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Disaster AreaStoned History: Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571To raise money for car repairs, Jennifer answers the question you've all been wondering - how well can she talk about a disaster while ... let's say "not sober." Please help Jennifer fix her car! It takes our esteemed cohost Professor on rides to go see cows and he therefore cannot live without it. Links below: GoFundMe: https://gofund.me/59bec8ad Paypal: disasterarea@mail.com Cashapp: $disasterareapod Venmo: @disasterareapodcast 2025-04-011h 18Disaster AreaReview: Society of the SnowJennifer stops rewatching the movie long enough to review the movie. Spoilers ahead!2024-01-111h 17Disaster AreaBonus: Society of the SnowJennifer talks about "Society of the Snow," the award-nominated adaptation of the Pablo Vierci book about the survival story of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571. "Society of the Snow" comes out in select theaters on December 22nd and on Netflix on January 4th. (No, Jennifer has not seen it yet. Although dear God, does she want to.)2023-12-191h 07Disaster AreaBonus: The OceanGate submersible implosionWhile we are still close to the actual disaster for a regular episode on the subject, Jennifer takes an hour and a half to discuss the implosion of the OceanGate submersible on its dive down to the wreck of the Titanic.2023-06-271h 27Disaster AreaBonus: The 9/11 MuseumJennifer recounts her visit to the 9/11 Museum in New York City.2023-05-161h 16Disaster AreaBonus: Disaster Area road trip Part 2: The New YorkeningIn 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.2022-05-101h 38Disaster AreaEpisode 189: Hurricane AgnesAnd now for Jennifer's hometown disaster - when one small hurricane turned southern New York and Pensylvania into one big muddy lake.2022-01-281h 54Disaster AreaBonus: Disaster Area road trip!Jennifer went on a five-day-long pilgrimage to as many disaster sites as she could manage and now she's going to talk about it for two whole hours. 2021-10-092h 09Disaster AreaEpisode 145: The Brescia explosionPlease don't store all of your explosives in one place. Particularly if there are thunderstorms in the weather forecast.2020-09-0152 minDisaster AreaEpisode 144: The fire on the General SlocumThe congregation of St. Mark's Lutheran church in New York City's Little Germany had been waiting for the Sunday school picnic excursion all year. Mothers dressed their kids in their best clothes and packed up good food in baskets to bring with them on the trip up the East River and out to Long Island. On June 15th, 1904, thirteen hundred people would be aboard the General Slocum as it left the pier near the Williamsburg Bridge. Within two hours, over a thousand of them would be dead.2020-08-311h 39Disaster AreaEpisode 143: TWA Flight 800You're at a midsummer evening party at a friend's beach house, enjoying a cocktail or two as the sun sets, when a loud noise draw everyone's gaze to the skies above the ocean. Something has exploded up above - a plane, raining down in fiery pieces on the water below. The sight is already terrifying enough until the whispers start. Did anyone else see something arcing up toward the plane before it blew up?2020-08-241h 15Disaster AreaEpisode 142: The sinking of the MarchionessIt was just supposed a late-night birthday party on the Thames - a little drinking, a little dancing, and a lot of fun with all their friends. But in the early morning hours of August 20th, 1989, the 131 people onboard the pleasure boat Marchioness found themselves at the mercy of a ship three times her size.2020-07-311h 22Disaster AreaEpisode 141: The eruption of Mount PeleeIt spewed smoke and ash that destroyed crops and killed livestock, and yet they stayed. It caused earthquakes that damaged buildings and mudslide which killed hundreds, and yet they stayed. It sent insects and venomous snakes fleeing down into the town, and yet the people of Saint Pierre on the island of Martinique - or more specifically, some of their political leaders - refused to listen to the wordless threats issued by Mount Pelee. 2020-07-191h 34Disaster AreaEpisode 140: The 1918 influenza epidemicIt came out of nowhere, flowing in waves throughout the world during a time of great international upheaval. Some did what they could to fight it. Some were struck down, and tragically lost so quickly it was hard to believe they were gone. Some were careless about the whole thing, refusing to wear masks or continuing to gather together for parades and parties. But in the end, what mattered was the virus, and the damage it wrecked.2020-07-011h 43Disaster AreaEpisode 139: The Elaine massacreThe gathering was just a union meeting, the Black sharecroppers of Phillips County, Arkansas, banding together and trying to get a fair pay for their work in the cotton fields. But when the night ended in bloodshed, the county's white citizens thought it was something more. Then the posse formed, and all Hell broke loose.2020-06-201h 15Disaster AreaEpisode 138: The sinking of the EstoniaIt should have just have been a rough-and-tumble overnight ride across the sea, enjoying a good beer or a meal as the waves crashed outside. But then, early in the morning of September 28th, 1994, a loud noise rattled through the ferry Estonia, and the countdown to the ship's quick death began. 2020-05-161h 23Disaster AreaEpisode 137: The story of Tsutomu YamaguchiAll of us are in the middle of trying to survive a disaster. Tsutomu Yamaguchi managed to do so twice in one week.2020-04-2454 minDisaster AreaEpisode 136: The story of Mauro ProsperiIt all started when the sandstorm kicked up. Hours later when the winds died down, Marathon des Sables entrant Mauro Prosperi found himself alone in the Moroccan desert, unable to locate the rest of the runners. Nine days later, surprising everyone, he would be found alive.2020-04-141h 14Disaster AreaEpisode 135: The Royal National Lifeboat InstitutionFounded in 1824, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution provided the British Isles with a standing organization of trained volunteers ready and willing to save those in peril in the surrounding waters on a moment's notice.2020-03-0650 minDisaster AreaEpisode 134: Valujet Flight 592The images were striking - the faint outline in the marshland of the Everglades where a DC-9 struck the ground, killing all 110 people on board. But what killed all those people within only minutes of takeoff from Miami?2020-02-2950 minDisaster AreaEpisode 133: The 1909 Cherry mine disasterYou're working down in the mine several hundred feet below the surface when you start to smell smoke. It's growing thicker with every passing minute, and it's coming from between you and the only way out of the mine. 2020-02-251h 35Disaster AreaEpisode 132: DashConIn our first commercial disaster, it was supposed to be the first Tumblr convention, a safe place for fans to share their joy in things like Sherlock, Welcome to Night Vale, anime, and other interests. But what was supposed to be a good time ended up being a prolonged dumpster fire, complete with a bouncy house and a ball pit.2020-02-121h 06Disaster AreaEpisode 131: The 2017 Las Vegas mass shootingIt was the last night of the Route 91 Harvest Festival and people were eager to see country star Jason Aldean take the stage. Twenty-five minutes into his performance, he stepped up to the mike ... only to make a run for it off the stage. Soon, everyone else in the audience would be running for cover as well.2020-01-311h 22Disaster AreaEpisode 130: The shipwreck of the Empress of IrelandIt was one of the most respected ships on the sea, a luxurious way to travel from Canada to Europe. But one foggy night was all it would take to send the Empress of Ireland to the bottom of the St. Lawrence River in a mere fourteen minutes.2020-01-221h 10Disaster AreaEpisode 129: The story of Samantha SmithWould the United States and the Soviet Union nuke each other out of existence? In the 1980s, no one could be sure. So in 1982, a little girl named Samantha Smith just went ahead and asked -- the leader of the Soviet Union, that is.2020-01-011h 14Disaster AreaEpisode 128: Chernobyl - Part SixIn this final episode of our Chernobyl series, we look at how Pripyat has fared in the years since it was evacuated, among other things.2019-12-251h 01Disaster AreaEpisode 127: Chernobyl - Part FiveIn the penultimate episode of our Chernobyl series, we look at the investigation into the causes of the accident and the failures behind the scenes which led to the disaster.2019-12-2055 minDisaster AreaEpisode 126: Chernobyl - Part FourThe break is over and it's back to Chernobyl, where everything is covered with radioactive dust and the remains of reactor #4 are a continuing danger to everyone - both in the immediate vicinity, and quite possibly to all of those in western Europe.2019-12-131h 17Disaster AreaEpisode 125: Chernobyl - Part ThreeIn this part of our Chernobyl series, we reach the moment of truth - the day when all of Chernobyl's underlying problems rose to the surface and led to the worst nuclear power disaster in history.2019-11-121h 18Disaster AreaEpisode 124: Chernobyl - Part TwoIn this episode, we see Chernobyl's beginnings, and just where cracks begin to form underneath the surface.2019-11-0645 minDisaster AreaEpisode 123: Chernobyl - Part OneBefore we get into the story of Chernobyl, we explore a few previous nuclear disasters, learn how radiation and nuclear accidents are measured, and find out just how sick ionizing radiation will make you.2019-10-311h 02Disaster AreaEpisode 122: The Stardust fireIt's St. Valentine's Day weekend, and love is in the air. Young people throughout northern Dublin flocked to the Stardust in 1981, drawn by the promise of a disco dancing competition to start at one in the morning. But within an hour of people gathering around the dance floor to start the contest, all eight hundred people in the Stardust would be fighting for their lives against a deadly inferno.2019-09-271h 10Disaster AreaEpisode 121: British European Airways Flight 609They were some of the best and the brightest in British football. In the mid-to-late 1950s, the Busby Babes were young talented players signed on to Manchester United F.C. by manager Matt Busby to mold into a winning side. And win they did, creeping ever closer to Busby's goal of the European Cup. But on February 6th, 1958, the crash which would come to be known as the Munich air disaster would break the hearts of Manchester United fans, Great Britain, and the sporting world at large.2019-09-191h 12Disaster AreaEpisode 120: The 1900 Hoboken Docks fireIt was a normal working Saturday at the docks in Hoboken, New Jersey - until it wasn't. After the cotton bales on pier three caught fire so very close to barrels of oil and turpentine, every ship docked along the waterfront was under threat, and not all of them would make it out in one piece.2019-08-3050 minDisaster AreaEpisode 119: The Balvano train disasterWith World War II raging on throughout Europe, those civilians who were merely trying to survive in their day-to-day lives in southern Italy were on the brink of starvation. They needed food, and to find some they opted to hop a freight train to the countryside to barter for whatever they could find. On March 2nd, hundreds of people either boarded the no. 8017 train at Balvano station with legitimate tickets or snuck into one of the train's many freight cars. The vast majority of those onboard would be dead within hours.2019-08-0141 minDisaster AreaEpisode 118: The Carolean death marchFeeling hot this summer? It could be worse. In January of 1719 during the Great Northern War, six thousand troops from the Swedish army began what should have been a two-day walk back over the Norwegian border to their own empire, mentally and physically exhausted from a four-month-long losing battle. But then the snow came, and what was supposed to be a two-day hike turned into a week-long nightmare. 2019-07-3146 minDisaster AreaEpisode 117: Iran Air Flight 655One country said it was a tragic mistake during wartime. One country claimed it was a deliberate and heartless act. But one thing was true - whether it was one or the other, the shootdown of Iran Air Flight 655 took the lives of 290 innocent people in July of 1988.2019-07-191h 13Disaster AreaEpisode 116: The 1986 Mount Hood incidentIt's time for the yearly school trip - no, not to Washington, DC, or the Grand Canyon or New Orleans. In 1986, as every year before it, the kids in the Basecamp program at Oregon Episcopal School participated in a special trip - a climb up Mount Hood in the Cascade mountain range. But when the group left the school late on the night of May 11th, 1986, to head to Mount Hood for the opportunity of a lifetime, they had no idea nine of them would not be coming back alive.2019-06-271h 07Disaster AreaEpisode 115: The Cocoanut Grove fireIt's 1942, and it's men in uniform and women in pretty dresses everywhere you go. Tonight's you're at the Cocoanut Grove, arguably the most popular supper club in Boston. The decor matches the name, with a tropical theme and fake palm trees surrounding a dance floor bracketed by Spanish-tiled eaves. You and your steady beau are all set up with drinks and ready to watch the floor show when there's a commotion from the direction of the stairs down to the basement Melody Lounge. Is it the fight it sounds like? Or is it something far, far more dangerous?2019-06-181h 26Disaster AreaEpisode 114: The Pulse nightclub shootingIn two weeks, it will have been three years since a man walked into Pulse in Orlando, FL, bearing a rifle and intent on turning the last day of that city's Pride week into the last night many in the popular gay nightclub would ever see.2019-05-291h 07Disaster AreaEpisode 113: The Hermosillo nursery fireIt was something you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. On June 5, 2009, a spark caught on the other side of the wall of the ABC daycare center in Hermosillo, Mexico. On that side of the wall, a growing fire. On the other side, over a hundred and forty children between the ages of six months and five years old and only six adults to watch them - and save them when the fire broke through.2019-05-2453 minDisaster AreaEpisode 112: The Our Lady of the Angels fireThere's only a half an hour before the end of the school day, and your teacher is working through her final lesson - geography, geometry, Shakespeare. Then you think you smell something - a whiff of smoke. The room starts to warm up. In only a few short minutes, you and the rest of your classmates find yourself with a horrific choice - burn to death, or leap down to the pavement below? The young students of Our Lady of the Angels Catholic elementary school in Chicago, IL, faced that very decision on the first day of December in 1958.2019-05-0152 minDisaster AreaEpisode 111: The Black Saturday bushfiresAll it would take was one spark. The southeastern Australian state of Victoria was dried out and temperatures were tipping into the high forties Celsius. In early February of 2009, the region could burn so very easily. Everyone knew February 7th was likely to be the day that summer Victoria burned. 2019-04-231h 19Disaster AreaEpisode 110: American Airlines Flight 191There are certain things you don't want to see out the window when you're sitting on a plane that's taking off. Seeing pieces of the plane fall off - like, say, the engine - are pretty high up on the list. Passengers sitting on American Airlines Flight 191 as it took off from O'Hare International Airport on May 25, 1979, were horrified to look out their windows and see exactly that happen to the engine on the left wing. They would only be horrifed for another thirty-one seconds.2019-04-1252 minDisaster AreaEpisode 109: The journey of the MS St LouisWhat do you do when your home is no longer safe enough to be a home anymore? You try to find a new home, even it means hurrying things along for your own protection. The Jewish refugees on board the MS St Louis in May of 1939 were looking for just such a place. All they found were doors slammed in their faces.2019-04-0152 minDisaster AreaEpisode 108: The Mont Blanc tunnel fireYou're driving along on a road trip and your engine starts to smoke. You give it another half mile or so, then pull over. By the time you pop the hood, the smoke has turned into actual flames spewing out of your car somehow. So you back away as far as you can for your own safety. It's terrifying enough if this happens to you while driving down an everyday country road or rural highway. But what if it happens when you're in the middle of one of the longest highway tunnels in the world?2019-03-2954 minDisaster AreaEpisode 107: The Beverly Hills Supper Club fireIt was a little slice of Vegas transplanted to a Kentucky hillside just outside of Cincinnati, an elegant showcase for the likes of the Rat Pack, Marilyn Monroe, Liberace, and Frankie Valli. The Beverly Hills Supper Club went from a mafia-run illegal gambling den to the sort of place you could hold your kid's bar mitzvah or the Elk Club awards ceremony. But on Memorial Day weekend in 1977, all of that would end in a terrible fire those in the area would remember for years.2019-03-211h 24Disaster AreaEpisode 106: The Dyatlov Pass incidentIn late January of 1959, ten hikers left the city of Sverdlovsk heading for an adventure in the wilderness. Only one of them returned alive. So what happened to Igor Dyatlov and the other eight hikers who died at what would later come to be known as Dyatlov Pass? 2019-03-091h 19Disaster AreaEpisode 105: The 1996 Air Africa disasterN'Dolo Airport could not have been any worse of an airport to take off from in 1996 if it tried. Whether it be the pitted runway or the handwaving of appropriate documentation and procedures, flying out of N'Dolo was a nightmare, one which anyone with bad intentions could use to their advantage. This is why so many different factors came together at once to cause a horrific tragedy in the city of Kinshasa in January of 1996, a catastrophe which left hundreds of innocent people dead in its wake. 2019-02-2243 minDisaster AreaEpisode 104: The Top Storey Club fireIt was almost like a terribly kept secret. The Top Storey Club sat hidden away on the topmost story of an old warehouse you needed to wander through furniture workshops and storerooms on lower floors to reach, like a princess in a tower. But on May 1, 1961, the combination of a popular nightclub and workrooms cluttered with flammable materials below it would prove a deadly equation.2019-02-1640 minDisaster AreaEpisode 103: The Halifax explosionIt was the worst manmade explosion in human history prior to the bombing of Hiroshima. On December 6, 1917, Halifax, Nova Scotia, was one of the busiest ports in the world, with wartime traffic passing through on a daily basis. The French ship, the Mont Blanc, was just another ship in the harbor, but its cargo hold carried a deadly secret which would wipe out thousands of lives in an instant.2019-02-081h 25Disaster AreaEpisode 102: The Great Yarmouth bridge disasterHear ye, hear ye! Come one, come all, on the evening of May 2, 1845, to see a fantastic sight! Nelson the clown of the Cooke Royal Circus will be performing for you all on the river Bure in Great Yarmouth - floating along on the tide in a wooden washtub pulled by four of the finest geese in the land! Simply head to the suspension bridge over the river with all of your other young friends and wait - and cross your fingers that you know how to swim.2019-01-2542 minDisaster AreaEpisode 101: The Great Stink of LondonThe river was a sewer - almost literally. In 1858 London, the Thames wound through the city carrying everything from fecal matter to slaughterhouse offal. Even worse, that was the city's drinking source. If three separate cholera outbreaks weren't enough to change people's minds about how to handle the problem, adding a heat wave to the mix might do the trick.2019-01-0150 minDisaster AreaEpisode 100: The attack on Nakatomi PlazaFor the 100th episode of the podcast, we examine a genuine Christmas miracle, in which the bad guys lose, one man wins, and Twinkies survive an entirely different kind of disaster than we thought they would.2018-12-2833 minDisaster AreaEpisode 99: United Airlines Flight 629If you're afraid of flying, it's usually a more understandable fear - bad weather may bring your plane down, your pilot might screw something up, something on the plane might break. But a much more unlikely fear might be that someone on board might decide that in order to milk out a little insurance money, they're going to blow up the plane you're flying in, either to take themselves out or to get rid of someone they'd much rather do without. On November 1, 1955, just such a bomb knocked United Airlines Flight 629 out of the air. But just who was...2018-12-211h 19Disaster AreaEpisode 98: The Hajj pilgrimage of 2015Every year, three million Muslims arrive in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, to complete the hajj, an important series of rituals which must be undertaken by all physically and financially capable Muslims at least once during their lifetime. But three million people crammed into any place is a magnet for disaster, and over the years Mecca has seen multiple tragedies which left thousands of innocent pilgrims dead - plane crashes, fires, crushing incidents. The hajj season of 2015 was forced to deal with two separate tragedies - a horrific crane collapse at the Grand Mosque which left behind a nightmarish scene, and...2018-12-121h 25Disaster AreaEpisode 97: The MGM Grand hotel fireThe MGM Grand hotel and casino sat in a plum spot right along South Las Vegas Boulevard in the glittering city of - surprise - Las Vegas, Nevada. Hosting Dean Martin roasts and a long-running performance of Jubilee!, the MGM Grand featured the height of 1970s Las Vegas-caliber entertainment in a luxurious hotel anyone would die to stay in. But in the early morning hours of November 21, 1980, a deadly secret smoldered inside one of the hotel's five restaurants.2018-11-0152 minDisaster AreaEpisode 96: The Janauba massacreThe Gente Inocente nursery in Janauba, Brasil, was small and poor but filled daily with happy children. Then, on October 5, 2017, a familiar face came to the front gate. It was the night watchman, and he wanted to come inside. But what seemed innocent enough would turn out to be anything but, and would end with a bottle of alcohol and a burst of flames.2018-10-3134 minDisaster AreaEpisode 95: The Sunshine Skyway bridge collapseThe Sunshine Skyway bridge was a well-known piece of Florida architecture, carrying vehicles back and forth across Tampa Bay and allowing ships to pass underneath in the bay's busy shipping channel. But on May 9, 1980, a sudden and ferocious storm brought all three - the ships, the bridge, and the cars - to a tragic shared end.2018-10-301h 18Disaster AreaEpisode 94: The sinking of the WahineOn April 10, 1968, Cyclone Giselle hit New Zealand at the worst possible - when the ferry TEV Wahine was returning to Wellington with over seven hundred passengers. The Wahine entered Wellington Harbor as the storm raged around it, and for a moment everything seemed no worse than any other stormy day in the city. But then the wind speed doubled, and over the course of the morning the Wahine struggled to remain afloat with the safety of dry land so close, yet so far away.2018-10-191h 03Disaster AreaEpisode 93: The Women's WarThe women were - to say the very least - incredibly pissed. In recent years, their rights had been whittled away, leaving their status a husk of what it had once been. Their complaints were either ignored by men in power, or not worth sharing with them knowing what the reaction would be. All it took was one confrontation between a man in a position of privilege and a woman who'd had enough, and the straw broke the camel's back. At the end of 1929, the women of southern and eastern Nigeria would show the men of the British colonial...2018-10-1057 minDisaster AreaEpisode 92: The Pan Am Building helicopter crashAll they wanted was a ride to JFK International Airport. But on May 16, 1977, the passengers waiting on the rooftop of the Pan Am Building in midtown Manhattan to get onto a helicopter shuttle to the airport would miss their flight, all due to a single snapped landing gear strut.2018-09-2931 minDisaster AreaEpisode 91: The Thredbo disasterIt was quiet in the rural Australian ski village of Thredbo, New South Wales, at 11:30 PM on the night of July 30th, 1997. Then the ground near Bobuck Lane began to tremble. A moment later, the hillside slid downward, taking two ski lodges containing nineteen people with it and crushing them in the chaos. It would be more than two days before rescuers who'd come to believe no one survived the tragedy heard a voice calling for help underneath the rubble. Ski instructor Stuart Diver was still alive - now it was just a matter of getting him out. 2018-09-2750 minDisaster AreaEpisode 90: The sinking of the VasaLet's go back almost four hundred years to a time when sailing ships steered their way across the oceans of the world, whether it be for travel, exploration, or war. In Sweden, King Gustav II Adolph wanted four new ships be added to the country's navy, including an impressive ship featuring two gun decks - the Vasa. Then she sank twenty minutes into her maiden voyage. Three hundred and thirty years later, however, the Vasa would rise out of the sea once again.2018-09-1858 minDisaster AreaEpisode 89: The story of Ada BlackjackIn 1921, a ship dropped four white men, one Alaska Native woman, and one cat off on the desolate shore of Wrangel Island, a strip of land just north of easternmost Siberia. Two years later when a relief ship finally broke through the ice and returned, only two of those beings were still alive.2018-08-311h 15Disaster AreaEpisode 88: The 2013 Moore tornadoMoore, Oklahoma, had the worst luck. Over the course of fifteen years, the Oklahoma City suburb would have five major tornados blow through the area, causing billions of dollars in damage. One in particular which struck on May 20, 2013, caused another tragic kind of damage, heading straight for two of the town's elementary schools.2018-08-201h 05Disaster AreaEpisode 87: The Leopard of RudraprayagOn this International Cat Day, we look back at the story of a leopard whose feeding habits veered away from its normal prey into the human world, and a hunter determined to stop its deadly eight-year spree in northeastern India. 2018-08-091h 05Disaster AreaEpisode 86: The Iroquois Theater fireIt was the deadliest building fire in United States history, twice as deadly as the fire which tore through the city three decades earlier. Chicago thought it had seen the worst that fire could do, but then came the afternoon of December 30, 1903. The Iroquois Theater was filled and then some - with children on Christmas break and their parents, with teachers enjoying their own time off, with college students wishing to enjoy a show with their friends. "Mr. Bluebeard" was supposed to be a spectacle, and it was - a terrifying one.2018-08-011h 25Disaster AreaEpisode 85: Malaysia Airlines Flight 17Four years ago this week, a plane full of innocent people just going about their lives - returning home, heading for vacation in Malaysia, flying to an international AIDS conference in Melbourne - unwillingly became a pawn in a war they played no part in before that day. On July 17, 2014, someone in an Ukrainian war zone looked up and thought they saw enemy military aircraft overhead. So they positioned their Russian-made missile and fired. What happened afterward would be a subject of debate - and a source of international tensions - to this day.2018-07-201h 08Disaster AreaEpisode 84: The Guadalajara explosionsDuring the sweltering Easter holidays in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1992, the Reforma district reeked for days. Everything smelled of gas, but no one could figure out precisely where the source was. Tap water stank. Manhole covers rattled where they sat in the street. On Wednesday, April 22nd, one explosion after another tore through the working-class neighborhood and left the streets a ragged canyon winding through Guadalajara. 2018-07-121h 01Disaster AreaEpisode 83: Pan Am Flight 73Neerja Bhanot was uniquely successful in two fields - as a model, and as a senior purser for international airline Pan Am. But on September 5, 1986, the bravery of Neerja and her cabin staff was tested when a group of armed militants stormed the plane, demanding to be flown to Cyprus. What would happen over the next seventeen hours would be terrifying, chaotic, and in the end a display of the heroism on one incredible cabin crew. 2018-06-3059 minDisaster AreaEpisode 82: The Joelma Building fireIt would take the worst terrorist attack in modern times to steal the Joelma Building fire's title as the deadliest high-rise fire. On February 1, 1974, the office building in downtown Sao Paulo, Brazil, was slowly filling with hundreds of employees starting their work day. Then an air conditioner on the twelfth floor sparked. Within hours, at least 179 people would be dead from the sudden and all-encompassing conflagration.2018-06-2357 minDisaster AreaEpisode 81: The People Hiding in the TruckIt was only supposed to last a few hours. All they would have to do was keep quiet, keep their heads down, and wait it out until they reached Houston. But at two AM on the morning of May 14, 2003, the driver of a truck would pull over near a truck stop and open the trailer at the back to a horrifying scene.2018-06-191h 04Disaster AreaEpisode 80: The Graniteville train crashGraniteville, South Carolina, is like a lot of small towns - quiet and filled with hard-working people. It was the quiet that was broken when a moving train struck another train parked on a spur in the early morning hours of January 6, 2005, and it was the hard-working people who suffered when a damaged tanker began leaking deadly chlorine gas into the air. (TW: Discussion of suicide.)2018-06-101h 09Disaster AreaEpisode 79: The Austin tower shootingIt was hot that day in August of 1966, so hot you probably could have cracked an egg and cooked it on the sidewalk. Students walking the campus of the University of Texas at Austin did so under the watchful eye of the main building's tower. As noon neared, everyone was looking forward to heading off to lunch. That's when the shooting began. It wouldn't end for another ninety-six minutes.2018-06-011h 16Disaster AreaEpisode 78: The Moorgate tube crashOn a busy Friday morning in 1975, the London Underground was packed with people heading off to work at insurance and banking companies. In one six-car train on the Northern Line, driver Leslie Newson was just having a normal workday, with plans to go buy his daughter a car after the day was done. He'd not leave the Underground alive, and neither would forty-two of his passengers.2018-05-2851 minDisaster AreaEpisode 77: The Pioneer Hotel FireForty-two years. That's how long one man spent in prison for setting the deadly fire at the Pioneer International Hotel in Tucson, Arizona, just after midnight on December 20, 1970, when the place was packed with holiday tourists and Christmas partygoers. There was just one problem - he may have been innocent the whole time.2018-05-181h 04Disaster AreaEpisode 76: The Baby In The WellChildren of the 80s know their pop culture touchstones - when the Challenger exploded, when the Berlin Wall came down, that time everyone was wondering who shot J.R. One particular 80s moment was a story of survival by a Texas toddler, an incident which was not without precedent but had yet to produce a happy ending.2018-05-061h 09Disaster AreaEpisode 75: Care TeamsIn the aftermath of a disaster, a company's care team may step up to do the things you're not physically, emotionally, or mentally ready to do for yourself.2018-05-0137 minDisaster AreaEpisode 74: Aloha Airlines Flight 243Some plane crashes may make you terrified any plane you get one will crash. Only one may scare you into worrying the roof of your airplane may rip right off in midflight.2018-04-2452 minDisaster AreaEpisode 73: The Lake Peigneur disasterWhat's the worst day at work you've ever had? It probably wasn't nearly as bad as what happened to one Louisiana oil rig's employees in November of 1980.2018-04-1734 minDisaster AreaEpisode 72: The Twilight Zone disasterOne can only imagine how scary the scene might be for two small children. The village they hid in was being destroyed by explosions and gunfire. A strange man swore he would protect them and carry them to safety. As he attempted to take them away, the enemy's helicopter hovered overhead, men firing off guns from both sides. Luckily, it was all fake. The terrifying scene was a sequence being filmed for "Twilight Zone: The Movie." Everything was perfectly safe ... until it wasn't.2018-04-081h 13Disaster AreaEpisode 71: The Rwandan genocideIn the early 1990s, the country of Rwanda struggled through growing tensions between the local ethnic groups, the Hutus and the Tutsis. The Hutus led the government, while the Tutsis were targets of harrassment and discrimination. Over the course of a hundred days in 1994, those tensions would erupt in fear, violence, desperation, and genocide.2018-04-011h 43Disaster AreaEpisode 70: The 2010 Bandundu crashSome plane crashes have possible causes which are so out of the ordinary they stretch the limits of credulity. The accident which happened when a plane fell from the sky while attempting to land in the Democratic Republic on the Congo in 2010 is just such a crash.2018-03-1544 minDisaster AreaEpisode 69: The Port Chicago explosionThe black servicemen who loaded munitions onto ships at Port Chicago Naval Magazine knew it was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened. They were hardly trained, rushed to load ships heading for the Pacific theater in World War II, and feared every day that this might be the day one dropped bomb blew them all to smithereens. On July 17, 1944, Port Chicago's number finally came up. But the tragedy which occurred there was not the end of the story. 2018-03-011h 02Disaster AreaEpisode 68: The Welding Shop ShootingHe was a teacher and a veteran. On August 20, 1982, an argument over a badly repaired lawnmower motor from the previous day would result in a massacre which left eight dead.2018-02-231h 05Disaster AreaEpisode 67: United Airlines Flight 232Sometimes when planes crash, it's due to the tiniest hidden flaw which causes incredible amounts of destruction after a series of one mishap after another. One microscopic flaw led to the failure of the tail-mounted engine on a DC-10, and the damage it caused ended with an incredible fiery crash caught on camera.2018-02-1958 minDisaster AreaEpisode 66: The Battle of May IslandIn wartime, terrible loss of life is expected - but usually not due to a series of ridiculous screw-ups. On January 31, 1918, a fleet from the British Royal Navy left a Scottish port in the Firth of Forth with the intention of leaving for exercises in the North Sea. But among that fleet were multiple K-class submarines, a sub notorious for its flaws, its bad luck, and its short history of deadly accidents.2018-01-2340 minDisaster AreaEpisode 65: The Piper Alpha disasterWorking on an oil rig in the North Sea has its frustrations, its problems, and its dangers. In July of 1988, employees on the Piper Alpha platform were looking forward to having to work around construction as problem areas in the rig were updated - paint to be applied, sprinkler heads to be unclogged, and a broken safety valve to be fixed and replaced. In the end, a series of lapses and mistakes would lead to the deadliest oil rig disaster in history.2017-12-311h 19Disaster AreaEpisode 64: The Oso mudslideIn most cases, we can trust the ground beneath our feet. We expect it to be solid, to hold firm, and to not move when we stand on it. Some places we can expect earthquakes, but most of the time we don't expect to look out the window and see the very land we've gotten used to outside every day slamming down toward our homes.2017-12-1251 minDisaster AreaEpisode 63: The Edmond post office shootingWhen someone says a mass shooter was "going postal," the term goes back to a series of workplace shootings in the United States postal service going back to the mid-1980s. The deadliest of those took place in Edmond, Oklahoma, when an unsettling middle-aged man walked into work on August 20, 1986, with three guns in his mailbag.2017-11-3041 min
Disaster AreaEpisode 62: The Tenerife disasterUntil September 11, 2001, one aviation accident between two 747s was the deadliest aircraft crash by far, and only one of the planes just barely managed to make it off the ground. On March 27, 1977, everything that could go wrong did go wrong, one after another, leading to a deadly crash which left one group of prospective vacationers scrambling to escape a burning wreck.2017-11-261h 22
Disaster AreaEpisode 61: The CTV Building collapseImagine you went to work every day terrified today would be the day the building would fall down around your ears. That was what it was like working in the CTV Building in Christchurch, New Zealand. Then in September of 2010, the earthquakes began. As each aftershock rocked the building, it grew closer and closer to the day when its weakened shell would finally crumble.2017-11-2351 min
Disaster AreaEpisode 29: A Massacre in Wilkes-BarreIn the vein of My Favorite Murder, this episode features one of Jennifer's hometown murders: a mass shooting which happened at a time when mass shootings were still fairly uncommon. They were an unlikely family: one man, four women, and their children living together in a crowded home in Wilkes-Barre, PA. But one of them was suffering from the effects of a crumbling mind, and on September 25, 1982, that mind disintegrated into violence.(Trigger warning for the deaths of children.)2017-02-0248 min
Disaster AreaMovie Break: Dante's PeakThis week, Jennifer found a wine she likes (a first!) so she's taking a break from researching the next episode to watch Dante's Peak, where everything is made up and the facts don't matter. Except for Pierce Brosnan being a gorgeous magical creature. That always matters.2016-12-241h 41
Disaster AreaMovie Break: Airplane vs. VolcanoOn this episode, Jennifer uses the Movie Break she saved up for a special occasion to cap off a ridiculously awful week and watch "Airplane vs. Volcano." Keep liquor and the Internet Movie Database handy. If you can pronounce the name of the Icelandic volcano by the end of the episode, you're a better person than Jennifer.2016-11-1351 min
Disaster AreaMovie Break: The Day AfterFor fuck's sake, Jolene. Jennifer revisits the "let's watch a nice educational TV movie about what'll happen when the Russians nuke us" genre by watching "The Day After." You know, the cheerful one.2016-08-0947 min
Disaster AreaMovie Break: TwisterThis week, Jennifer takes an episode off and stays sober to watch "Twister," because who needs to get drunk when you've got magical tank tops, slightly less creepy than normal clown dolls, and omnipotent cell phones?2016-05-251h 13
Disaster AreaMovie Break: The Poseidon AdventureJennifer takes a break from the usual podcast to drink a few hard root beers and talk about one of her favorite movies of all time, "The Poseidon Adventure." In this episode, she talks about the plot hole that eats characters in the original book, emergency hot pants in the 1972 film, and Fergie paying the mortgage in the early-2000s remake. (TW: Discussion of rape as a plot point in one part of the episode.)2016-02-221h 20
Disaster AreaDisaster Area: An IntroductionWelcome to the first episode of "Disaster Area," a podcast focusing on disasters throughout history. In this initial episode, host Jennifer Matarese introduces herself, shares what she will and won't be discussing in each episode, and gives some idea of which disasters will be analyzed in future episodes.2015-12-3108 min