Coming Soon

Disaster can come in many forms, from earthquakes and avalanches to catastrophic machine failure and acts of terror. And afterwards, when the dust settles and the survivors emerge, we can't help but wonder: why them? Why did they live when so many others perished? In The Unthinkable, Prize-winning journalist Amanda Ripley, who has covered some of the most devastating disasters of our age, sets out to find the answers.

For more than 50 years, a power plant in the small town of Kingston, Tennessee, burned fourteen thousand tons of coal a day, gradually creating a mountain of ashen waste 60 feet high and covering 84 acres, contained only by an earthen embankment. In 2008, just before Christmas, that embankment broke, unleashing a lethal wave of coal sludge that covered 300 acres, damaged nearly 30 homes, and precipitating a cleanup effort that would cost more than $1 billion—and the lives of more than 50 cleanup workers who inhaled ​​the toxins it released.​