02. The Most Toxic Town in America with Regina Daniel

08/31/20 • 18 min

Decay - A Podcast about Urban Exploration and Abandoned Places

Picher, Oklahoma, for those you who don’t know, is one of the world’s most notorious ghost towns. It’s a name uttered in the same breath as Centralia, Pennsylvania or Pripyat, Ukraine. It is a mining town, carved out by its principle industry – a superfund cleanup site with a population approaching zero, as of 2020.

Regina Daniel is an author, a photographer, and an urban explorer based in and around Kansas City. I’m a huge fan of her daring and inventive work. And I think the thing that I find most appealing about it is how she uses her photos as a window into a story. These aren’t just isolated images – Regina’s not just doing it for the likes. Especially in Abandoned Picher: The Most Toxic Town in America, her book on Picher, Oklahoma – she’s telling a story of a slow motion environmental catastrophe through her photography.

Regina is the author of:

Abandoned Picher: The Most Toxic Town in America
Abandoned Kansas City
Abandoned Kansas City: Forgotten Brought to Light

You can find more of her photos online on Instagram and on Facebook.

For more on the environmental disaster unfolding in Picher, check out the fine 2007 documentary Tar Creek – featuring interviews and plenty of raw footage of disaster and ruin.

Follow the show at decaypodcast.wordpress.com or Instagram.

Decay – 02 – The Most Toxic Town in America with Regina Daniel

Regina is the author of:

Abandoned Picher: The Most Toxic Town in America
Abandoned Kansas City
Abandoned Kansas City: Forgotten Brought to Light

You can find more of her photos online on Instagram and on Facebook.

For more on the environmental disaster unfolding in Picher, check out the fine 2007 documentary Tar Creek – featuring interviews and plenty of raw footage of disaster and ruin.

Follow the show at decaypodcast.wordpress.com or Instagram.

Decay – 02 – The Most Toxic Town in America with Regina Daniel

Previous Episode

01. Welcome… to Forest Haven Mental Health Center

In this episode, we go inside the notorious Forest Haven Mental Health Center with host Thomas Kenning. Closed by court order in 1991 – after numerous documented cases of negligence – this shuttered facility in the woods of Maryland, just outside of Washington, DC is a popular spot for urbex enthusiasts. Kenning reflects on a close call while exploring with some friends – and the deeper human themes that often get left out of the more sensational YouTube videos filmed at this tragic location...

You can find a version of this story in Kenning’s 2018 book Abandoned Washington, DC.

The Trouble They’ve Seen: The Forest Haven Story by Noor Tagouri is a must-see film for anyone wanting to know more about the human toll exacted at this facility.

See more of Kenning’s Forest Haven photos at DCinruins.wordpress.com.

Follow the show at decaypodcast.wordpress.com or Instagram.

Next Episode

03. Urban Exploration in the Wake of a Hurricane with Kim Hill

So often when we’re talking urbex, when we’re not creeping with caution down some stretch of storm drain or other municipal infrastructure, we’re talking about the long gone, the abandoned, the glory days that have faded, the slow decay – it’s right there in the show’s title. But what about when the ruins are fresh? Because, a week ago, Mexico Beach was a fully-functioning beach town on Florida’s Gulf Coast – and this week – it’s a federal disaster area.

What would you do if your town had been flattened in the largest storm to hit the Florida panhandle in recorded history? Well, Kim Hill grabbed her camera....

Kim Hill is author of Abandoned After the Storm: Hurricane Michael.

You can find more of her photos online at www.abandonedgulfcoast.com/.

Follow the show at decaypodcast.wordpress.com or Instagram.

03. Urban Exploration in the Wake of a Hurricane with Kim Hill