CLAIRTON, Pennsylvania—Richard Lattanzi started his morning on Aug. 11 getting ready to take his father to his doctor’s appointment at Jefferson Hospital on Coal Valley Road in nearby Jefferson Hills, Pennsylvania.

Within hours, the hospital would receive trauma victims from a series of explosions at the U.S. Steel Clairton Coke Works. The former steelworker and mayor of Clairton for the past 16 years would stand in front of the plant, comforting members of the community and waiting for word on how many men had lost their lives that day.

Lattanzi proudly said that Clairton has been his home his entire life, a statement everyone who lives here through good times and bad will repeat without pause. This is their home and this is their community, where they work either in the steel industry or in the businesses that support it, from the Speedway to the local barbershop; it is where their parents worked and often where they worked, including Lattanzi.

“I worked in the mill for 30 years,” he says, pointing toward the Irvin Works, 5 miles down the Monongahela River. It’s part of the three plants, including the Edgar Thomson Works Plant in Braddock, that comprise the U.S. Steel Mon Valley Works family, which has built this country for over 150 years.

The region’s identity with steel is profound. It’s in their culture; hundreds of large and small companies have steel in their names. Steel means hard work, their legacy of building things with their hands. It is in the region’s sports. The skyline of Pittsburgh is home to U.S. Steel’s headquarters, the tallest building in Appalachia.

Lattanzi was at Jefferson Hospital around 10:30 a.m. in the parking lot getting out of his vehicle when he got an alert on his phone.

“My dad has a walker, and I get a 911 alert for an........

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