Sea Disasters

2015 saw the worst American maritime disaster in decades. The captain of the SS El Faro commanded his crew to sail straight into a hurricane. The ship sank and all 33 crew members died. The sinking raised troubling questions: Why did the captain choose to sail into the hurricane? Why did no one on board or on shore stop him? And why was such an old and heavily loaded ship even allowed on the water? The crew of the SS El Faro is gone, but their haunting final hours were preserved by the ship’s black box.

Fatal Forecast chronicles a dramatic fight for survival aboard two small fishing boats that were ambushed by a horrific surprise storm just southeast of Cape Cod. Soon after the Fair Wind and the Sea Fever reached the fishing ground at Georges Bank, they were hit with hurricane-force winds and massive 90-foot waves that battered the boats for hours. The direction of the wind made it impossible to turn back.

Beneath the waves lie stories the world was never meant to forget. From the doomed voyage of the Titanic to the eerie silence of the Mary Celeste, Drowned in Silence dives deep into fifteen of the most chilling, mysterious, and tragic sea disasters ever recorded. Author James Calloway brings each tale to life with immersive, emotional storytelling that will haunt readers long after the final page. Survival. Mystery. Loss. The sea remembers everything.

The massive destruction wreaked by the Hurricane of 1938 dwarfed that of the Chicago Fire, the San Francisco Earthquake, and the Mississippi floods of 1927, making the storm the worst natural disaster in U.S. history. Now, R.A. Scotti tells the story...

On the night of 14/15 April 1912, a supposedly unsinkable ship, the largest and most luxurious vessel in the world at the time, collided with an iceberg and sank on her maiden voyage. Of the 2,208 people on board, only 712 were saved. The rest either drowned or froze to death. How could this 'unsinkable' vessel sink and why did so few of those aboard survive? The authors bring the tragedy to life, telling the story of the ship's design, construction, and maiden voyage.

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 A quarter-century ago, Boston had the dirtiest harbor in America. The city had been dumping sewage into it for...

On an August night in 1893, the deadliest hurricane in South Carolina history struck the Lowcountry, killing thousands—almost all African American. But the devastating storm is only the beginning of this story. The hurricane's long effects intermingled with ongoing processes of economic downturn, racial oppression, resistance, and environmental change. In the Lowcountry, the political, economic, and social conditions of Jim Crow were inextricable from its environmental dimensions.

A comprehensive catalog of the most devastating and deadly events-natural or man-made-in human history. If you follow the news it can seem like injury, sickness, and death are now constant, inescapable occurrences that threaten us every second of every day. But such catastrophic events - as terrible and frightening as they are - have been happening for as long as mankind has walked the Earth.... and even before. From ancient volcanoes and floods to epidemics of cholera and smallpox to Hitler's mass killings in the 20th century, humanity's continued existence has always seemed perilous.

In the winter of 1952, New England was battered by the most brutal nor’easter in years. As the weather wreaked havoc on land, the freezing Atlantic became a wind-whipped zone of peril, setting the stage for one of the most heroic rescue stories ever lived. On February 18, while the storm raged, two oil tankers, the Pendleton and the Fort Mercer, were in the same horrifying predicament. Built with “dirty steel,” and not prepared to withstand such ferocious seas, both tankers split in two, leaving the dozens of men on board utterly at the Atlantic’s mercy.

Evan, Zoe and their band of mostly young fighters have built a fragile new life amidst the chaos wrought by the Blood Virus and the New Humanity cult. Despite a series of successful attacks on the outposts of the sadistic empire of the cult and its leader, John Locke, freeing scores of its victims, Evan is no closer to real victory. New Humanity and its leadership sit secure in a headquarters complex that appears invincible, free to abuse the weak and innocent and continue a quest for a master race. Achieving final justice would take a miracle and could cost Evan everyone and everything he ...

When the fishing vessel La Conte sinks suddenly at night in 100-mile-per-hour winds and record 90-foot seas during a savage storm in January 1998, her five crewmen are left to drift without a life raft in the freezing Alaskan waters and survive as best they can. One hundred fifty miles away, in Sitka, Alaska, an H-60 Jayhawk helicopter lifts off from America's most remote Coast Guard base in the hopes of tracking down an anonymous Mayday signal. A fisherman's worst nightmare has become a Coast Guard crew's desperate mission.

Man’s struggle against the sea is a theme that has created some of the world’s most exciting stories. Now, in the tradition of Moby Dick comes a New York Times best seller destined to become a modern classic. Written by journalist Sebastian Junger, The Perfect Storm combines an intimate portrait of a small fishing crew with fascinating scientific data about boats and weather systems.

Three thousand feet below the surface, the Pacific is a silent world. But the abyss has eyes. When a high-frequency acoustic pulse cripples their systems, pilot Kade and his passengers find themselves trapped inside a titanium tomb . They aren't alone. A pod of orcas—highly intelligent, coordinated, and relentless—has turned the depths into a hunting ground .+3 The whales aren't just attacking; they are herding . With terrifying precision, they are pushing the wounded sub toward its crush depth. As oxygen levels plummet and a carbon dioxide fog begins to cloud their judgment, a ...

Evan Garrison is a former Army Ranger running a private security firm near Naples, Florida. Asked by friends to join a reunion cruise vacation, he was surprised when Zoe Wilder, a beautiful young medical resident volunteered to accompany him. Leaving his three partners and old friends behind to manage his company, Evan and Zoe embark, both wondering if the cruise would move their friendship toward romance. They were unaware that a massive conspiracy to remake the world was looming, as John Locke, a billionaire and self-proclaimed visionary and his followers prepared to unleash a deadly ...

Sawyer Westin is senior researcher for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, where he works with Martina Bloom, another scientist, tracking climate issues relating to the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland. A decorated former Army helicopter pilot, Sawyer can handle the dangers of these harsh and barren, yet beautiful settings, but when an American team is brutally attacked in Antarctica, he and Martina find themselves pulled into a growing mystery involving a hostile foreign power. A senseless murder on the polar ice quickly spirals into a terrifying global conspiracy ...

Mystery in The Deep Sea Not long after a young couple is attacked and killed by a mysterious predator in the ocean, an exploration crew goes to investigate some strange findings in the deep sea. What they discover is shocking, and the mission soon turns into a fight for survival. Fatal Submergence Cole, Ryan, and Troy go cruising on a boat, only to find themselves abducted and held hostage by a group of armed criminals on a ship. After they head further out into the ocean, they begin to realize that the abduction is actually the least of their problems.

The mission was secret. The sinking was swift. The nightmare was just beginning. After delivering components for the atomic bomb in the closing days of World War II, the crew of the USS Indianapolis sails for home. But their triumph is short-lived. A volley of Japanese torpedoes tears their ship apart, plunging nearly nine hundred men into the vast, unforgiving darkness of the Pacific Ocean. Adrift with no rescue in sight, the survivors face a new enemy: the endless sea itself. Under the burning sun, dehydration and madness begin to claim them one by one. But when the water is broken by ...

In July 1973, Bob Tininenko, his wife Linda, and his brother in-law Jim Fisher set sail from Tacoma, Washington, on a 31-foot trimaran, down the West Coast to Costa Rica. The journey was expected to take a matter of weeks, but 10 days into the cruise, the party encountered a freak storm off the coast of Northern California. When gale-force winds and 50-foot waves capsized their boat, the voyage became a nightmare. For 72 days, the trio was lost at sea. Challenged by nature and compromised by a bitter rivalry, their courage and will to live was put to the ultimate test.

Ships don’t vanish anymore. Not in the modern world. They are lost. They suffer mechanical failure. They encounter “unexpected conditions.” But in one narrow stretch of the Atlantic, vessels still disappear without warning—and without answers. When a modern cargo ship sends a calm, professional distress call and then vanishes in seconds, atmospheric researcher Dr. Mara Kline begins to notice a pattern no one wants to acknowledge. The incidents don’t form a triangle. They form a corridor—one of the busiest shipping and aviation routes on Earth. What she uncovers is not myth or ...

Sophie Reyes, senior watch engineer aboard the Ocean’s Destiny, fights to stabilize the ship as a violent storm rages. With floodwaters rising and systems failing, Sophie races to save her crew and the passengers who depend on her. Josh Carter, a young man on his honeymoon, awakens to chaos. As the ship rocks and panic spreads, he must control his fears to lead a small group of survivors to safety.