"Are you prepared for the end of the world as you know it? It can be all too easy to think of disaster as something that happens to others. But the world is a volatile place, and despite our best efforts we can quickly find ourselves in dangerous or even deadly situations. Proper preparation can ensure that, when that does happen, we have the tools and knowledge necessary to survive. This guide is the ultimate reference on how to prepare for disaster...

Beginning on Easter Sunday, March 23, 1913, Columbus and the Ohio Valley endured a downpour that would produce the largest flood in one hundred years. Heavy rains came on the heels of an especially cold winter, resulting in a torrent of runoff over saturated and frozen ground. Rivers and streams quickly overflowed and levees failed, sending tsunami-like floodwater into unsuspecting communities and claiming four hundred lives. There were ninety-six...

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...

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...

Prepping For Survival: Disaster Emergency Preparedness for Disaster Survival You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist or a hardcore survivalist to understand the importance of being prepared for an emergency situation. As recent events like Hurricane Sandy have shown us all, disaster can strike anywhere and whether or not you live in an area which is especially prone to natural disasters, it pays to be prepared for hurricanes, earthquakes, manmade...

The destruction was unimaginable. Workers in nearby factories watched with horror as the Pemberton Mill buckled and then collapsed, trapping more than six hundred workers, many of them women and children. Word of the disaster spread quickly and volunteers rushed to the scene. As survivors called out for help, a lantern fell, and within minutes fire engulfed the building, burning those trapped inside. It took days for rescuers to complete the grim...

What kind of person would deliberately start a firestorm? What kind of mind? On the scorching February day in 2009 that became known as Black Saturday, a man lit two fires in Victoria's Latrobe Valley, then sat on the roof of his house to watch the inferno. In the Valley, where the rates of crime were the highest in the state, more than thirty people were known to the police as firebugs. But the detectives soon found themselves on the trail of a man...

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita created the most expensive disaster, the largest evacuation, and the third deadliest flood in American history. Nobody can control Mother Nature but the world's most advanced nation could have protected its citizens better. This disaster revealed the faulty psychological reactions of officials who not only failed to protect the public from danger in New Orleans, but lacked effective responses to the calamity. We elect and...

This book had its origins in the many natural disasters that seemed to be increasing in number and intensity in recent years. An ever-increasing loss of life, spiraling economic costs and losses, and a lack of national, coordinated recognition and understanding of the dangers these natural disasters foretold were evident.  Additional concerns included a political attitude that ignored the realities of the dire future impacts of climate change.  Priority...