Disaster

Our Disaster American history book series chronicles the tragedies in history that devastated a place in the United States. Discover how the circus disaster of the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus Train contributed to the demise of the circus industry. Peer into the waters of Cape Cod’s “Graveyard of Ships”, then meet the survivors of the Wyoming Blizzard of 1949. Pay tribute to the first responders who rescued campers during the 1959 Yellowstone Earthquake as well as the firefighters who battled the great Strand Theatre Fire in 1941. From vicious tornadoes to the greatest storms in the past century, these disaster books revive the voices of those lost to historical tragedies. [View all Disaster books]

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The 1959 Yellowstone Earthquake

Colorado and the Silver Crash

Montana's Waldron Creek Fire:

Historic Shipwrecks of Coastside California

California’s Deadliest Earthquakes

Historic Aircraft Wrecks of San Diego County

The Santa Barbara B-24 Disasters: A Chain of Tragedies Across Air, Land & Sea

Historic Aircraft Wrecks of San Bernardino County

The Great Crescenta Valley Flood: New Year's Day 1934

The Wyoming Blizzard of 1949

Colorado's Deadliest Floods

Historic Aircraft Wrecks of Los Angeles County

Shipwrecks of the California Coast:

Colorado and the Silver Crash

9781467147576

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

A catastrophic depression engulfed Colorado in 1893. The government's decision to adopt the gold standard and stop buying silver hit the mining industry like a cave-in. Unemployment reached 90 percent in Leadville, a city built on silver. Strikes by union miners in Cripple Creek and Leadville led to destruction and death. Political parties split along battle lines of gold versus silver. By 1898, the country had begun to recover, but silver mining was never the same. Using firsthand commentary and more than one hundred historic photographs, John Steinle skillfully commemorates the story of Coloradans trapped in the unprecedented social, economic and political conflict of America's first great depression.

Montana's Waldron Creek Fire:

9781467119269

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

On August 25, 1931, five men died fighting the devastating Waldron Creek Fire west of Choteau, Montana. Lacking training and preparation, Herbert Novotny, Frank Williamson, Hjalmer G. Gunnarson, Ted Bierchen and Charles Allen dashed into the flames and never stood a chance. The Teton County coroner added insult to injury, noting that each had "no one to blame but himself." Three men were buried in unmarked graves. Records show that the body of the fifth was returned to his family, but no burial site is known. Only one has a headstone. National Smokejumper Association chief historian Dr. Charles Palmer shines a light on this important story, finally honoring the heroic sacrifice that led to critical changes in wildland firefighting.

Historic Shipwrecks of Coastside California

9781467155557

$24.99

The stretch of California coast from San Francisco to Monterey has seen its share of disastrous shipwrecks with devastating losses, but there are also stories of courage, innovative rescues and unique salvage operations. Uncover the tale of the adventurous, ill-fated Sir John Franklin, now marked only by a nearly forgotten cemetery, and relive the wreck of the New York, one of the most notorious ships to ever sail. Learn about the Coastside's worst maritime tragedy, when the passenger steamship San Juan was struck by the oil tanker twice her size and sank in minutes, plunging seventy-five men, women and children into the sea. Join author JoAnn Semones as she shares the stories of doomed ships that found their end along Coastside California.

California’s Deadliest Earthquakes

9781467136020

$23.99 $17.99 Save 25%

Home to hundreds of faults, California leads the nation in frequency of earthquakes every year. Despite enduring their share of the natural disasters, residents still speculate over the inevitable big one. More than three thousand people lost their lives during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Long Beach's 1933 earthquake caused a loss of nearly $50 million in damages. And the Northridge earthquake injured thousands and left a $550 million economic hit. Historian Abraham Hoffman explores the personal accounts and aftermath of California's most destructive tremors.

Historic Aircraft Wrecks of San Diego County

9781467118361

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

Clear weather and a natural harbor made San Diego an early aviation hub, but success in flight came with devastating tragedies. The remains of more than four hundred aircrafts lie scattered across the county's deserts and mountains. Experts estimate that dozens more are on the ocean floor off the coast. In 1922, army pilot Charles F. Webber's DeHavilland biplane went missing over Cuyamaca Rancho State Park. In 1978, Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 178 collided midair over San Diego and crashed in the residential North Park neighborhood, claiming the lives of 144 people in what was the worst airline disaster of the era. Author and aircraft accident research specialist G. Pat Macha recounts these and other stories of astonishing survival, heroism and heartbreaking fatality.

The Santa Barbara B-24 Disasters: A Chain of Tragedies Across Air, Land & Sea

9781609495718

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

Three separate and related tragedies occurred during and after a training run of a B-24 Liberator on July 4, 1943, over the Pacific off Santa Barbara County: The heavy bomber crashed near Santa Barbara and two of the crew were never found, another B-24 search-and-rescue crew looking for survivors off the coast never returned at all and was found later to have cashed on San Miguel Island, killing all 12 aboard, and the Air Force investigators of that accident, years later, in 1954, coming to the island in a Coast Guard cutter, hit a yacht, killing two more people. Author Robert A. Burtness takes you inside these somber stories with recorded first-hand accounts and vintage images.

Historic Aircraft Wrecks of San Bernardino County

9781626190122

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

Weather, darkness and twists of fate have contributed to more than three hundred airplane crashes in San Bernardino County, California. Many of these accidents occurred in the vast Mojave Desert, others on the cloud-shrouded, snow-capped mountains of the largest county in the lower forty-eight states. Searches often were labored yet fruitless, even for the privileged: Frank Sinatra's mother perished here in a downed plane. The quest for an aircraft containing $5,000 in cash has become the stuff of legend. Tales of survival in uninhabited, rugged landscapes have been especially harrowing. Join renowned aircraft-crash search specialist G. Pat Macha for dozens of sorrowful, triumphant, touching and surprising true stories of those who lived through the ordeals of plane crashes--and others who didn't.

The Great Crescenta Valley Flood: New Year's Day 1934

9781609494490

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

As Crescenta Valley residents gathered to ring in the 1934 New Year, a cloudburst broke over Southern California's San Gabriel Mountains, unleashing a deluge on mountainsides denuded by recent fires. A roaring wall of rocks, mud and water crashed down the canyons, uprooting trees, tossing boulders and automobiles like toys and carving a path of destruction. Using painstaking research and heart-rending firsthand accounts, historian Art Cobery paints a picture of survival and redemption in the face of natural disaster, including the heroic efforts of eleven-year-old Marcie Warfield to save her father and younger brother, the devastating debris flow that claimed the lives of refugees and aid workers at the American Legion Hall and the selfless acts of neighbors caught in the storm of events.

The Wyoming Blizzard of 1949

9781625859358

$23.99 $17.99 Save 25%

Snow, wind and frigid temperatures devastated parts of Wyoming and neighboring states in 1949. For nearly two months, towns and ranches were marooned by enormous drifts, some reportedly eighty feet tall. The storm stranded hundreds of motorists on the highways and stalled nearly two dozen trains at depots throughout the state. Communities pulled together to assist not only their neighbors but also anyone unable to escape the snowstorm. The deaths of motorists and livestock weighed heavily on the minds of Americans as news spread nationwide. Author and historian James Fuller recounts these harrowing stories of tenacity and fortitude.

Colorado's Deadliest Floods

9781467137102

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

Ranked among the top ten states for both disasters and dry climate, Colorado has a long history of extreme weather. On May 19, 1864, residents of the fledgling gold rush town of Denver awoke to a wall of water slamming into the city with enough force to flatten buildings and rip clothing from its victims. The infamous Big Thompson Canyon flood of 1976 killed 144 residents, tourists and campers. Per the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Coloradoans experienced twenty-two floods with contemporary monetary losses of $2 million or more since the flood of 1864. And as the population continues to grow, the loss of lives, property, crops and livestock may increase. Local author Darla Sue Dollman, who witnessed and survived many of the contemporary disasters, examines the state's most catastrophic flash floods from 1864 to 2013.

Historic Aircraft Wrecks of Los Angeles County

9781626195837

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

A century of aviation research and military flights over Los Angeles County has left the San Gabriel Mountains, Mojave Desert and the near-shore Pacific Ocean strewn with more than 1,500 aircraft crash sites. Barnstormers and test pilots too often made unexpected final landings. Accidents occurred on a nearly daily basis during World War II training maneuvers. Private planes, a sign of 1950s prosperity, also met tragic ends. These epic incidents include the 1971 tragedy of Flight 706 in which an airliner collided with a marine fighter jet above Mount Bliss, killing fifty people. Renowned aircraft crash search specialist G. Pat Macha recounts dozens of sorrowful, triumphant and surprising true stories of those who lived through these ordeals while offering touching tributes to those who did not.

Shipwrecks of the California Coast:

9781609499242

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

More than two thousand ships have been lost along California's 840 miles of coastline--Spanish galleons, passenger liners, freighters, schooners. Some tragedies are marking points in U.S. maritime history. The City of Rio de Janeiro," bound from Hong Kong to San Francisco in 1901, sliced the fog only to strike a rock and sink in twenty minutes, sending 128 passengers to watery graves. Seven U.S. Navy destroyers, bound on a fateful 1923 night from San Francisco to San Diego, crashed into the rocks at Honda Point on the treacherous Santa Barbara County coast, killing 23 sailors in one of the military's worst peacetime losses. Join author Michael D. White as he navigates the shoals of shipping mishaps with both salvage stories and elegies to the departed."