True Disasters

The hurricane of 1900, America’s worst natural disaster, left the island city of Galveston in ruins. Thousands perished, including all 93 children at the Sisters of the Incarnate Word orphanage—except six-year-old Hester, who miraculously survived. Oleander City is the tale of this little girl and the volatile collision between the American Red Cross, the Ku Klux Klan, and one of the most famous boxing matches in American history.

Pearl Harbor: Final Judgement reveals all of the eye-opening details of Clausen's investigation and is a damning account of massive intelligence failure. To this day, the story surrounding the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor stokes controversy and conspiracy theories. This book provides conclusive evidence that shows how the US military missed so many signals and how it could have avoided the events of that fateful day.

The harrowing story of five men who were sent into a dark, airless, miles-long tunnel, hundreds of feet below the ocean, to do a nearly impossible job - with deadly results.

On March 8, 2014, Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 disappeared with barely a trace, carrying 239 people onboard - seemingly vanishing into the dark night. The airplane's whereabouts and fate would quickly become one of the biggest aviation mysteries of our time....

Chef José Andrés arrived in Puerto Rico four days after Hurricane Maria ripped through the island. The economy was destroyed, and for most people there was no clean water, no food, no power, no gas, and no way to communicate with the outside world. Andrés addressed the humanitarian crisis the only way he knew how: by feeding people, one hot meal at a time.

On the morning of 28 January 1986, just seventy-three seconds into flight, the space shuttle Challenger broke apart over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all seven people on board. Millions around the world witnessed the tragic deaths of the crew, which included schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe. Like the assassination of JFK, the Challenger disaster is a defining moment in twentieth century history – one that forever changed the way America thought of itself and its optimistic view of the future. Yet the full story of what happened – and why – has never been told.

Amid the constant rain of German bombs and the escalating violence of World War II, British parents by the thousands chose to send their children out of the country: the wealthy, independently; the poor, through a government relocation program called CORB. In September 1940, passenger liner SS City of Benares set out in a convoy of 19 ships sailing for Canada. On board were 90 CORB children, chaperones, and crew, along with paying passengers. When the war ships escorting the Benares to safe waters peeled off, a German submarine attacked and torpedoed the Benares.

The Esperanza Fire started October 26, 2006, in the San Jacinto Mountains above the Banning Pass near Cabazon, California. It destroyed 41,000 acres and dozens of homes and cost the taxpayers $16 million dollars. But by far the highest costs of the conflagration were the lives of the five-man crew of Engine 57, the first engine crew ever killed fighting a wildland blaze. Fire and superheated gases had erupted in a freak "area ignition," sending flames racing across three-quarters of a mile in mere seconds, engulfing the crew and the house they were defending.

On the morning of May 9, 1980, harbor pilot John Lerro was guiding a 600-foot freighter, the Summit Venture, into Tampa Bay. Directly in the ship's path was the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. Suddenly, a violent weather cell reduced visibility to zero at the precise moment when Lerro attempted to direct the 20,000-ton vessel underneath the bridge. Unable to stop or see where he was going, Lerro drove the ship into a support pier.

The daredevil who leaped from a helicopter onto the back of a marlin and rode it rodeo-style. A staggering 3,001 bass caught in a single short summer season on Long Island. A grueling 37-hour fight with Pacific salmon. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction! From crazy billfish quests to the scientist who hooked a grizzly, from "fish catches man" horror stories to those nutty catfish noodlers who grope into the murkiest holes bare-handed, her are fishing's most unpredictable and spectacular tales.

They said it was the world’s deepest and most dangerous coal mine. That claim was probably correct. What is certain is that in October 1958, the Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation’s No. 2 colliery at Springhill, Nova Scotia, was a leading candidate for both those dubious distinctions. The mine was the proverbial “disaster waiting to happen.” And it did.

Forty million people in the US have tried Internet dating, which means 40 million people have probably gone on some pretty crappy dates. Not a Match: My True Tales of Online Dating Disasters is about one guy who experienced more than his fair share. Brian Donovan, a writer and comedian whose work has appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, NPR, and Chapelle's Show, has been on over 100 Internet dates in a genuine search for love and happiness.

In the best-selling tradition of The Devil in the White City, award-winning author Brian Hicks tells the explosive story of the Morro Castle, the elegant luxury liner that burned off the coast of New Jersey on September 7, 1934. The captain died under mysterious circumstances seven hours before his ship caught fire off the New Jersey coast.

In this collection of true-life survivor tales, people from all walks of life - a freelance writer, a crew member of the Lynyrd Skynyrd band, a naval flight surgeon, a teenager, and a newlywed on her honeymoon, among others - recount their traumatic narrow escapes as engines stalled, fuel ran out, hazardous weather conditions descended, and landings did not go according to plan.

Angie Orth should have had at least 2.5 kids by now—everyone else back home did. Despite a successful PR career in New York, Angie was failing at the roles she was born to play—those of submissive wife and grandchild incubator. Without a potential husband in sight or the hope of a photogenic brood to show off, she was beginning to wonder if God forgot about her.

This book tells the heroic true story of one nurse’s survival and recovery from the deadliest wildfire disaster in California history. Camp Fire Girl is a gripping and poignant account of one woman's harrowing journey through the deadliest wildfire in California's history. Written by a courageous nurse who faced the inferno head-on, this book offers a personal perspective on the heart-wrenching experience of surviving a wildfire disaster. As the flames raged around her, the author takes you on a breathtaking and emotional rollercoaster, describing the chaos, fear, and determination that ...

A century of the industrial age saw unprecedented leaps in technology and engineering, from the first flight of an airplane to the first flight of humans to the moon. But alongside these awe-inspiring achievements were horrible disasters caused by faulty engineering or careless judgement. Catastrophes and Heroes explores eight such disasters and recognizes the unheralded heroes who stepped up to save others in times of great danger.

Hotshot pilot Nax Hall has a history of making poor life choices. So it’s not exactly a surprise when he’s kicked out of the elite Ellis Station Academy in less than 24 hours. But Nax’s one-way trip back to Earth is cut short when a terrorist group attacks the Academy. Nax and three other washouts escape - barely - but they’re also the sole witnesses to the biggest crime in the history of space colonization. And the perfect scapegoats. On the run, Nax and his fellow failures plan to pull off a dangerous heist to spread the truth.

An explosion at a chemical plant and sixteen men lose their lives. Eight year old Michael will never see his father again. Inspired by true events, this is one man’s deeply moving journey into the past as he uncovers the truth about his father’s death and his mother’s life. Inspired by and based on the 1974 UK Flixborough Disaster, Britain’s largest peacetime explosion until Buncefield in 2005. Told from both an adult and child’s eye view, it is a deeply moving account of how the death of a parent can alter the course of a child’s life. Whilst it is not an anti-corporate story, ...

What would you do if disaster struck? Would you be a hero...or a coward? These are the true stories of people involved in many different kinds of disaster, and how they behaved in life-or-death situations. Hear about a single act of revenge that sacrificed hundreds of lives; how a tragic disaster at sea turned one man into a hero; the train crash that should never have happened and other real-life dramas.