Disaster Area

Latest Episodes:

Episode 201: The 1995 Chicago heat wave Aug 12, 2022

Show notes

For five days in July of 1995, the city of Chicago baked underneath record temperatures, and behind closed doors people suffered for days - the poor, the elderly, the disabled. By the time the heat wave was over, over 750 people were dead.

Sources can be found at http://disasterareapodcast.wordpress.com/.

Episode 200: Trans American Flight 209 Jul 19, 2022

Show notes

Surely this can't be the 200th episode! It is the 200th episode, and don't call me Shirley. Videos:

"Airplane!"
"Airplane II: The Sequel"

Articles and books:

Episode 199: Apollo 1 Jun 22, 2022

Show notes

There is always bound to be a first - the first person to climb Mount Everest, the first person to run a four-minute mile, the first woman to become president. But there are terrible firsts, and in this episode we discuss the first major tragedy of the American space race.

Videos:

Apollo 1 Audio - January 27th, 1967

Articles and books:

The Astronaut Wives Club, by Lily Koppel
Apollo 13, by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger
Deke, by Deke Slayton and Michael Cassutt
Chasing the Moon, by Robert Stone and Alan Andres
A Man on the Moon, by Andrew Chaikin
Apollo 1: The Tragedy That Put Us On the Moon, by Ryan S. Walters
Moonport: A History of Apollo Launch Facilities and Operations, by Charles D. Benson and William Faherty
Chariots for Apollo: The NASA History of Manned Lunar Spacecraft to 1969, by Courtney Brooks, James Grimwood, and Loyd Swenson
Apollo 1 report
Apollo 1: The Fire
Space Safety Magazine: The Apollo 1 Fire
'We have a fire in the cockpit!' The Apollo 1 disaster 50 years later
American Institute of Physics: Trial by Fire: The Legacy of Apollo 1

Episode 198: The Christchurch mosque shootings May 26, 2022

Show notes

A man armed with semi-automatic weapons and a livestreaming camera walks into a place full of people he hates and commits a mass murder. It shouldn't be something we see more than once. But now we have.

Bonus: Disaster Area road trip Part 2: The New Yorkening May 10, 2022

Show notes

In which Jennifer describes her visits to disaster sites in New York City last week, including the 9/11 Memorial, the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire, and the 1920 Wall Street bombing.

Episode 197: Operation Yellow Ribbon May 01, 2022

Show notes

We all hope that in a moment of great need, we would do the right thing. When the airspace over the United States closed on September 11th, the small town of Gander, Newfoundland, did just that.

Episode 196: The 1967 Oak Lawn tornado outbreak Apr 21, 2022

Show notes

In fifteen minutes one Friday in April of 1967, one tornado slashed through the Chicago suburb of Oak Lawn, leaving dozens dead in its wake. But it wasn't the only tornado to strike the area that afternoon.

Episode 195: The San Bernardino massacre Apr 13, 2022

Show notes

It was just supposed to be a typical office training session masked as a Christmas party - the speeches, the boring videos, the slideshows that probably could have been an email. But at 11 AM, everything changed when a person dressed all on black entered the conference room and began shooting. Then it got worse - they weren't alone.

Episode 194: The 1989 San Bernardino train wreck Apr 06, 2022

Show notes

First, the train ran off the rails. Then, fire rained from the sky. Hell, it seemed, had come to San Bernardino.

Episode 193: TWA Flight 3 Mar 02, 2022

Show notes

When Hollywood legend Carole Lombard boarded TWA Flight 3 on January 16th, 1942, in Las Vegas, she hoped to be home in only a few short hours. She and the twenty-one other people on board only made it thirty-three miles closer to home.

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