Ten Worst US Disasters in the Last 101 Years

Posted by Alex in Everything Else on October 12, 2007 at 11:45 pm



The Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake

Popular Mechanics listed the 10 worst disasters of the last 101 years - and delve into whether we are more prepared to face them now as compared to then. The disasters listed are:

1906 - San Francisco Earthquake Fire
1910 - The Big Burn (of Idaho and Montana)
1918 - Spanish Flu Pandemic
1925 - Tri-State (Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana) Tornado
1938 - The New England Hurricane
1964 - The Great Alaskan Earthquake
1974 - Super Tornado Outbreak (13 states in USA)
1980 - Mount St. Helen Eruption
1993 - Storm of the Century (eastern US)
2005 - Hurricane Katrina (with largest damage in New Orleans, Louisiana)

Link - via AQFL

Update 10/13/07: added US to the title - these are disasters in the USA


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COMMENT

11 comments to "Ten Worst US Disasters in the Last 101 Years"

  1. Martin
    October 13th, 2007 at 2:00 am

    Err… The list is of disasters in the USA. That sort of blithe ignoring of the rest of the world is the sort of thing that gives the USA a bad name. There’s nothing wrong with a list of disasters that affected only your country, but it should at least be labelled as such. The implicit message is that foreign lives simply aren’t very important.

  2. Alex
    October 13th, 2007 at 2:08 am

    Article is as written by Popular Mechanics.

  3. Geoduck
    October 13th, 2007 at 2:36 am

    It should be remembered that these are the worst disasters in -America-, not world-wide.

  4. Geoduck
    October 13th, 2007 at 2:36 am

    Duh.. waited too long to post my comment.

  5. Alex
    October 13th, 2007 at 2:40 am

    Fine, fine - changed the title to reflect that these disasters are in USA.

  6. NotMe
    October 13th, 2007 at 4:27 am

    i dont see Bush on that list.

  7. Tim Giachetti
    October 13th, 2007 at 5:05 am

    Geee, not even an honorable mention for the great molassas flood of 1919 in Boston? It was terrible! If you didn’t have a waffle to float on you were doomed! :P

  8. Kct
    October 13th, 2007 at 7:45 am

    I agree with you, NotMe:
    Jan, 20/2001 - Elected G W Bush president! Oh Damn… :-)

  9. Tom B
    October 13th, 2007 at 10:33 pm

    “i dont see Bush on that list.”

    I think they mean NATURAL disasters. Bush was courtesy of Diebold.

    If you include ALL disasters, September 11 was way bigger than, say, Mt. Saint Helens.

  10. Sid Morrison
    October 15th, 2007 at 8:57 am

    Hey, Tim & I agree on something :-) Kudo’s on adding the molasses flood.

    One disaster that is GLARINGLY missing is the Texas City Disaster in 1947 when ships bearing ammonium nitrate exploded, killing 581 people. How can they leave that one off???? It was a loss of life 10x worse than Mt. St.Helens!
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_Disaster

  11. Sid Morrison
    October 15th, 2007 at 11:49 am

    yeah, in retrospect, I suppose they do mean *natural* disasters. Way to be imprecise (original authors, not Alex)…


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