Name: Cleveland Area Disasters
Brand: Calvin Rydbom
SKU: 9781467110259
Price: 24.99 USD
Availability: InStock

Cleveland Area Disasters

9781467110259

$24.99

Images of America: Cleveland Area Disasters looks back at the historic disasters to strike Cleveland in the first half of the 20th century. It documents the tornados, fires, cave-ins, accidents, and explosions that befell the region during that period. Most Clevelanders have heard stories of the Collinwood school fire, the Lorain tornado, the Cleveland Clinic fire, and the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey fire; however, over the decades, the true events and the tall tales that followed have become blurred. Some disasters, such as the West 117th Street explosion and the Waterworks Tunnel cave-ins, seem almost completely forgotten. Although tragic, the disasters in this book affected the lives of Clevelanders and often generated changes for the good, which prevented these sorts of tragedies from occurring again. Sadly, in some instances, they did not.

Cover image for Cleveland Area Disasters, isbn: 9781467110259

Disasters of Ohio's Lake Erie Islands

9781626198197

$21.99

Beautiful and deadly, the Lake Erie islands off the coast of Ohio have seen their fair share of disasters. The Victory Hotel on South Bass Island at Put-in-Bay was once the largest hotel in the nation. But the grand residence was reduced to ashes after a spark quickly became a raging, uncontrollable inferno. Reports of smallpox on Pelee Island resulted in mass hysteria and the quarantine of an entire island. At the Toledo Harbor Lighthouse, one light keeper was frozen in for days with his deceased colleague until he could make a desperate escape. Wendy Koile chronicles the fiercest calamities to shatter the tranquility of these solitary shores.

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Door Peninsula Shipwrecks

9780738540146

$24.99

Door County is the home to numerous shipwrecks of pleasure craft and steamers, on a photographic journey of the treacherous waters and those they have claimed.

Door County is the final resting place of many shipwrecks, from the first Euro American ship to sail the western Great Lakes, LaSalle's fabled Griffin that left Washington Island in 1679 never to be heard of again, to modern-day pleasure crafts that find the shallow inlets and bays hard to navigate. Door Peninsula Shipwrecks takes the reader on a photographic journey around the peninsula and back to a time of wooden ships and iron men. From Sturgeon Bay to the east coast of the peninsula to the northern islands and Green Bay, the journey encompasses early wooden sail craft to steel steamers, the brave sailors who sailed the treacherous waters, and the heroic lifesavers who rescued them.

Fire Strikes the Chicago Stock Yards

9781609499075

$21.99

Wade into the endless smoke of Chicago's Union Stock Yards, the site of nearly three hundred extra-alarm fires before its closure in 1971, including some of the most disastrous conflagrations of a city famous for fire. In 1910, twenty-one firemen and three civilians were killed in a blaze at a beef warehouse--the largest death toll for an organized fire department in the nation prior to 9/11. The meatpackers who ran the yards considered the constant threat of fire as part of the cost of doing business, shrugging it off with an, It's all right, we're fully covered. For the firefighters who were forced to plunge into the flames again and again, it was an entirely different matter.

Forgotten Fires of Chicago

9781626197473

$21.99

Chicago's war against cinder, flame and smoke did not end with the Great Fire of 1871. That conflagration was only one engagement in a ceaseless and often unrecognized conflict, fought in the most unlikely places. In 1909, fire ripped through the dynamite room of a staging facility one and a half miles off the Lake Michigan shoreline, transforming the pipe-laying operation into a raging inferno. During the World's Columbian Exposition, thousands of fairgoers watched in horror as twelve firefighters were trapped in a blazing ice warehouse. An operagoer left a smoking bomb under his seat at the Auditorium Theater in 1917, and the newly invented smoke ejector arrived too late to save firemen and laborers cut off in a sewer in 1931. Join John Hogan and Alex Burkholder for the history of these forgotten fires and the heroes who fight them.

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Hinckley and the Fire of 1894

9781467112963

$24.99

Imagine a force in nature more powerful than multiple atomic bombs—that was the Great Hinckley Fire of September 1, 1894. In only four hours, the fire incinerated over 400 square miles of forest, killed at least 418 settlers and an unknown number of forest-dwelling Native Americans, and destroyed six towns in a firestorm of flame. The elements that led to this unprecedented catastrophe included careless logging practices, a drought, freakish weather, and suspected sparks from passing locomotives. The story of the 1894 fire is a saga of devastation, heartbreak, heroism, survival, hope, and rebuilding that captured worldwide attention. Recently discovered photographs provide a backdrop for a fresh look at the events surrounding the disaster and the courage of the pioneers who survived to tell the tale.

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Oak Lawn Tornado of 1967

9781467110457

$24.99

Sodaro's book reveals the deadly 1967 tornado that struck towns of Belvidere and Oak Lawn in northern Illinois and left a 16 mile long path of destruction.

The morning of April 21, 1967, was crisp and clear, marking the arrival of spring. As the day progressed, dark clouds covered the skies over Oak Lawn, and a deadly tornado touched down in the village just before 5:30 p.m. Cutting through the intersection of 95th Street and Southwest Highway and striking elsewhere, the storm left mountains of debris and over 30 people dead in its wake. Oak Lawn Community High School, St. Gerald Catholic Church, and the Fairway Super Mart were among the structures damaged or destroyed by the high winds. After the disaster, rescue workers and volunteers poured into Oak Lawn to search for survivors, while Christ Community Hospital and other institutions treated more than 400 injured people. The immense cleanup, which took weeks to complete, saw debris hauled out or disposed of in controlled fires. Despite the scope of the devastation, many of the affected structures were repaired or rebuilt within 12 months.

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Omaha's Easter Tornado of 1913

9780738531847

$24.99

On Sunday, March 23, 1913, the burgeoning city of Omaha, Nebraska, fell victim to one of the worst tornado disasters in American history. Downtown was spared, but the fashionable neighborhoods of the city's western fringe and the ethnic neighborhoods of north Omaha were destroyed. Over 100 lives were lost, and millions of dollars in property damage was done. Photographers descended upon Omaha, rendering astonishing images of the storm's aftermath. This book uses nearly 200 of those photographs, many of which are drawn from the Durham Western Heritage Museum archives, to document the tornado's path of destruction, as well as stories of survival, compassion, reconstruction, and the remarkable unity and resilience of the Omaha community.

Red River Floods

9781467113175

$24.99

Fargo, North Dakota, and Moorhead, Minnesota, have existed on opposite sides of the Red River of the North since 1871. Ever since, heavy moisture from melting snow has combined with spring rains to threaten both towns with a rapidly rising, twisting river. Minor flooding is almost an annual event, and on six occasions the two towns experienced major floods requiring evacuations of large numbers of residents. The history of these floods is covered in the photographs contained in this book, including many provided by residents, local flood-fighting crews, and state and federal agencies. These images tell the story of how the two communities deal with one of nature's most common dangers.

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River Grove

9781467129732

$23.99

For well over its 130-year existence, River Grove has been a place to call home, first by the Native American tribes, then by a few settlers—mostly of Germanic origin—to the melting pot it has become today. Through photographs, the reader will travel from the farmlands it once contained to a Polynesian paradise nestled near the banks of the Des Plaines River; a town where a thirsty whale could satisfy its appetite with legendary Vienna Red Hots, no ketchup, of course, and a mai tai. Considered a real-life Mayberry by longtime residents, it continues to have that small-town feel amid the hustle and bustle of a village bordering the metropolis that is Chicago. The oldest town in Leyden Township has literally weathered many storms—and floods—and as the townsfolk stood shoulder to shoulder filling sandbags, they realized that they indeed inhabit a village of friendly neighbors.

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The 1924 Tornado in Lorain & Sandusky

9781626196360

$21.99

June 28, 1924, dawned hot and sunny, with fluffy white clouds hovering over a blue and inviting Lake Erie. For two Ohio communities, Lorain and Sandusky, the day ended in unimaginable disaster. In the late afternoon, the blue sky turned dark, and the wispy white puffs morphed into a mass of black thunderclouds as a monster formed on the lake. An F4 tornado, unexpected and not understood, was born from a thunderstorm on the now turbulent waters of Lake Erie. It charged ashore, smashing into Sandusky, retreated again to the lake and then headed east before turning abruptly south to make landfall in Lorain. Before the massive funnel lifted, it would destroy a city, create death records still unbroken and change the lives of thousands of people.

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The 1967 Belvidere Tornado

9781467136167

$21.99

Claiming the lives of seven adults and seventeen children, the Belvidere tornado struck the most vulnerable at the worst possible time: just as school let out. More than five hundred people suffered injuries.

New interviews and fascinating archival history underscore the horrific drama, as well as the split-second decisions of victims and survivors that saved their families and neighbors. Since the tragedy, three more devastating tornadoes have further defined Boone County's resilience: Poplar Grove in 2008, Caledonia in 2010 and Fairdale in 2015.

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The West Plains Dance Hall Explosion

9781609491161

$21.99

The 1928 explosion that transformed a West Plains dance hall into a raging inferno sparked feverish national media attention and decades of bitterness in the Missouri town it tore apart. And while the story inspired a popular country song, the firestorm that claimed thirty-nine lives remains an unsolved mystery. In this first book on the notorious catastrophe, Lin Waterhouse presents a clear account of the event and its aftermath that judiciously weighs conflicting testimony and deeply respects the personal anguish experienced by parents forced to identify their children by their clothing and personal trinkets.

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Troy and the Great Flood of 1913

9780738590592

$24.99

The rain began to fall on Easter Sunday, March 23, 1913. In Troy, 15 people lost their lives during the flood due to drowning, and in the weeks and months that followed an unknown number died from flood-related diseases. The story of what happened in Troy has often been overlooked, but in 1976 the Troy Historical Society Oral History Committee interviewed Troy flood survivors as a project for the bicentennial of the United States. These interviews, preserved on audiotapes, provide researchers firsthand accounts of what happened in the town. The late Mrs. Lois Shilling Davies, a past president of the Troy Historical Society who lived in Troy during the flood, deserves much of the credit for this invaluable resource, for it is she who conducted many of the interviews. Images of America: Troy and the Great Flood of 1913 relates how residents endured without having any instruction or experience in emergency preparedness. This is a celebration of human bravery, kindness, and ingenuity--of people who triumphed over tragedy.