The Wreck of the Old 97
9781596298767
Regular price $21.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 30%With Fast Mail train No. 97 an hour behind schedule, locomotive engineer Steve Broady, according to legend, swore to "put her in Spencer on time" or "put her in Hell."
Through eyewitness reports and court testimonies, historian Larry Aaron expertly pieces together the events of September 27, 1903, at Danville, Virginia, when the Old 97 plummeted off a forty-five-foot trestle into the ravine below. With more twists and turns than the railroad tracks on which the Old 97 ran, this book chronicles the story of one of the most famous train wrecks in American history, as well as the controversy surrounding "The Wreck of the Old 97," that most famous ballad, which secured the Old 97 a place within the annals of American folklore.
Shipwrecks of Massachusetts Bay
9781609496791
Regular price $21.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 30%Shipwrecks of the California Coast:
9781609499242
Regular price $19.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 23%Shipwrecks of Lake Erie
9781626195516
Regular price $21.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 30%Lake Erie has seen its share of disasters, claiming more ships per square mile than any other body of freshwater. Read the mysteries of its most mysterious and notorious wrecks and disappearances.
The great lakes have seen many ships meet their end, but none so much as Lake Erie. As the shallowest of the Great Lakes, Lake Erie is prone to sudden waves and wildly shifting sandbars. The steamer Atlantic succumbed to these conditions when, in 1852, a late night collision brought 68 of its weary immigrant passengers to watery graves. The 1916 Black Friday Storm sank four ships -- including the "unsinkable" James B. Colgate -- in the course of its 20-hour tantrum over the lake. In 1954, a difficult fishing season sent the Richard R into troubled waters in the hopes of catching a few more fish. One of the lake's sudden storms drowned the boat and three man crew. At just 50 miles wide and 200 miles long, Lake Erie has claimed more ships per square mile than any other body of freshwater. Author David Frew dives deep to discover the mysteries of some of Lake Erie's most notorious wrecks.
The Larchmont Disaster off Block Island: Rhode Island's Titanic
9781626197947
Regular price $21.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 30%The Sol e Mar Tragedy off Martha's Vineyard
9781626195882
Regular price $21.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 30%The 1935 Republican River Flood
9781626198555
Regular price $21.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 30%When the Levee Breaks:
9781609499426
Regular price $21.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 30%The Washington Arsenal Explosion: Civil War Disaster in the Capital
9781609497934
Regular price $21.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 30%The West Plains Dance Hall Explosion
9781609491161
Regular price $21.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 30%Memphis and the Superflood of 1937
9781596295308
Regular price $21.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 30%Experience the historic superflood that decimated the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys and the resilience displayed by the people of Memphis.
The greatest flood in United States history struck the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys in January 1937. Perhaps no single flood in the United States had caused as much damage, displayed as much brutal natural force and displaced as many people. Not even the calamitous flood of 1927, which has eclipsed the '37 flood in terms of historical coverage was as massive. Author and Memphis local Patrick O'Daniel illustrates how this national natural disaster affected Memphis, in particular, and how the politicians of the day, from national figures like FDR to local political bosses like Ed Crump, handled unprecedented infrastructural challenges. Yet beyond politics and policy, O'Daniel tells the story of this historic disaster through the eyes of everyday Memphians, their struggles, care for thousands of desperate refugees and the measures they took to save their city from this devastating flood.
The Tragic Sinking of Gloucester's Patriot
9781467150866
Regular price $21.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 30%On the evening of January 2, 2009, Captain Matteo Russo and crewman John Orlando got underway aboard the fifty-four-foot fishing vessel Patriot, from the iconic State Pier in Gloucester, Massachusetts, bound for nearby fishing grounds in search of cod. They never returned.
What happened less than eight hours later on that bitter and dark winter early morning that caused the Patriot to sink? Why did the Coast Guard deliberate more than two hours before launching a rescue mission? Using official documents, numerous interviews and insight as a search and rescue commander, maritime historian Captain W. Russell Webster, USCG (Ret.), expertly documents the tragedy of the Patriot, with startling findings. He deftly explores the condition of "normalcy bias'? linked to this heartbreaking case, which can cause people--including Coast Guard personnel--to deny and sometimes over-deliberate threats to human life.
The Great Cumberland Floods: Disaster in the Queen City
9781596296886
Regular price $21.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 30%The Great Crescenta Valley Flood: New Year's Day 1934
9781609494490
Regular price $19.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 23%The Great Hurricanes of North Carolina
9781596293915
Regular price $14.99 Sale price $10.49 Save 30%The Great Louisville Tornado of 1890
9781596298927
Regular price $21.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 30%The Pendleton Disaster off Cape Cod
9781609490508
Regular price $21.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 30%Get a first-hand account and fascinating new details of the story behind The Finest Hours, the film portraying the harrowing rescue of the SS Pendleton in 1952.
On February 18, 1952, off the coast of Cape Cod, a fierce nor'easter snapped in half two 503-foot oil tankers, the Pendleton and the Fort Mercer. Human grace and grit, leadership and endurance prevail as Theresa Mitchell Barbo and Captain W. Russell Webster (Ret.) recount the historic, heroic rescue of thirty-two merchant mariners from the sinking Pendleton by four young Coast Guardsmen aboard the 36-foot motor lifeboat CG36500. A foreword by former Commandant Admiral Thad Allen (Ret.) and an essay by Master Chief John ""Jack"" Downey (Ret.), a veteran of thousands of modern-day small boat rescues, round out the special third edition of this classic work on Coast Guard history.
Columbus and the Great Flood of 1913:
9781626190610
Regular price $21.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 30%Cleveland Calamities:
9781626193369
Regular price $21.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 30%The Cedar Keys Hurricane of 1896
9781596296121
Regular price $21.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 30%Families watched in horror as walls of water swept away homes and businesses, and men held onto saplings for their lives while the winds howled.
The destruction was beyond belief. Buildings on Atsena Otie were swept away so completely that only cracked stone foundations remained, and the forests of red cedar that gave the islands their name and livelihood were flattened. Resulting in dozens of deaths and millions of dollars in damage, Hurricane Number 4 in 1896 changed the Cedar Keys forever and set the city on a path to the present. Historian Alvin F. Oickle, drawing on firsthand accounts and extensive archival research, tells the story of ordinary Floridians who were faced, like so many before and so many since, with nature's fury.
Disaster on Lake Erie:
9781609490980
Regular price $21.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 30%Disaster on the Potomac
9781596298132
Regular price $21.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 30%Disaster Off Martha's Vineyard:
9781609495107
Regular price $21.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 30%Outbreak in Washington, D.C.:
9781626196384
Regular price $21.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 30%Explosion on the Potomac
9781626191976
Regular price $21.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 30%Yellow Fever on Galveston Island
9781467146555
Regular price $21.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 30%Jan Johnson provides a definitive account of Galveston's fight against outbreaks of Yellow Fever, which transformed an island paradise into the City of Dreadful Death.
In the summer of Galveston's founding year, a mysterious malady accompanied by black vomit descended upon the inhabitants. Names for the devastating plague came quick and fast as the body count rose. Saffron Scourge. Bronze John. Yellow Jack. Yellow Fever. The disease's cause and cure remained elusive, as did the medical institutions Galveston would need treat the illness. Four thousand souls perished in nine epidemics between 1839 and 1867. By the time of Galveston's final Yellow Fever outbreak in 1903, however, residents were better informed and equipped. Discover the key figures and pivotal events of the island city's experience with the mosquito-borne disease.
Explosion at Morgan:
9781609495176
Regular price $21.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 30%The Deadly Shipwrecks of the Powhattan & New Era on the Jersey Shore
9781626199774
Regular price $21.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 30%Colorado's Deadliest Floods
9781467137102
Regular price $21.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 30%Deadly Storms of the Delmarva Coast
9781625859389
Regular price $21.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 30%Journey to the coast with Michael Morgan as he looks back at the area's most deadly storms.
Coastal Delaware, Maryland and Virginia have always been vulnerable to the power of storms. In the early nineteenth century, storm-driven shipwrecks led to the construction of the Delaware breakwater. In 1933, a storm created an inlet on the south edge of Ocean City and changed the character of the Maryland resort. The Ash Wednesday nor'easter of 1962 devastated oceanfront communities, led to the creation of beach replenishment projects that pushed the ocean back from the new multimillion-dollar buildings that sat on the sand and spurred the creation of Assateague Island National Seashore. Michael Morgan narrates the stories of these storms and reminds us of the power of wind and water.
A History of Alabama's Deadliest Tornadoes
9781596299115
Regular price $21.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 30%The 1924 Tornado in Lorain & Sandusky: Deadliest in Ohio History
9781626196360
Regular price $21.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 30%A History of Connecticut's Deadliest Tornadoes
9781626197893
Regular price $21.99 Sale price $15.39 Save 30%