Here’s a poignant photo of a man named Greg Cook hugging his dog Coco after his East Limestone, Alabama home was destroyed by a recent tornado and Coco was found inside the ruins: It’s one of many photos in this … Continue reading →
I’ve got an article up today at PJ with some background on the old (actually, not all that old) “women and children first” rule in maritime disasters. Please click on the link and read the article first, and then come … Continue reading →
It seems as though every ship disaster has at least one goat and at least one hero. Titanic had many self-sacrificing heroes, and it had Bruce Ismay as the main goat, although there were others. Captain Edward Smith was both … Continue reading →
Here’s a rather risky method of marriage therapy. But it seems to have worked—for now: Australian miner Rob Elcombe and his wife, Tracey Gunn, told Melbourne’s Herald Sun newspaper they booked a spot on the Concordia as a last ditch … Continue reading →
…sounds much worse than I’d originally thought. The captain’s been arrested and is being investigated for possible manslaughter and abandoning ship. Passengers report that there was delay in launching the lifeboats, and general chaos. Three people are reported dead and … Continue reading →
Officials think they’ve found the cause of that horrific Christmas house fire I wrote about a few days ago: A Christmas morning fire that killed a couple and three of their grandchildren was accidentally started by fireplace embers that had … Continue reading →
This story is horrific: A [mother] climbed onto the roof of her burning house and tried to smash the windows of her daughters’ bedrooms in a bid to save them from the flames ravaging her home. Madonna Badger, 47, and … Continue reading →
When my son was little in the 80s and early 90s, the whole family used to love the TV show “Rescue 911.” It was one of my guilty pleasures. A reality show that featured staged reenactments of actual 911 calls … Continue reading →
…fascinating, but extremely chilling reading: what happened aboard Air France 447. And here’s an article written two years earlier by the same author, long before the black boxes for Air France 447 had been found. In it, he speculates on … Continue reading →
Hurricane Irene may be gone, but its aftermath isn’t. And although the effects were nowhere near as bad as originally predicted, for some communities they are still very bad indeed. Rivers are still rising in New Jersey. And landlocked Vermont—of … Continue reading →
No part of the US is immune to tornadoes, although the well-known “Tornado Alley” in the midwest has by far the largest number in this country and the world. But New England has some, too, and yesterday Springfield, Massachusetts—a large … Continue reading →
The devastating tornado in Joplin was especially devastating for a number of children who have been orphaned by it. The term “orphan” seems almost like an anachronism, something that was far more common in the past. And yet children are … Continue reading →