USA: Home Sweet Home

January 2003 – 16 mins

Church bell/Steam train FX: Steam train/Bell 02:00
Tourists on steam train Millar: With a cargo of tourists this old steam train sets out on its familiar journey 02:17
along the tracks that used to carry the coal stripped from beneath these mountains.Engine driver: Down below us is the town of Ashland. 02:31
Engine driver Now Ashland had a population of 8000 people when there was a great demand for coal, but as the use for coal declined so did the population. 02:39
Tourists Millar: They come in their thousands to hear the history of the coal regions, the stories of wealth and of missed fortunes. And they come to see the town that burns. 02:50
Engine driver: Now just on the other side of that mountain behind me you can see puffs of steam coming up off of it. Well that’s because there’s a mine fire burning in that town on the other side. It’s the town of Centralia. 03:01
Letters from government Millar: And for 40 years the people of Centralia have fought, not only the fire, but the government, which wants them out.Millar: Someone said to me the government 03:16
Lanna & Lamar Mervine was just waiting for people to die in Centralia?Lanna: Oh, well I hope they’ve a long wait. 03:25
Pigeons/Joe Moyer Joe: Who knows what's going to happen, you know. So we just have to wait and see. We take it day by day that’s all. 03:36
Millar: How do you feel when you hear Pete looking at the house?
Pete Pete: I feel sick.Millar: What keeps bringing you back here? Pete: Home -- it was home to me. 03:7
Steam from mine fire Music
Rural Pennsylvania Millar: Rural Pennsylvania -- just a few hours drive from the crowded streets of New York but really a world away. 04:18
The rich anthracite coal in these mountains gave the area its life. And the evidence of its decline lies in the wrecks beside the road.
Church FX: Bell/Church singing 04:39
Millar: But the people who call this region home are a hardy lot . And the people of Centralia the hardiest of them all.
Joe with pigeon Joe: See, the pinker that is, the better condition you're in. See, that's a little dark now. See the meat?. 04:57
Millar: Joe Moyer, his homing pigeons and a couple of dogs, are now the only residents of Locust Avenue. He’s 71 and he struggles to breathe, his lungs filled with black dust from a lifetime in the mines.
Joe and Millar Joe: If you just take from here up to the next street there were 23 homes taken down right in here. That’s 23 homes, that’s a lot of people right here in this block. 05:20
Millar: So did you know everyone around here? Joe: Oh sure you knew everybody in the town. Like hell, yeah, I lived here all my life. Millar: Were you born here? Joe: Yes, right there. Millar: In this house that you live in now? Joe: In this house, yeah.Millar: Would you ever leave it.Joe: Nuh-uh. March 12, 1931 I was born in that house.
Archival footage of Centralia Music 05:53
Millar: Centralia was like any other coal town where the bars outnumbered the churches, and boys grew up and followed their fathers into the mines.
Joe: Well it was a good town of course, wild. Everybody making money, everybody working hard. Everybody thought they were tough and strong and they’d be fighting to prove it.
Millar: But in 1962 a fire at the local garbage dump changed Centralia forever. It ignited a vein of coal underneath and quickly burnt its way through the rich earth. Forty years later on a hot dry day there’s no smoke or steam to be seen.
Rainy landscape FX: Thunder 06:35
Millar: But when it rains it pours out of the cracks in the ground and the smell of sulphur is foul.
Millar with Tim and Steve Millar: Are we in any danger inhaling this smoke for minutes at a time?Steve: Well Tim and I were here working a couple of weeks ago and it was a really nice day and we spent a few hours here . I ended up with a headache. Probably carbon monoxide. 06:46
Millar: Steve Jones is a geologist with the Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation. 07:00
Steve: It's just a very dangerous place to be.
Millar: He and a colleague are here to check on the fire’s progress. Steve: The coal seam plunges beneath the mine pool.Millar: So are the tourists. 07:09
Steve with tourists Steve: I wouldn’t walk any further back there. Woman: Really? Steve: Yeah it’s very hazardous. 07:17
Steve: This is a weekday -- you ought to see it on a Saturday. They ought to put a traffic cop out here. I think somebody ought to charge an admission fee.
Millar: The current hot spot sits just above Centralia. It can move hundreds of metres in a matter of weeks or remain inactive for months. 07:30
Millar and Steve Steve: It’s been closed -- I'm guessing somewhere around ten years now. My guess is that it will be closed for another ten. 07:39
Millar: This used to be the main highway -- Route 61 -- until it buckled from the heat.
Buckled highway Steve: Clearly there’s active burning going on here yet. Millar: There’s a fire underneath us now? Steve: Yep definitely, about a hundred feet beneath us, there’s a fire. 07:52
Millar: Steve, tell me, what is it that we're actually seeing coming out of the ground? What’s in that steam?
SteveSuper:Steve JonesGeologist Steve: Well it’s primarily steam that you’re seeing, but what you aren’t seeing is the carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and a whole host of other gases, most of which aren’t good for your health. Carbon monoxide in particular. Odourless, colourless -- it’ll kill you. 08:06
Millar: So the government’s not fibbing when it tells these residents of Centralia they are in danger? Steve: Absolutely they are in danger. It’s the gases primarily, and secondarily the subsidence events, many of which have been reported in the borough of Centralia. 08:23
Lamar and Lanna with Millar Millar: But that kind of talk has turned Centralians into sceptics. Back down the hill in this solitary row house, Centralia’s 86-year-old mayor, Lamar Mervine, and his wife Lanna scoff at the threat. 08:38
Millar: What have they told you when they tell you it's dangerous to live here?Lanna: Nothing specific. Lamar: They keep telling us we’re in great danger.Lanna: Oh yeah, we’re in terrible danger. Lamar: We might die in the hole or this gas, smoke.Millar: Do you feel in danger? Lanna: No.Millar: Have you ever had any headaches or have you felt sick at all from the fumes? Lanna: No. 08:52
Millar: Lamar Mervine has lived here on Troutwine Street since the day he was born. And he plans on staying until the day he dies. 09:22
Lamar: There was 70 people stopped right here I went up to show them around the fire (laughs). Millar: Do you think they feel slightly let down they can’t see any flames? Lanna: Yeah, because they come here hoping to see flames leaping out of the ground. It don’t happen. 09:31
Man measuring heat of fire Millar: Attempts were made to put the fire out, but each time they failed the cost kept rising. The last estimate they made was a billion dollars. 09:56
With the fire spreading on several fronts, the government did what it thought was best, and in the early 1980’s, started moving everybody out.Bill: As far as one community
Bill that was effected where basically you literally took the whole town, this probably would rank right up there.Millar: Bill Klink, from the Colombia Country Redevelopment Authority, was in charge. 10:24
Bill: The average person in Centralia no matter what size home they have probably stands to get about $75,000. If you have a larger home. You could get over $100,000. I mean truthfully on the fair market a home in Centralia might be worth $10,000. 10:36
American news reporter Reporter: If you walk down one part of Main Street here in Centralia, it almost looks like a ghost town. Many of the homes are boarded up with plywood, waiting to be torn down. 10:54
Demolition of homes FX: Demolition 11:02
Millar: Old timers watched as the bars and churches schools and factories were all destroyed.
Man: Makes you sick, makes you sick, believe me. Like I said, this should never have happened. 11:15
Millar: The demolition went on through the eighties and the nineties until Centralia’s population of 1100 was reduced to just 15. 11:24
Joe Joe: People panicked when they were told and they picked up and left and now they’re sorry Millar: Is that what happened, people panicked? Joe: Sure, I say so, and they looked ahead at the big money and they thought they were getting a fortune and that's why they jumped at it. Millar: Were they getting a fortune?Joe: I don’t really think so. I only got offered $32,000 for this and that’s not a hell of a lot. Some people made out real good, but a lot of them didn’t that I know of. 11:36
Millar: The government condemned their houses and seized the properties.
Lanna and Lamar Millar: You’re basically squatters in this house. How does it make you feel?Lanna: I don’t think about it. You could go crazy. I just don’t think about it. 12:10
Pete driving Pete: Just tore a house down the last house right in here, that’s gone. 12:22
Millar: Pete Kenenitz stayed for as long as he could. His mother was born in Centralia and he lived in the same house for 70 years. But he’d suffered a stroke and his wife was ill and both of them thought leaving was the best option. Reluctantly they joined the exodus.
Pete at graveyard Pete: I come up here every day whenever I can make it. I take care of this, my mum’s grave, my brother’s over there, he got killed in the mines. 12:57
Millar: But this tiny town, where the dead outnumber the living, has a powerful hold on Pete Kenenitz.
Pete's new house In his new house just a few kilometres away he regrets he ever left. 13:18
Pete & Barb Millar: Pete, when they said you had to get out, that you had to move out of Centralia how did you feel? Pete: Terrible. Barb: He wasn’t going. Pete: I wasn’t going to go. Barb: He wasn’t going.Millar: But now you’ve left Centralia? Pete: Well they took our properties away from us. Barb: Only due to illness. Pete: I would have fixed the house up if they didn’t take the properties.Millar: What was it so important for you to stay there?Pete: Because I loved it (crying). Barb: It was home. It was home. 13:23
Lamar & Lanna Millar: Do the neighbours get on well here around Centralia?Lanna: No more than any place else I don't think. 14:06
Millar: But there’s little sympathy for those with tales of woe.
Lamar: Well we sort of like it the way it is. We’d like to have some of our neighbours back,.Lanna: But they were stupid enough to move so now let them suffer it out.
Joe Joe: Oh certainly -- I mean you’d sooner have more people around and you’d sooner have stores here and not run four mile, beer gardens and stuff like that you miss that. You can’t even get anybody to shovel your snow any more. There’s nobody around. You know it’s tough in some respect, but we manage. We’re sort of a diehard clan (laugh) -- we just hang in. 14:29
Open cut coal mine Millar: But there’s another reason they stay. 15:02
Despite the downturn in the industry there’s enough coal around here to keep several companies busy.
And the Centralians are convinced the government wants to sell the coal underneath their town -- billions of dollars worth of some of the most valuable coal in the world. 15:16
Lanna & Lamar Lanna: I don’t know who went and counted it or how they know but there’s supposed to be 40 million tonnes of coal -- that’s a lot of coal. 15:26
Joe Joe: I think it’s a conspiracy to get the coal. That’s what I really think right from day one. They’re playing with it now for 40 years. They could have put that fire out long before had they’d wanted to. 15:35
BillSuper:Bill KlinkColombia Country Redevelopment Authority Bill: As far as Joe and Lamar go, I feel sorry for them in some ways because they do feel this way. They do feel there’s some conspiracy to get this valuable coal. I would commonsensically say to them if the government wanted to get your coal they’d have it already. 15:46
Actors prepare for matinee Millar: It’s Sunday afternoon and an amateur playgroup is preparing for its matinee performance. 16:05
Joseph: It’s just a good story to tell -- these people are very resilient and they have a dignity and a strength you don’t often see.
Matinee Actor: When they took down this building, they took away a place with a lot of history…
Millar: Lamar sits in the audience surrounded by his former neighbours. 16:24
Actor: It's right here. This town -- it has heart.
Millar: Their lives now a story told and retold.
Actor: This is a town with a lot of spirit. Ask those that have left. Or better yet, ask those that are still here, and you'll see the spirit of this town needs to stay alive. 16:37
Time capsule Millar: Perhaps that’s why they buried a time capsule to be opened in 2016.Millar: What does the future hold for Centralia?Bill: I wish I knew. 16:55
Bill If we could relocate the folks of Centralia, I imagine Centralia would just be a peaceful woods basically, with deteriorated streets running through it basically, except probably for the main drag, the side streets wouldn’t be there or anything. But who knows. We might still be talking about relocation at that time. 17:04
Centralia Music 17:24
Millar: But for those who've grown up here, whose love for Centralia runs as deep as the coal below, home isn't a place you can recreate elsewhere. Whatever the risks involved, they're staying. 17:28
Lanna: We’d like to see them mind their own business and leave us alone.
Joe: I really believe they will never force us out of the town. I think what it is, it's a waiting game. We’re going to die off one at a time and that’s when they’re going to get the town.
Music 18:12
Credits: CENTRALIAReporter: Lisa MillarCamera: David MartinEditor: Woody Landay