One hundred years ago today, 1,358 members of the Kleindeutschland, the German neighborhood on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, boarded a chartered ferry named the General Slocum for a picnic excursion to Long Island. A fire broke out in the ship's hold while it cruised up the East River, the captain ran the vessel aground on the rocky shores of North Brother Island amid the swift currents of Hell Gate, and when it was all over 1,021 people (mainly women and children) had perished by drowning or from the fire, and it remained the worst single-day New York City disaster until 9/11.
posted by Vidiot on Jun 15, 2004 - 16 comments

20,000 feared dead in Iran quake. Google News Cluster.
posted by arnab on Dec 26, 2003 - 63 comments

8.0 Earthquake in Hokkaido, Japan. Holy crap. The Kobe quake in 1994 was a 6.9 - am I right to think that an 8.0 is about ten times worse than that one? Any mefites in Japan who can give us more information?
posted by majcher on Sep 25, 2003 - 61 comments

The Pale Horse Percentage. The demise of civilization has been predicted since it began, but the odds of keeping Planet Earth alive and well are getting worse amid a breakneck pace of scientific advances, according to Martin Rees, Britain's honorary astronomer royal. Rees calculates that the odds of an apocalyptic disaster striking Earth have risen to about 50 percent from 20 percent a hundred years ago.
posted by The Jesse Helms on Jun 9, 2003 - 21 comments

US government suggest that all homes should have a disaster kit, in case of terrorist attack.
posted by Beholder on Feb 11, 2003 - 59 comments

It's kind of weird how people in East Texas seem to have to "pose" with the debris, like it's a dead deer or a fishing trophy...
posted by sparky on Feb 3, 2003 - 53 comments

Current NIDS Data.

I like this page because I can see if my house is going to be fried by a lightning strike or flattened by a tornado without having to put up will all of weather.com or intellicast's popup ad B.S. It's very convenient and timely.
posted by dr. zoidberg on Jun 24, 2001 - 9 comments

Should all of America pay for Davenport? If a community has the ability to avoid a natural disaster and chooses not to, are the rest of us responsible? How many times. Apparently, Davenport benefits economically from the great view, unobstructed by a floodwall. Maybe it should use some of those benefits to clean up the mess?
posted by anapestic on Apr 25, 2001 - 40 comments

Tornado Pictures On Tuesday March 28th at 6:11 P.M. a tornado pummeled downtown Ft. Worth leaving glass, office furniture, insulation, paperwork, and various other materials littering a 12 block area of the city. The downtown streets were covered in shattered glass from the many High-Rise building that were struck by the violent winds and flying debris. I took some pictures from a 26th floor office window 1 block away from the epicenter of the storms wrath. At the top of picture 3 you can see the Cash America building that they keep showing on the news - I don't have a Telephoto lens or it would be a better pic, DOH! You can also see clean up crews on the roofs of the buildings picking up debris.One of the windows I took the pictures through was cracked by flying debris, you can see it in picture 2,3, and 6. PICTURES: 1 2 3 4 5 6
posted by Jeremy on Mar 30, 2000 - 0 comments