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Private Notes
Crash of Flight 111; sinking of the Princess Sophia.
In most tragic accidents, there is, at least, a happy ending for some. In some cases, however, there is no happy ending, and despite the hopes and desperate prayers of those who await their arrival, there will be no survivors.
Ocean Ranger disaster; Hurricane Juan.
Anyone who lives near the sea knows the spell it casts, with its great majesty, and its romantic lure. But when the weather turns violent, the ocean becomes a life threatening force. And there is nowhere completely safe.
In 1916, high winds blowing through the forests of Northern Ontario turned a small fire into an inferno that destroyed nearly 800 square miles of forest.
British Columbia forest fires; a Toronto snow storm.
The poet Robert Frost once wrote: 'Some say the earth will end in fire, some say in ice.' Fire and ice have been at the heart of our most destructive disasters, changing lives forever.
Like it or not, we are all inexorably tied to the climate in which we live, impacted by its cycle of constant change. Sometimes that change comes without warning and a mild winter weekend becomes a prelude to destruction from above -- and a summer day full of promise ends in a whirlwind of devastation and death.
It is a land sculpted by prehistoric meteors, glacial erosion and ancient earthquakes, a place where a country's history is first chronicled. The quaint villages that dot the countryside of Quebec, Canada represent some of the continent's earliest European settlements. The people here treasure their rural lifestyle where heritage, culture and community blend with the extraordinary landscapes that surround them. But sometimes those landscapes bring betrayal and devastation beyond anyone's imagination -- and one Quebec community is swallowed by the very earth that was its foundation -- and another must grieve the gaping hole left by the loss of its most cherished citizens.
It is an old traveler's cliché that 'getting there is half the fun'. This is especially true of travel across the vast, varied and beautiful reaches of the Canadian landscape. But when fate intervenes, travel can quickly turn from fun to deadly.
Some regions seem more prone to Disaster than others. Through the sheer accident of geography, life on disaster row can be fraught with frequent danger.
One of the most spectacular and deadly dam failures in history occurred in Italy's Longarone Valley on October 9, 1963. Just 2 years old, the new dam was crested by a storm surge after massive waves set off a landslide. That landslide dropped tons of earth into the reservoir and overflowed the dam. In an instant, 2500 lives were washed away.
On the rugged west coast of British Columbia, the Brittania Mine Complex is struck by a flash flood pouring down from the mountain range above. More than fifty homes are simply swept into the freezing Pacific Ocean, killing 37 unfortunate souls.
As the first World War wound down in 1918, the steamship Princess Sophia sailed Between Alaska, Yukon and the Inside Passage of British Columbia. A modern ship, Princess Sophia was equipped with wireless and electricity on all decks. Heavy winds, snow and poor visibility saw the ship run aground on Vanderbilt Reef. Though she stayed afloat for another day, rescue efforts failed, and she slipped beneath the waves. 75 crew and 268 passengers perish.
Volatile weather is part of life on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, but no-one could have predicted the tornado that touched down after an intense hail storm in the holiday community of Pine Lake, Alberta. At the Green Acres campground tents, trailers and RV's were shattered and spread for miles around, and 12 unlucky campers died that day.
They say animals always know when disaster is about to strike. In St. Jean Vianney, the dogs began to whimper and whine and the cows refused to leave their barns as the ground trembled and made strange sounds. As night fell, a massive sinkhole opened up, swallowing entire homes and the families that lived in them. Thirty-one people perish, and the town is forever abandoned.
Storm events are not uncommon in the southern United States, including Galveston Texas, where a massive hurricane comes ashore in 1900. More unusually, the storm continued inland, across the prairies of the US and Canada before turning east and devastating Southern Ontario and the Maritime provinces of the east coast. By the time its blown itself out, the Galveston Hurricane has left 86 dead in it's path.
