-2009, 01:16 PM

http://www.offroaders.com/album/cent...-Centralia.htm

Hunters Eye · #54 06-05-2009, 04:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamma70

It is a sad place, to think that so many families lived there, a thriving town at one time is just gone. Sidewalks to nowhere, driveways to nothing, stop signs that no one uses...its a lonely place to be...

That sounds like my type of a town. I think it'll fit me just fine.

Kamma70 · #55 06-05-2009, 04:14 PM

Green Lantern · #56 06-05-2009, 07:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hunters Eye

That sounds like my type of a town. I think it'll fit me just fine.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamma70

C'mon! That was

ing funny right there, I don't care what you say!

LMAO!

Hunters Eye · #57 06-05-2009, 08:40 PM

Well I'm serious when I said that. Specially with the way I been feeling and whats been going on. I deserve a town just like that.

jake · #58 06-05-2009, 08:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamma70

There is only one road that goes through, I think its 61, but its been re-routed through the years.
It is a sad place, to think that so many families lived there, a thriving town at one time is just gone. Sidewalks to nowhere, driveways to nothing, stop signs that no one uses...its a lonely place to be...

Cue the twilight zone music ...

nicle · #59 06-06-2009, 04:51 PM

I live in Frackville - Centralia isnt too far. Had friends who lived on the top of hill there and their home was purchased and tore down by the govt they had to relocate. The road we take going there has a bump on it with a sign that says bump LOL due to the mine fire going over the road. It has been patched and filled in but came back. SIdes of the road from Girardville to Centralia were smoking but not sure if since has passed that area.

Summerrain · #60 10-19-2009, 08:55 AM

Centralia's coal-fueled fire could reach Mount Carmel, newly released maps indicate

By DAVID N. DUNKLE, The Patriot-News

October 17, 2009, 7:35PM

Newly released Pennsylvania maps indicate that the coal-fueled fire under Centralia could spread to the nearby town of Mount Carmel, according to an author who recently updated his book on the fire.

The fire below Centralia has burned for nearly five decades, with no end in sight.

"Nobody really knows how long it will burn," said author David DeKok, who has published a revised and expanded version of "Unseen Danger," his 1986 book about the Centralia fire. ¶
DeKok’s new book is titled "Fire Underground: The Ongoing Tragedy of the Centralia Mine Fire," published by Globe Pequot Press.

"Fire Underground," which features new chapters and photos, updates the history of the Centralia fire. The underground inferno started May 27, 1962, when the borough set fire to a dump site as part of an effort to spruce up the town for Memorial Day.

That fire has never gone out, spreading into a labyrinth of anthracite coal mines below the town. Over the years, the heat, steam and poisonous fumes it generates have made Centralia synonymous with hell on earth.

Nearly all of its 1,000 residents have taken a government buyout and moved elsewhere. Many battled stubbornly for their town every step of the way, DeKok said. But they were ultimately undone by bureaucratic disinterest from the state and federal governments, which deemed the cost of putting out the fire too high, he said.

"I think the most tragic aspect is how the people of Centralia and the town they loved were weighed in the balance and found wanting," DeKok said. "Helping them was always weighed against the cost, and for more than 20 years, cost won out in the face of the advancing fire."

DeKok, of Harrisburg, has been following the fire and its effect for more than 30 years, starting with hundreds of articles he wrote between 1975 and 1987 as a reporter for the Times-Item newspaper in Shamokin. He still visits the town to take photos, building a visual record of its decline.

Many of the new details in "Fire Underground" were found because of an open-records law recently enacted in Pennsylvania.

He writes, for example, about old maps that were discovered — but not made public — by the state Department of Environmental Resources. Those show additional tunnel systems that might enable the fire to reach the nearby town of Mount Carmel — a westward migration that might take decades.

DeKok’s photos of Centralia, 60 miles northeast of Harrisburg, show a ghost town slowly being reclaimed by nature. Abandoned houses are torn down because they cannot be sold and represent a potential public hazard. Roads are disintegrating, and some have been closed. Plumes of steam rise from vents in the ground, and there are hot spots where winter snow melts almost immediately.

DeKok said fewer than a dozen structures still stand, including the municipal building, which is used to park fire trucks — and apparently is still the site of Borough Council meetings.

"I’m not sure they meet the definition of a borough any more," he said. "Stubbornness is a big part of it. Those remaining are the die-hards of the die-hards."

Centralia's coal-fueled fire could reach Mount Carmel, newly released maps indicate | Breaking Midstate News with The Patriot-News - - PennLive.com