Natural Disasters

At the dawn of the 20th century, a great confidence suffused America. Isaac Cline was one of the era's new men, a scientist who believed he knew all there was to know about the motion of clouds and the behavior of storms....

After Hurricane Katrina struck and power failed, amid rising floodwaters and heat, exhausted staff at Memorial Medical Center designated certain patients last for rescue. Months later, a doctor and two nurses were arrested and accused of injecting some of those patients with life-ending drugs....

In The Worst Hard Time, Timothy Egan put the environmental disaster of the Dust Bowl at the center of a rich history. Now he performs the same alchemy with the Big Burn, the largest-ever forest fire in America and the tragedy that cemented Teddy Roosevelt's legacy in the land....

In the best-selling tradition of A Perfect Storm and The Finest Hours, a harrowing account of the incredible true story of the recent shocking disappearance of El Faro....

The Science of Earthquakes: Why They Happen and How They’re Measured is a compelling, accessible guide to one of nature’s most powerful and awe-inspiring forces.

The true story behind the events that inspired the major motion picture Only the Brave. A "unique and bracing" (Booklist) first-person account by the sole survivor of Arizona's disastrous 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire, which took the lives of 19 "hotshots"....

Learn the science behind weather and weather prediction in this clear and straightforward new guide....

Our world has ended five times: It has been broiled, frozen, poison gassed, smothered, and pelted by asteroids....

Kate Winkler Dawson's debut, Death in the Air, is a gripping, historical narrative of a serial killer, an environmental disaster, and an iconic city struggling to regain its footing....

Rising Tide tells the riveting and nearly forgotten story of the greatest natural disaster this country has ever known, the Mississippi flood of 1927....

In this extraordinarily rare memoir by an active-duty jumper, Jason Ramos takes listeners into his exhilarating and dangerous world....

On September 1, 1894, two forest fires converged on the town of Hinckley, Minnesota, trapping over 2,000 people. Daniel J. Brown recounts the events surrounding the fire....

On the morning of July 3, 1994, the site of a forest fire on Storm King Mountain in Colorado was wrongly recorded...

From renowned writer and travel journalist Gary Krist comes the story of two trains full of people, trapped high in the Cascade Mountains, hit by a devastating avalanche....

The true story of two doomed ships and a daring search-and-rescue operation that shines a light on the elite Coast Guard swimmers trained for the most dangerous ocean missions....

World-renowned paleontologist Kenneth Lacovara reveals how understanding dinosaurs can help us better understand our own biology - and our future....

On October 1, 2015, Hurricane Joaquin barreled into the Bermuda Triangle and swallowed the container ship El Faro whole, resulting in the worst American shipping disaster in 35 years....

Tim Samaras didn’t attend a day of college in his life. He chased storms with brilliant tools of his own invention and pushed closer to the tornado than anyone else ever dared....

No one likes to think of the worst case scenario, but if you're not prepared, "worst case" could become much worse than you ever imagined....You hope that you’ll never need an emergency plan, but the truth is, it’s only if you have one that you’ll be ready....

In The Great Deluge, Douglas Brinkley, a New Orleans resident and professor of history at Tulane University, rips the story of Katrina apart....

Cathie Pelletier's breathtaking account of the 1952 snowstorm that blanketed New England, offers a valuable reminder about nature's capacity for destruction as well as insight into the human instinct for preservation....

Captain Guyan March had spent his entire professional career aboard Windjammer Barefoot Cruises’ fleet of extravagant tall ships that carry passengers on weeklong fantasy cruises spiced with rum and sun....

In 1934, hundreds of jobless World War I veterans were sent to the remote Florida Keys to build a highway from Miami to Key West. The Roosevelt Administration was making a genuine effort to help these down-and-out vets. But the attempt to help them turned into a tragedy....

On the morning of December 26, 2004, on the southern coast of Sri Lanka, Sonali Deraniyagala lost her parents, her husband, and her two young sons in the tsunami she miraculously survived....

From ABC News Chief National Correspondent Matt Gutman, and written using exclusive interviews and information comes the definitive account of the story that gripped the world: the rescue of 12 boys and their soccer coach trapped in a flooded cave miles underground for nearly three weeks....