Modern Disasters

When a giant bridge collapses, a gas explosion blows up a building, or a major dam bursts, it’s hard not to wonder how things could have gone so catastrophically wrong. According to Grady Hillhouse, those failures are the defining force of engineering, where the most important lessons were...

Modern Love Stories and Other Natural Disasters is a collection of darkly funny, quietly devastating stories about the relationships that almost worked, and the emotional wreckage they leave behind. With sharp humor and emotional honesty, Michael Malone explores modern love through missed connections, unsent texts, awkward dates, and the fragile hope we carry into relationships even when we know better. From the doomed romance of two food condiments to surreal dating app encounters, these stories live in the space between connection and collapse. These are not happily-ever-after love stories.

Prepare for absolutely any disaster and discover how empowering it can be to go off the grid. Have you ever wondered what you would do in an emergency situation? What if you had no access to power or running water for days? And what would you do if food was scarce due to supermarkets closing or being completely sold out of all products thanks to panic buying from terrified consumers? Thankfully, there is a way to ensure that you’ll survive, or even thrive, in an emergency or crisis situation. In fact, you may not even need to set foot inside a grocery store again! Having access to your ...

How history’s most infamous disasters shaped the field of engineering, from the creator of the popular YouTube channel Practical Engineering When a giant bridge collapses, a gas explosion blows up a building, or a major dam bursts, it’s hard not to wonder how things could have gone so...

Welcome to the art of survival! Come Back Alive is Robert Young Pelton's indispensable and witty guide to avoiding nasty situations, whether on a business trip, an adventure vacation, or a weekend hike. In this book, the author of the classic travel annual The World's Most Dangerous Places, Robert Young Pelton--"Dangerman" (Toronto Globe & Mail); "tourist with an attitude" (Outsidemagazine); "the patron saint of adventure travelers" (ZineZone. com)--reveals the secrets that have kept him alive and laughing: in the desert: finding water where it ain't, dehydration and rehydration, copping a ...

How did a failed colony in the jungle lead to the birth of the United Kingdom? In the late 17th century, the Kingdom of Scotland was facing an existential crisis. Ravaged by the famine of the "Seven Ill Years" and locked out of global markets by English trade laws, the proud nation was desperate for salvation. Enter William Paterson, the visionary financial genius who had already founded the Bank of England. He proposed a plan so bold it seduced an entire country: the Darien Scheme. "The Darien Disaster that Forged a Union" tells the incredible true story of how Scotland gambled its future ...

A citywide power failure plunges millions into absolute darkness. But the grid didn’t fail. It was turned off. Dorian Pike, a former transit cop relegated to midnight infrastructure inspections, knows the subterranean labyrinth beneath the streets better than anyone. When a routine check leads to a mutilated body in a sealed service tunnel, he realizes something impossible is navigating the buried passages. As the lights go out above, a devastating predator breaks its subterranean containment. It is incredibly fast, shockingly intelligent, and relentlessly driven by a four-year-old trauma...

When 1919 began, the city of Chicago seemed on the verge of transformation. Modernizers had an audacious, expensive plan to turn the city from a brawling, unglamorous place into “the Metropolis of the World.” But just as the dream seemed within reach, pandemonium broke loose and the city’s...

Become self-reliant, live off the land, and be prepared for the unexpected in this modern guide to self-sufficiency and homesteading from New York Times bestselling author, retired Navy SEAL, and survival skills expert Clint Emerson. “Add The Rugged Life by former Navy SEAL Clint Emerson to...

Driven by eyewitness accounts and combining urban history with a life-and-death drama and a technological detective story, Floodpath grippingly reanimates the reality behind LA noir fictions like the classic film Chinatown. In an era of climate change, increasing demand on water resources, and a neglected American infrastructure, the tragedy of the St. Francis Dam has never been more relevant.

In 1927, while the majority of the township of Bath, Michigan, was celebrating a new primary school - one of the most modern in the Midwest - Andrew P. Kehoe had other plans. The local farmer and school board treasurer was educated, respected, and an accommodating neighbor and friend. But behind his ordinary demeanor was a narcissistic sadist seething with rage, resentment, and paranoia. On May 18 he detonated a set of rigged explosives with the sole purpose of destroying the school and everyone in it.

From the bestselling author of Flags of our Fathers, Flyboys, and The Imperial Cruise, a spellbinding history of turbulent U.S.-China relations from the 19th century to World War II and Mao's ascent. In each of his books, James Bradley has exposed the hidden truths behind America's engagement in...

When the lights go out, the true countdown begins. An electromagnetic pulse has instantly crippled the nation, plunging the eastern seaboard into darkness. Stranded thirty-seven miles from home, municipal water supervisor Tom Brewer must navigate a dead, panic-stricken highway to reach his wife and daughter. The world he knew is gone, replaced by gridlocked roads, failing supply chains, and desperate people realizing that help is never coming. But getting home is only the first battle. With the electric pumps destroyed, Bellweather’s water supply will run completely dry in exactly forty-...

A modern cruise liner. Calm seas. Land in sight. And one of the most avoidable maritime disasters in modern history. On 13 January 2012, the Costa Concordia struck rock off the coast of Giglio, Italy. What followed was not simply a shipwreck, but the collapse of command, the failure of truth under pressure, and the exposure of how fragile modern systems become when leadership breaks at the centre. In Costa Concordia: The Disaster That Exposed the Illusion of Safety, Gordon J. MacKenzie tells the full story of the disaster as a study in illusion, risk, and institutional failure. This is not ...

On November 3, 1926, catastrophe struck the Barnes-Hecker mine near the small town of Ishpeming in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. In less than fifteen minutes, the mine caved in when a torrent of mud, water and debris collapsed, taking the lives of fifty-one men. Forty-one men were never recovered. The accident was the worst iron ore mine disaster in the history of the State of Michigan, and indeed, the entire United States.

Welcome to Pig Meadow, where home construction meets comedy in the most spectacularly disastrous way possible. Percy, Pete, and Pablo aren’t just three little pigs—they’re DIY dreamers with wildly different building styles, zero building permits, and one very curious wolf watching from the sidelines. From sagging straw walls to stick structures held together by duct tape, and a brick fortress complete with a pizza oven, these pigs are about to learn that a good house isn’t just about what you build… it’s about who’s inside when the wind starts to blow. Packed with laugh-out-...

Book 9 in the Our Scary History series, this volume continues the focus on real events that ripped the land apart and left permanent marks on history. Reports and accounts from deadly volcanoes, floods, earthquakes, and disasters that reshaped entire regions between 1750 and 1930, drawn from historical records of the time. Many of these events occurred before modern rescue equipment, trained emergency crews, or coordinated relief systems existed. In avalanches, floods, collapses, and sinkholes, entire groups of people sometimes vanished without trace. Survivors reported hearing voices ...

Warnings is the story of the future of national security, threatening technologies, the US economy, and possibly the fate of civilization. In Greek mythology Cassandra foresaw calamities, but was cursed by the gods to be ignored. Modern-day Cassandras clearly predicted the disasters of Katrina, Fukushima, the Great Recession, the rise of ISIS, and many more. Like the mythological Cassandra, they were ignored. There are others right now warning of impending disasters, but how do we know which warnings are likely to be right?

AN AMAZON BESTSELLER IN 2 CATEGORIES—AROMATHERAPY & DISASTER RELIEF! Survive and thrive when modern medicine fails with this go-to quick reference! Would you be able to survive if you were cut off from vital medical treatment and prescription medications during a crisis? Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to do exactly this during the last decade, struggling to outlive calamities while isolated from medical care. In this invaluable and practical resource, Dr. Scott A. Johnson prepares you with crucial information that could potentially save your life when modern medicine ...

On a fog-choked night in July 1956, two modern ships met in the North Atlantic. One would survive. One would not. The collision between the Italian luxury liner Andrea Doria and the Swedish vessel Stockholm was not a failure of seamanship in the traditional sense. It was a failure of modern confidence. Radar worked. Crews were trained. Procedures existed. And yet, through misinterpretation, overconfidence, and the quiet pressure to maintain speed, a technologically advanced ship was fatally wounded within sight of safety. In Andrea Doria: Collision, Fog, and the Modern Sea, Gordon J. ...