Catastrophe
Disasters, collapses, fires, storms, shortages, and systems that failed.
Investigations
Six Miles an Hour
At Malbone Street in 1918, an inexperienced operator took a six-mph curve at more than 30 mph. Wooden cars struck the tunnel wall near Prospect Park in New…
The Hatch Opened Inward
Apollo 1’s ignition source was never conclusively identified. NASA’s review instead found a pressurized pure-oxygen cabin, combustible materials near possible ignition sources, and an inner hatch the crew…
They Buried the Dead Apart
In 1928, hurricane winds drove Lake Okeechobee through a low dike, killing at least 2,500 people. The graves and the 143-mile dike still remain.
The Way Out Was Underground
During the Big Burn of 1910, Ed Pulaski led roughly 45 firefighters into an abandoned mine tunnel. Their survival became legend—and the fire helped shape a century of…
The Word Came Out of the Mine
After 1,099 miners died at Courrières in 1906, thirteen men emerged alive after twenty days underground. Their survival even changed the French language.
The Lighthouse Was Gone at Dawn
In 1946, a tsunami erased Alaska’s Scotch Cap Lighthouse and reached Hawaiʻi nearly five hours later without warning. The disaster helped create America’s first permanent tsunami warning system.
The Cell Was Built to Hold a Man
When Mount Pelée destroyed Saint-Pierre in 1902, Louis-Auguste Cyparis survived inside a stone prison cell. The catastrophe also forced volcanology to learn what had killed the city.
The Lines Were in the Fire
When LST-353 exploded at Pearl Harbor in 1944, nearby landing ships needed to separate. Fire made some of their forward mooring lines unreachable, helping turn one explosion into…