WEBVTT

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♪ ♪

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CHIP JACOBS:
It's hard for us to imagine
what it was like

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that day in July 1943.

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It appeared quite suddenly.

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CHRIS WELLS:
Thick, dark, silvery-blue clouds

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descended over
the city of Los Angeles.

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People couldn't
see across the street.

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They were wondering
what was going on.

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ANN CARLSON:
It was basically
gas everywhere

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and you couldn't see
more than a couple of blocks.

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You couldn't see the buildings
of downtown Los Angeles.

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It was so bad that cars crashed,

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because you couldn't see
the cars in front of you.

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JACOBS:
The "L.A. Times"
would later call it

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a "Daylight Dim-out."

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Sort of like
a chemical eclipse happened.

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It was like

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a dirty blanket
thrown across the sky.

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MUSTAFA SANTIAGO ALI:
When folks came out
of their house,

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their eyes began to sting,

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their throats began to burn,
and they were trying

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to figure out, "Why is it
that I can't breathe?"

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♪ ♪

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WELLS:
There were lots of theories.

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People thought that it might be

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a chemical attack
by the Japanese.

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This was in the middle
of World War II.

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There had actually been U-boat
attacks on Santa Barbara,

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where submarines were shelling
the oil fields.

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It really freaked people out.

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JACOBS:
But within a few weeks,
it was abundantly clear

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it wasn't the Japanese,
it wasn't some German plot.

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It was coming from within.

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ALI:
Residents had no idea,

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local governments had no idea
what it was.

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CARLSON:
The solutions to the mystery
would prove

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extraordinarily complicated

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and take decades of work.

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♪ ♪

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AFTON SLADE:
We'd do some rather
wild demonstrations

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with little children
in gas masks.

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We're tired of double-talk.

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We're tired of mumbo-jumbo
language.

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JACOBS:
It would revolutionize
the auto industry.

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A high school student
would recognize this

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as a conspiracy.

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MERLIN CHOWKWANYUN:
It would bring together people
from all kinds

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of ideological stripes

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with a common civic commitment
to a common civic goal.

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RONALD REAGAN:
My fellow Californians,

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today, we lead the nation
in the battle for cleaner air.

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CARLSON:
"We're going to set
these standards

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"based on what's safe
for the public,

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not on what's convenient
for you to do."

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RICHARD NIXON:
The lives we spend
in the future

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are going to be pollution-free.

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MARY NICHOLS:
What began in the Los Angeles

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of the 1940s and '50s

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would have a tremendous effect

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on the quality of air
that we all breathe

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to this day.

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(engine starts)

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FILM NARRATOR:
In the years since the turn
of the century,

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Los Angeles has grown
from a sleepy pueblo

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to a vast, seething
metropolitan city.

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Fine buildings, huge stores,

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busy citizens.

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A city which has grown faster
than any other

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in America in the past decade

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and which sees a constant
day-to-day influx of people

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from every part of the world.

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CHOWKWANYUN:
In the early 1940s,

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people are coming to Los Angeles
for all kinds of reasons.

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If there's one word people
think about

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with Los Angeles during this
time period,

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it's "boom."

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In the 1940s,

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Los Angeles was Shangri-la.

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It was a place where

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everybody wanted to go
because of the beaches.

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Movie stars.

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(car horns honking)

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Hollywood.

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(crowd cheering)

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WELLS:
It also had a reputation
as being a healthy place,

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and a number of people

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moved there specifically
to take advantage

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of the beautiful weather.

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FILM NARRATOR:
Climate here is
as close to perfect

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as it can be anywhere on Earth.

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And, once here,
the newcomer would rather

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be here than anywhere else.

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The population tripled
between 1920 and 1940.

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Then it even almost doubled
between 1940 and 1950.

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ALI:
We often see
this golden sort of

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aura around Los Angeles
in the 1940s.

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But it doesn't have
any real meaning

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if you have to wear a gas mask
to walk down the street.

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MAN:
I've been a resident

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of this city for 12 years.

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And brother,
I can't take it anymore.

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JACOBS:
In 1943,

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there was a giant attack of
air pollution, and people fled.

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People freaked.

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It was just the beginning
of a generational nightmare.

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Kids were told
they couldn't play

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outside the schools.

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This sort of a gray pall
cast over the air.

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The Los Angeles International
Airport shut down

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because pilots couldn't
see the runway,

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and it wasn't safe to fly.

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People wheezing,
people not being able

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to see clearly,
to breathe clearly.

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(car horns honking)

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No one knew what was going on.

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People ended up in the hospital.

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And the idea that living
with air pollution

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was just L.A.'s future
was not tolerable to people.

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If this keeps up,
I'm going to leave California

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for the sake of my children
and myself.

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ALI:
Smog.

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You combine both the words
"smoke" and "fog,"

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and they come together,

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and that's where the name
comes from.

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CHOWKWANYUN:
After the 1943 incident,
there's a number

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of recurring smog attacks.

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CARLSON:
So the local government
actually created

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a Smoke and Fumes Commission

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to try to figure out,
where is the smoke,

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where are the fumes coming
from, and how do we stop them?

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(train whistles blowing)

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CHOWKWANYUN:
A lot of people start
to suspect

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that industry might be
a culprit.

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CARLSON:
Los Angeles was,

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maybe surprising to some,
an industrial powerhouse.

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It was one of the largest
centers for manufacturing.

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It produced and then refined

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much of the nation's oil,

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and there was a burgeoning
defense industry

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because of the war.

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(tools whirring, clanging)

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WELLS:
In the 1940s,

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more than 5,000 new factories

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had opened
for wartime production.

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♪ ♪

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CARLSON:
The prevailing thought
was that the culprit

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was a single factory,
or maybe a couple of factories.

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FILM NARRATOR:
Outstanding among the coast's
wartime production feats

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was a new U.S. industry created

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when the nation's main sources
of rubber in the Far East

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fell into Japanese hands.

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Centered in Los Angeles...

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CARLSON:
There was a plant

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that manufactured a chemical
called butadiene,

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which was used in making rubber
for the war effort.

07:56.576 --> 07:59.946 align:left position:45% line:77% size:45%
ALI:
And that was the first place
that they zeroed in,

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thinking, "This might be
the cause of the smog."

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JACOBS:
They immediately said,
"We have it under control.

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We're going to retrofit
this plant."

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No scientific evidence.

08:10.857 --> 08:14.494 align:left position:30% line:83% size:60%
They just assumed
this would be the easy answer.

08:16.162 --> 08:19.665 align:left position:40% line:5% size:50%
CARLSON:
So the City of Los Angeles
cracked down on the plant.

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And that seemed
to help for a little bit.

08:22.635 --> 08:26.339 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
But within a matter of months,
the smog problem was back.

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It clearly wasn't just
the one single factory.

08:32.078 --> 08:36.078 align:left position:17.5% line:71% size:72.5%
Something else was causing
the problem of smog.