
Texas Disasters
True Stories Of Tragedy And Survival
Mike Cox(Author)
Globe Pequot Press
Published on 1. November 2006
Book
Paperback/Softback
264 pages
978-0-7627-3675-1 (ISBN)
Description
The enormity of Texas's many major disasters are an appropriate match for the state's large size. This is an area of the country where tornadoes are a frequent threat, but in addition to the many violent twisters, residents have experienced fires, floods, drought, blizzards, shipwrecks, and other devastating events, including a yellow fever epidemic in 1867, which earned that year the grim moniker "The Year of Death."
Twenty dramatic true stories are retold in this well-researched collection, including:
>The deadly quarter-mile-wide tornado that roared through the town of Goliad in 1902, killing 114 people, injuring 230, and demolishing 150 structures.
>A 1937 natural gas explosion at a school in New London, which blew the whole building into the air and killed 298 students and teachers.
>A 15-foot wall of water that in 1965 swept down the canyon in the West Texas railroad town of Sanderson, killing whole families but uniting the racially divided town in rescue efforts.
>The 1947 explosion of the SS Grandcamp, a French vessel docked in Texas City and laden with ammonium nitrate, which had caught fire and later ignited another ship carrying the same cargo. The two blasts killed 576 people, injured thousands more, and jarred residents of Houston 40 miles to the north.
Twenty dramatic true stories are retold in this well-researched collection, including:
>The deadly quarter-mile-wide tornado that roared through the town of Goliad in 1902, killing 114 people, injuring 230, and demolishing 150 structures.
>A 1937 natural gas explosion at a school in New London, which blew the whole building into the air and killed 298 students and teachers.
>A 15-foot wall of water that in 1965 swept down the canyon in the West Texas railroad town of Sanderson, killing whole families but uniting the racially divided town in rescue efforts.
>The 1947 explosion of the SS Grandcamp, a French vessel docked in Texas City and laden with ammonium nitrate, which had caught fire and later ignited another ship carrying the same cargo. The two blasts killed 576 people, injured thousands more, and jarred residents of Houston 40 miles to the north.
Reviews / Votes
"Texans always pitch in and help each other after a tragedy..."--Mike CoxMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Old Saybrook
United States
Publishing group
Rowman & Littlefield
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 153 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
367 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-7627-3675-1 (9780762736751)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Mike Cox is the author of a dozen books on Texas history and other subjects. He was the communications manager for the Texas Department of Transportation while Texas absorbed hundreds of thousands of evacuees during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Before that, he spent fifteen years with the Texas Department of Public Safety as a public information officer and was a newspaper reporter--all good research for writing about disasters and rescue efforts in Texas.
Content
(1) Introduction (2) South Padre Island shipwreck, 1544 (3) "Yellow Jack": Yellow fever epidemic, 1867 (4) Indianola hurricanes, 1875 (5) Galveston hurricanes, 1900 (6) Goliad tornado, 1902 (7) Paris burning, 1877 (8) Boiler explosion on locomotive no. 704, 1912 (9) Central Texas flood, 1921 (10) Rocksprings tornado, 1927 (11) New London school explosion, 1937 (12) Houston hotel fire, 1943 (13) Texas City ship explosion, 1947 (14) Waco/San Angelo twisters, 1953 (15) Texas drought, 1950s (16) The blizzard of '56 (17) Disappearance of the Sulphur Queen, 1963 (18) Sanderson flood, 1965 (19) Wichita Falls tornado, 1979 (20) Aviation disasters, 1985-2003 (21) Afterword on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita (22) Texas disasters timeline (23) Bibliography