Disaster Area

We are so used to receiving all sorts of warning on our phones - Amber alerts, COVID exposures, weather watches. One weather app on our phone is all it takes to be warned of flood conditions or upcoming storms. But in 1990, people in northeastern Illinois received absolutely no warning that a powerful late-summer tornado was about to tear their lives apart.

Waiting is just a part of flying anywhere, whether it's hanging out waiting to board the plane, twiddling your thumbs while your plane waits for permission to take off, sighing in frustration as the captain announces you'll need to hold over your destination and won't be landing on time. But it could be worse ... far, far worse.

After six months of striking against the copper companies of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the families of the striking miners -especially their children - looked forward to a union Christmas party at the Italian Hall in Calumet. Everyone was having a wonderful time, right up the moment a strange man appeared and yelled, "Fire!"

A month after the death of President John F. Kennedy, plenty of Americans could use whatever pick-me-up they could get. The Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, FL, was just such an event. But after a night of celerating came the tragedy that unfolded when exhausted football fans awoke in hotel rooms slowly filling with smoke.

It's late at night, and you're sleeping soundly until you're awakened by a stench that makes your stomach roll. You hack and cough as your eyes burn. You can barely breathe. So you grab your spouse and your kids, and you run. You run, not just by yourself, but with everyone in your neighborhood, all of you trying to escape a silent killer.

At 9:02 AM on April 19th, 1995, an explosion rocked the downtown area of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. When people saw the devastated Alfred P. Murrah federal building, many thought at first it was a natural gas explosion. But it turned out to be something much more sinister.

Being the only survivor of a plane crash is difficult enough. Being the only survivor when you were the one in the cockpit is another level of tragic.

In the early 1900s, the coal fields of West Virginia were a tough place to work. With the mine owners keeping a tight grip on their wallets, miners got cheated out of their rightful earnings left, right, and center. From 1912 to 1922, southern West Virginia became a hotbed of miners who refused to take the mine owners' disrespect any longer.

Imagine you get up at the crack of dawn for a work trip, drag your tired body to the airport, and get onto a plane that sits in a line to take off for another forty minutes. You may think things can't get any worse. You would be wrong.

As Hurricane Rita approached Texas in September of 2005, three million people evacuated the Houston area, among them a busload of thirty-seven residents from the Brighton Gardens of Bellaire assisted living facility. Twenty-three of them would ever make it to their destination alive.

It was a clear winter's day, and there was no reason to think the trip to school on bus #27 would be any different than any other day. But as driver John DeRossett steered the bus around the curve after Knottly Hollow, what happened next would devastate the entirety of Floyd County, Kentucky.

One hundred years ago this month, the Greenwood district of Tulsa - arguably the most prosperous Black community in America - faced one of the darkest, most shameful days in American history.

On a warm Friday night in July, 2013, over a hundred people were enjoying the comfortable atmosphere and enjoyable music at the Musi-Cafe, a popular local bar in Lac-Megantic, Quebec. Then at quarter after one, the ground began to shake as a runaway train barrel down the local tracks with no one at the controls. What happened next would destroy a town both physically and emotionally.

It was the start of the winter ski season on November 11th, 2000, and the skiers and snowboarders heading up to the Kitzsteinhorn glacier on the funicular train were excited for the day to begin. But in only a few minutes, everybody aboard the funicular in Kaprun, Austria, would be fighting to survive inside a tunnel so close to help, yet so very far away.

The deadliest shipwreck of all time took place on a cold January night in 1945, when a recommissioned German cruise ship carrying thousands of East Prussian refugees to safety in the west didn't notice the long slim Soviet sub following them in the icy Baltic waters until it was far too late.

On the night of October 30, 2015, the Romanian heavy metal band Goodbye to Gravity held a free concert at Club Colectiv in Bucharest. The events of that night would upend Romanian society and government in ways no one could have seen coming.

Chilean prisons were overcrowded, rife with violence, and dilapidated beyond human habitation. It was only a matter of time before the system imploded, and on December 8th, 2010, it finally did - all thanks to a propane gas stove.

By 1932, Ukrainians would see their lands taken to be turned into collective farms, their cupboards emptied, their valuables stolen, and anyone who complained shipped off to work camps. But from 1932 to 1933, Ukraine would experience the final results of having all of that taken away - a long torturous genocide by starvation.

Drinks are on the house! And in the street, and in the basements, and ... well, they're everywhere. On October 17th, 1814, in St. Giles Rookery, London, that was kind of the problem.

On a snowy Tuesday in 1956, it's more than likely most of the people on the 8:00 AM train from Danvers, Massachusetts, to Boston would much rather have been home warm and toasty in their bed. Instead, those in the front car would soon find themselves facing a horrifying death.

On March 24, 2015, Germanwings Flight 9525 went down over the French Alps. But it wasn't mechanical failure or bad weather which brought down the doomed flight. It was an entirely different kind of tragic.

At 5:34 PM on May 22, 2011, the town of Joplin, Missouri, faced a threat that every town in the Midwest expects to face at some time or another - a tornado. But the monster which grew to life just to the southwest of Joplin became a nightmare which tore apart everything in its path.

Maybe now is not the best time to take a cruise, but back in 1965 a short Caribbean cruise to the Bahamas could be a lovely break for those in Miami looking for a little fun. The SS Yarmouth Castle was just one of several ships people could take on a relaxing weekend trip. But on November 13th, 1965, the fun on the Yarmouth Castle ended with the steady stream of smoke coming from storage  room 610...

When you board an aircraft, you would hope your captain, first officer, and flight engineer are experienced, well-trained, and able to work well together in an emergency. The passengers who boarded Saudia Flight 163 in August of 1980 were not so fortunate.

Five miles from the border with Mexico sits a common American sight - a Walmart, situated between a mall and a cluster of car dealerships. In a busy city just across the border from another busy city, the Walmart at Cielo Vista Mall was always packed full of people, something a young man with hate in his heart used to his advantage.