The Heavy History Of Smog In Los Angeles

The smog appeared out of nowhere on July 8, 1943, blinding drivers and causing car crashes. Mothers grabbed their children and ran inside hotels to escape unwanted fumes. Some thought it was chemical warfare by a foreign country. But no, it was smog.

Former Los Angeles Mayor Fletcher Bowron said he would get rid of the "vexing fumes" within four months. The problem persisted for more than four decades.

L.A. has made progress on the stuffy air, which was once so thick it burned lungs and eyes and caused nausea. But the fight for clean air is far from over as Los Angeles still remains one of the worst-air-polluted cities in the country.

What brought the smog?

People initially blamed the smog on a gas company plant that made artificial rubber. Then, they blamed sulfur.

Chip Jacobs is a co-author of Smogtown: The Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles. He said it was almost like L.A. was in a state of denial.

"Some people started suspecting it's cars, it's hydrocarbons from cars reacting in sunlight," he said in an interview with LAist's daily news program AirTalk, which airs on 89.3 FM. "That was not appreciated and embraced until a little scientist at Caltech took a chance."

That scientist was Arie Haagen-Smit, who escaped Holland to avoid World War II. According to Jacobs, he didn't want to be a scientist. But he was angry at the weak science around investigating smog. Lab work revealed tailpipe emissions were the smog culprit. Still, not a lot of people wanted to believe him.

"He was going up against the coolest product you could buy, a car," Jacobs said.

Feeling the burn

The smog ruined the great outdoors for many people in the decades to follow. AirTalk caller Joanne grew up in L.A. during the 1950s. She told host Larry Mantle that when she came home from college she asked her mom, "How can you live here?"

"It felt like the entire world was peeling onions," she said. "That's the only way I can describe it."

Other callers chimed in and remembered schools closing in the 1960s because the air pollution was so bad.

Mantle remembered burning lungs as a child.

"I just remember my lungs burning and wondering, wow, why is that? What's causing this?" Mantle said. "You don't really know what's going on because you take the smog for granted."

Jacobs also said it ruined a lot of fun for him in the 70s. He recalled canceled baseball games.

"You start with a blue sky, and it seemed like a fog rolled in. All of a sudden your asthmatic friends were running for the primatene mist," Jacobs said.

What changed?

Ed Avol is a professor emeritus at the Keck School of Medicine at USC in the population and public health science department. He said cleaning up the air has been a huge success story in understanding improvement in Los Angeles.

He pointed to technology and policies through the state and regional agencies on refineries, power plants, and chemical and manufacturing.

Avol also credited regulations on trains, planes, ships and cars. Those included smog checks for cars, lead removal from gasoline, and catalytic converters that helped clear some of the air.

"The problem is really so vast here, and so many millions of sources here, that really one has to do a sort of full court approach to try and address everything we can to try and reduce that,” Avol said.

Listen to the conversation