Natural Disasters

By the late 1840s, with no end in sight to the potato famine gripping Ireland and no help coming from the British government, the Irish people were left with few options. Forced to choose between dire workhouses or leaving the country, there was no easy solution to ending their hunger.

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In 1845, a fungus destroyed Ireland’s potato crops, leaving the Irish population without its main food source. The first months of the famine morphed into a bureaucratic nightmare.

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As the vast chain of wildfires known as the Big Burn spread across the northern Rockies in 1910, teams of Forest Rangers, firefighters, and normal citizens alike fought tooth and nail to protect their towns. But in the face of such overwhelming force, there was little they could do to fight the power of Mother Nature.

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It was the largest natural blaze in U.S. history—the result of human agricultural inexperience, a freak climate, and unbridled westward expansion by American corporations and homesteaders. The catastrophic wildfire of 1910 incinerated over 4,000 miles of the western United States and came to be known as the “Big Burn.” 

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From November 7th through the 10th, 1913, the Great Lakes of North America experienced one of the worst storms on record for the region. The inland cyclone came to be known as the “White Hurricane,” and cost hundreds of lives and millions of dollars in damages.

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In 1913, an inland cyclone struck Lake Superior and Lake Huron and buried the city of Cleveland in snow. Several freighters went to the bottom of the lakes, and the storm set new records for snowfall and wind speed.

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During the last week of January 1910, the citizens of Paris fought to survive a deluge of freezing water and raw sewage that covered their city. Police and fire departments were stretched to their limits rescuing trapped and injured citizens. 

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For the six months leading up to January 1910, France experienced record-setting rainfall that predicated one of the worst floods in history. By the time the rain stopped falling, the Seine River had risen almost thirty feet and inundated the city of Paris.

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The majority of Pompeiians traveled south to other villages, or escaped by boat on the Bay of Naples. However, some 2000 residents chose to remain in the city, believing it was wiser to batten down the hatches. It was a decision that proved fatal.

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In 79 CE, the Roman citizens of Pompeii and Herculaneum believed that Mount Vesuvius was an extinct volcano. That is, until the mountain exploded—filling the sky with debris. Meanwhile, a military commander embarked on a daring rescue mission to the volcano’s shores.

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After the Okeechobee Hurricane ravaged the town of Belle Glade in 1928, citizens struggled to recover from the storm’s deadly wake. The official death toll was one of the largest ever reported from a hurricane at that time.

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In 1928, one of the deadliest storms ever recorded in the North Atlantic basin began to form off the coast of Africa. As it approached the Florida coast, many residents didn’t heed the warnings to evacuate. What happened next would devastate the area around Lake Okeechobee for years to come.

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Here’s one of our listeners’ most requested episodes of 2019: A wave of storms that devastated the southern United States in 2011. Known as the Super Outbreak, it became the costliest tornado outbreak ever recorded.

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Here’s one of our listeners’ most requested episodes of 2019: On April 27th, 2011, the clouds were low and dark—intense winds whipping around. It was a quarter past five in the afternoon, and the entire state was on high alert. 

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Haiti’s devastating earthquake made international headlines in 2010. In the years following the disaster, it became clear that the international community had failed Haiti yet again. 

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On January 12th, 2010, a 7.0 earthquake rocked Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, killing over 300,000 people. The quake was just the most recent calamity in a string of disasters that stretch back well over 200 years.

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A devastating event from 536-537 C.E. where a dry, blue fog darkened skies across Europe and Asia for over a year, causing a drop in temperatures, drought, and famine.

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A massive explosion that occurred in the remote wilderness of Russia in 1908. Though more than a century has passed since it took place, the exact cause of the blast is still debated.

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Extreme temperatures would kill more than 700 Chicagoans over the course of 5 days in July of 1995. The tragedy would leave a scar on the city’s history, but also bring to light the herculean efforts of rescue workers tasked with saving the lives of their fellow citizens.

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On July 13, 1995, Chicagoans awoke to a blistering day in which the temperature would reach 106 degrees. The heat index, which measures how the temperature actually feels on the body, would hit 126 degrees by the time the day was over.

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As the debilitating drought waged on, farming families in the Great Plains fought to survive as terrible dust storms laid waste to entire towns. With the dust settling in the late 1930s, attempts to heal and protect the land from new threats were set into place.

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During the 1930s, dust storms destroyed millions of acres of farmland and displaced over 3 million families in the midwestern United States. The Dust Bowl region grew to incredible size before its collapse, with storms sweeping across the nation and choking entire towns.

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Following one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded, Japan was buffeted by an unbelievably powerful tsunami. Although they had attempted to prepare for such a disaster, their defenses were easily overthrown, and the result was one of the most devastating nuclear disasters the world has ever seen.

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Japan is no stranger to earthquakes. The 2011 earthquake that set off an enormous tsunami off the coast of Tōhoku tested the nation's resilience.

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In April of 2011, a tornado touched down near Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Another one soon followed. Then another, then another. By the time the storm was over, the area had been ravaged by hundreds of tornadoes that caused widespread destruction... and tragic loss of life. 

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A tornado touched down in the spring of 2011 near Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Over the next five days, hundreds more tornados would ravage the area, in one of the deadliest storm periods in recent memory. 

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The wind howled. The clouds surrounded the mountain, dropping the temperature down below freezing. The climbers of Mountain Madness and Adventure Consultants were still stranded and exposed on Everest’s peak. What followed was an incredible story of survival… and tragedy. 

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In 1996, two climbing groups set out to reach the peak of Mount Everest, the highest point on planet Earth. A sudden, unexpected blizzard would leave them stranded on the mountain's summit, where the freezing cold and lack of oxygen slowly killed them off, one by one. 

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After the first eruption of Krakatoa on August 26th, 1883, the citizens of the Sunda Strait may have assumed the worst was over. But they were about to experience a tsunami that would be the first of many over the next 24 hours. On top of this, pyroclastic flows were on their way, ready to burn those running for safety in the hills. With such an extreme level of catastrophe, it seemed that none would survive.

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In 1883 between the south-Asian islands of Java and Sumatra, a deadly force was brewing. The volcano Krakatoa had been waiting to erupt for over a thousand years. Dutch colonizers ignored the warning signs, and Islanders had little mobility. It was a recipe for disaster. Soon, the mountain would explode, generating some of the most deadly phenomena ever to terrorize the planet earth.

Parcasters - Thank you for listening to our new podcast! Enjoy!

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Tsunamis, volcanoes, tornadoes, earthquakes...these are real-life monsters. We like to think we’re prepared for a catastrophe. But time and time again, Mother Nature proves us wrong. Each week, Parcast's original show, Natural Disasters examines the earth’s biggest catastrophes that took countless lives, destroyed communities, and toppled civilizations. Natural Disasters premieres Thursday August 29th. New episodes available every Thursday on Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Subscribe today!

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