Disaster Area

Waiting is just a part of flying anywhere, whether it's hanging out waiting to board the plane, twiddling your thumbs while your plane waits for permission to take off, sighing in frustration as the captain announces you'll need to hold over your destination and won't be landing on time. But it could be worse ... far, far worse.

After six months of striking against the copper companies of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the families of the striking miners -especially their children - looked forward to a union Christmas party at the Italian Hall in Calumet. Everyone was having a wonderful time, right up the moment a strange man appeared and yelled, "Fire!"

A month after the death of President John F. Kennedy, plenty of Americans could use whatever pick-me-up they could get. The Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, FL, was just such an event. But after a night of celerating came the tragedy that unfolded when exhausted football fans awoke in hotel rooms slowly filling with smoke.

It's late at night, and you're sleeping soundly until you're awakened by a stench that makes your stomach roll. You hack and cough as your eyes burn. You can barely breathe. So you grab your spouse and your kids, and you run. You run, not just by yourself, but with everyone in your neighborhood, all of you trying to escape a silent killer.

At 9:02 AM on April 19th, 1995, an explosion rocked the downtown area of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. When people saw the devastated Alfred P. Murrah federal building, many thought at first it was a natural gas explosion. But it turned out to be something much more sinister.

Being the only survivor of a plane crash is difficult enough. Being the only survivor when you were the one in the cockpit is another level of tragic.

In the early 1900s, the coal fields of West Virginia were a tough place to work. With the mine owners keeping a tight grip on their wallets, miners got cheated out of their rightful earnings left, right, and center. From 1912 to 1922, southern West Virginia became a hotbed of miners who refused to take the mine owners' disrespect any longer.

Imagine you get up at the crack of dawn for a work trip, drag your tired body to the airport, and get onto a plane that sits in a line to take off for another forty minutes. You may think things can't get any worse. You would be wrong.

As Hurricane Rita approached Texas in September of 2005, three million people evacuated the Houston area, among them a busload of thirty-seven residents from the Brighton Gardens of Bellaire assisted living facility. Twenty-three of them would ever make it to their destination alive.

It was a clear winter's day, and there was no reason to think the trip to school on bus #27 would be any different than any other day. But as driver John DeRossett steered the bus around the curve after Knottly Hollow, what happened next would devastate the entirety of Floyd County, Kentucky.

One hundred years ago this month, the Greenwood district of Tulsa - arguably the most prosperous Black community in America - faced one of the darkest, most shameful days in American history.

On a warm Friday night in July, 2013, over a hundred people were enjoying the comfortable atmosphere and enjoyable music at the Musi-Cafe, a popular local bar in Lac-Megantic, Quebec. Then at quarter after one, the ground began to shake as a runaway train barrel down the local tracks with no one at the controls. What happened next would destroy a town both physically and emotionally.

It was the start of the winter ski season on November 11th, 2000, and the skiers and snowboarders heading up to the Kitzsteinhorn glacier on the funicular train were excited for the day to begin. But in only a few minutes, everybody aboard the funicular in Kaprun, Austria, would be fighting to survive inside a tunnel so close to help, yet so very far away.

The deadliest shipwreck of all time took place on a cold January night in 1945, when a recommissioned German cruise ship carrying thousands of East Prussian refugees to safety in the west didn't notice the long slim Soviet sub following them in the icy Baltic waters until it was far too late.

On the night of October 30, 2015, the Romanian heavy metal band Goodbye to Gravity held a free concert at Club Colectiv in Bucharest. The events of that night would upend Romanian society and government in ways no one could have seen coming.

Chilean prisons were overcrowded, rife with violence, and dilapidated beyond human habitation. It was only a matter of time before the system imploded, and on December 8th, 2010, it finally did - all thanks to a propane gas stove.

By 1932, Ukrainians would see their lands taken to be turned into collective farms, their cupboards emptied, their valuables stolen, and anyone who complained shipped off to work camps. But from 1932 to 1933, Ukraine would experience the final results of having all of that taken away - a long torturous genocide by starvation.

Drinks are on the house! And in the street, and in the basements, and ... well, they're everywhere. On October 17th, 1814, in St. Giles Rookery, London, that was kind of the problem.

On a snowy Tuesday in 1956, it's more than likely most of the people on the 8:00 AM train from Danvers, Massachusetts, to Boston would much rather have been home warm and toasty in their bed. Instead, those in the front car would soon find themselves facing a horrifying death.

On March 24, 2015, Germanwings Flight 9525 went down over the French Alps. But it wasn't mechanical failure or bad weather which brought down the doomed flight. It was an entirely different kind of tragic.

At 5:34 PM on May 22, 2011, the town of Joplin, Missouri, faced a threat that every town in the Midwest expects to face at some time or another - a tornado. But the monster which grew to life just to the southwest of Joplin became a nightmare which tore apart everything in its path.

Maybe now is not the best time to take a cruise, but back in 1965 a short Caribbean cruise to the Bahamas could be a lovely break for those in Miami looking for a little fun. The SS Yarmouth Castle was just one of several ships people could take on a relaxing weekend trip. But on November 13th, 1965, the fun on the Yarmouth Castle ended with the steady stream of smoke coming from storage room 610.

When you board an aircraft, you would hope your captain, first officer, and flight engineer are experienced, well-trained, and able to work well together in an emergency. The passengers who boarded Saudia Flight 163 in August of 1980 were not so fortunate.

Five miles from the border with Mexico sits a common American sight - a Walmart, situated between a mall and a cluster of car dealerships. In a busy city just across the border from another busy city, the Walmart at Cielo Vista Mall was always packed full of people, something a young man with hate in his heart used to his advantage.

On October 6th, 2018, seventeen friends and family of birthday girl Amy Steenburg climbed aboard a stretch SUV limousine for a celebratory trip to a local brewery. Within the hour, everyone on board would be dead.

Twelve boys and their football coach. One flooded cave. Thousands of volunteers, medical personnel, media members, friends, family, and - perhaps most importantly of all - cave diving experts. Every single one would be needed to make sure the thirteen members of the Wild Boars football club would survive their escape from Tham Luang.

Climb aboard and view the amazing sights to be seen around the ancient city of Luxor in Egypt - the Valley of the Kings, the ruins of Thebes, and dozens of other temples and statues throughout the region! Oh, afraid of hot air balloons? Then perhaps this story is not for you.

For our 150th episode, we look at a disaster in which everyone survived, thanks to a flight crew with the skill and fortitude to pull off a Miracle on the Hudson.

You should be safe in your place of worship. But this week two years ago, a man walked into the Tree of Life-Or L'Simcha Congregation in Pittsburgh and broke that rule.

In the early morning hours of April 7th, 1990, most of the people onboard the MS Scandinavian Star were fast asleep in their cabins, resting as they traveled from Oslo to Frederikshavn. But at least one person on the ship was not only awake, but plotting something which would leave hundreds of people fighting for their lives.

You're stuck inside, unable to leave where you are and growing more frustrated by the day. But it's not quarantine, it's 1910 in the Cascade mountains, and you're stuck in a train that's been snowed in beside a small Washington town that's little more than a speck on the map. And as the snow falls for the sixth day in a row, the steep hillside above you, packed with heavy snow, silently threatens to fall. All it needs is one tiny push for disaster to strike.

The city didn't have to burn. Looters didn't have to break windows and rob businesses of everything that wasn't tied down. People didn't have to die. But in certain circumstances, when there is no justice, there will be no peace.

Please don't store all of your explosives in one place. Particularly if there are thunderstorms in the weather forecast.

The congregation of St. Mark's Lutheran church in New York City's Little Germany had been waiting for the Sunday school picnic excursion all year. Mothers dressed their kids in their best clothes and packed up good food in baskets to bring with them on the trip up the East River and out to Long Island. On June 15th, 1904, thirteen hundred people would be aboard the General Slocum as it left the pier near the Williamsburg Bridge. Within two hours, over a thousand of them would be dead.

You're at a midsummer evening party at a friend's beach house, enjoying a cocktail or two as the sun sets, when a loud noise draw everyone's gaze to the skies above the ocean. Something has exploded up above - a plane, raining down in fiery pieces on the water below. The sight is already terrifying enough until the whispers start. Did anyone else see something arcing up toward the plane before it blew up?

It was just supposed a late-night birthday party on the Thames - a little drinking, a little dancing, and a lot of fun with all their friends. But in the early morning hours of August 20th, 1989, the 131 people onboard the pleasure boat Marchioness found themselves at the mercy of a ship three times her size.

It spewed smoke and ash that destroyed crops and killed livestock, and yet they stayed. It caused earthquakes that damaged buildings and mudslide which killed hundreds, and yet they stayed. It sent insects and venomous snakes fleeing down into the town, and yet the people of Saint Pierre on the island of Martinique - or more specifically, some of their political leaders - refused to listen to the wordless threats issued by Mount Pelee.

It came out of nowhere, flowing in waves throughout the world during a time of great international upheaval. Some did what they could to fight it. Some were struck down, and tragically lost so quickly it was hard to believe they were gone. Some were careless about the whole thing, refusing to wear masks or continuing to gather together for parades and parties. But in the end, what mattered was the virus, and the damage it wrecked.

The gathering was just a union meeting, the Black sharecroppers of Phillips County, Arkansas, banding together and trying to get a fair pay for their work in the cotton fields. But when the night ended in bloodshed, the county's white citizens thought it was something more. Then the posse formed, and all Hell broke loose.

It should have just have been a rough-and-tumble overnight ride across the sea, enjoying a good beer or a meal as the waves crashed outside. But then, early in the morning of September 28th, 1994, a loud noise rattled through the ferry Estonia, and the countdown to the ship's quick death began.

All of us are in the middle of trying to survive a disaster. Tsutomu Yamaguchi managed to do so twice in one week.

It all started when the sandstorm kicked up. Hours later when the winds died down, Marathon des Sables entrant Mauro Prosperi found himself alone in the Moroccan desert, unable to locate the rest of the runners. Nine days later, surprising everyone, he would be found alive.

Founded in 1824, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution provided the British Isles with a standing organization of trained volunteers ready and willing to save those in peril in the surrounding waters on a moment's notice.

The images were striking - the faint outline in the marshland of the Everglades where a DC-9 struck the ground, killing all 110 people on board. But what killed all those people within only minutes of takeoff from Miami?

You're working down in the mine several hundred feet below the surface when you start to smell smoke. It's growing thicker with every passing minute, and it's coming from between you and the only way out of the mine.

In our first commercial disaster, it was supposed to be the first Tumblr convention, a safe place for fans to share their joy in things like Sherlock, Welcome to Night Vale, anime, and other interests. But what was supposed to be a good time ended up being a prolonged dumpster fire, complete with a bouncy house and a ball pit.

It was the last night of the Route 91 Harvest Festival and people were eager to see country star Jason Aldean take the stage. Twenty-five minutes into his performance, he stepped up to the mike ... only to make a run for it off the stage. Soon, everyone else in the audience would be running for cover as well.

It was one of the most respected ships on the sea, a luxurious way to travel from Canada to Europe. But one foggy night was all it would take to send the Empress of Ireland to the bottom of the St. Lawrence River in a mere fourteen minutes.

Would the United States and the Soviet Union nuke each other out of existence? In the 1980s, no one could be sure. So in 1982, a little girl named Samantha Smith just went ahead and asked -- the leader of the Soviet Union, that is.

In this final episode of our Chernobyl series, we look at how Pripyat has fared in the years since it was evacuated, among other things.