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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Catastrophe: Stories and Lessons from the Halifax Explosion

Catastrophe: Stories and Lessons from the Halifax Explosion

Scanlon, T. Joseph
Sarty, Roger

Paperback

Canadian HistoryTechnology & EngineeringGeneral Sociology

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 1771123710
ISBN13: 9781771123716
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ Pr
Published: Nov 27 2020
Pages: 400
Weight: 1.50
Height: 1.30 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English

Catastrophe weaves together compelling stories and potent lessons learned from the calamitous Halifax explosion--the worst non-natural disaster in North America before 9/11.

On December 6, 1917, the Canadian city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, was shattered when volatile cargo on the SS Mont-Blanc freighter exploded in the bustling wartime harbour. More than nineteen hundred people were killed and nine thousand injured. Across more than two square kilometres some 1200 homes, factories, schools and churches were obliterated or heavily damaged.

Written from a scholarly perspective but in a journalistic style accessible to the general reader, this book explores how the explosion influenced later emergency planning and disaster theory. Rich in firsthand accounts gathered in decades of research in Canada, the US, the UK, France and Norway, the book examines the disaster from all angles. It delivers an inspiring message: the women and men at ground zero responded speedily, courageously, and effectively, fighting fires, rescuing the injured, and sheltering the homeless. The book also shows that the generous assistance that later came from central Canada and the US also brought some unhelpful intrusions by outside authorities. Unable to imagine the horror of the initial crisis, they ignored or even vilified a number of the first responders.

This book will be of particular interest to disaster researchers and emergency planners along with journalists, and scholars of history, Maritime studies, and Canadian studies.

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