Quigley, Joan

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Quigley, Joan

PERSONAL:

Education: Graduate of Princeton University and Columbia University School of Journalism.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Washington, DC.

CAREER:

Formerly business reporter for the Miami Herald.

AWARDS, HONORS:

J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award, 2005, for work on The Day the Earth Caved In: An American Mining Tragedy.

WRITINGS:

The Day the Earth Caved In: An American Mining Tragedy (nonfiction), Random House (New York, NY), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Joan Quigley's book The Day the Earth Caved In: An American Mining Tragedy tells the story of Centralia, Pennsylvania—a mining town that was the site of an underground fire, fueled by veins of coal in the mines, that burned for decades and altered life in the region forever. Quigley, who was a descendant of coal miners in Centralia, first saw the fire when she was fifteen years old, and had come to the town to attend her grandmother's funeral. Two decades later she decided to write a book about Centralia and the fire, and began seven years of research. She talked to nearly two hundred people who lived in or had lived in Centralia and consulted hundreds of government documents pertaining to the town. Her book presents aspects of mining history, the politics behind coal mining, and the science of fires burning in mines. It describes what happened to the residents of the town and questions why some were determined to stay in what they knew to be a life-threatening environment.

The Centralia fire began in 1962, in a landfill situated on an abandoned strip mine. Igniting underground, the fire was then fueled by millions of tons of coal, releasing toxic gases as it burned, and generating enough heat to melt the winter snows. Despite various attempts to extinguish it, the fire burned for years, as various state, local, and federal agencies squabbled over how to contain or extinguish it. Millions were spent, and on various occasions success was declared, but the fire continued to reassert itself, hundreds of feet under the earth's surface. Finally, some town residents began to agitate for government funding to help Centralians relocate from the area. Not everyone agreed, however; other residents wanted to preserve their town, and felt that more attention and funding for putting out the fire could keep Centralia alive. In the end, relocation took place, and town buildings were razed. Still, a handful of people insisted on remaining, although the fire is predicted to burn on indefinitely, perhaps for hundreds of years. ‘The author tells her tale extremely well (though timing of events is not always clear) and is mostly neutral in the disputes,’ stated Roger K. Miller in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette Online. ‘If she has a villain, it is Ronald Reagan's clueless Secretary of the Interior James Watt, whose determination to make Centralia strictly Pennsylvania's problem held up distribution of available funds.’ Harry Hurt III, reviewing Quigley's book for the New York Times, stated: ‘Her scene-by-scene narrative reads like fiction but inspires outrage in the muckraking tradition of Lincoln Steffens and Rachel Carson."