Disastrous History

It took awhile but we finally got one

The implication of using this study to give Enderlin an EF5 rating is we can now go back and re rate every tornado based on an actual rating and methodology from the NWS.

Justice for my Ashby, Nebraska tornado!

If you thought the Enderlin EF-5 was going to end the “was it an EF-5” debates boy oh boy do I have bad news for you. It’s going to make it a million times worse.

A new favorite game I like to play is “is that a real thing or is it from Blaine County Radio in GTA V”

College football fans are well versed in cash given in food bags @sickoscommittee.org

It’s not even working now since they’re patrolling in massive groups around *checks notes* Georgetown and the National Mall that already has a ridiculous police presence

When I worked in DC you would see no less than a dozen police from any point at the national mall at any given time. I lived directly behind the Supreme Court and could see 5 cops at all times from my window. There’s literally no reason to have anymore cops there at all.

Now movies do this sometimes. But they don’t usually do it like this.

This is the Bagram Airfield Crash in Afghanistan in 2013 just removed and put over maybe Heathrow based on livery.

I’m relatively confident that is either Lac Megantic or a chemical plant fire in Illinois.

That’s the 2011 Japan tsunami.

That’s Deepwater Horizon.

Hey so the new War of the Worlds used real disaster footage and just overlaid aliens. This is the Fort McMurray wildfire.

Desperately need Midwesterners to stop complaining about Canadian wildfire smoke.

I saw a video today claiming it would essentially obliterate Seattle and Portland. And just no.

It is driving me up the wall. Especially since Russia the other day.

No earthquake alone has caused a tsunami that large. Any tsunami that large has always required some form of landslide falling into the water.

Online news websites stop posting articles without actually reading the research paper challenge level: Apparently impossible. No one is calling for a 300 meter megatsunami to hit the west coast if the Cascadian Subduction Zone has an earthquake.

Genuine question. If someone said the phrase “up underneath” do you know what they mean?

The majority of California is red because of a high risk of a disaster happening but the response of Cal Fire and others there is some of the best in the world. It’s a trade off and this has stripped all context from the map.

Take western Nebraska for an example. On the map it’s blue indicating a relatively low risk. But that’s simply for the hazards occurring. Your disaster response there is going to be slow and your recovery is going to be longer and more difficult because the infrastructure is not there.

So this AccuWeather article title has been driving me nuts since they posted it the other day. This map is *not* supposed to show the best and worst places to live for hazards. It gives you an idea of what to expect for recovery post disaster.

Disaster Dispatch for 7/19/25 to 7/25/25 Disasters that happened over the past week.

Read this week’s disaster dispatch here! disastroushistroy.substack.com/p/disaster-d...

Out of curiosity I looked up how much smoke jumpers make. It’s $16 an hour. No joke. $20 an hour if on an uncontrolled wildfire. That’s ridiculous.

Historical wildland firefighters had the coolest names. Wag Dodge? Immaculate.

Oh this next podcast episode is going to be sad.

The Forest Service Claims It’s Fully Staffed for a Worsening Fire Season. Data Shows Thousands of Unfilled Jobs. DOGE cuts and voluntary resignations have severely hampered the agency as the nation enters the peak of fire season, with more than 1 million acres burning across 10 Western states.

Can read the original ProPublica article here as well. www.propublica.org/article/fore...

Wildfire Season is Upon Us The US Forest Service is not fully prepared

I wrote a deeper breakdown of what the numbers in the ProPublica article released about wildfire firefighter staffing yesterday. You can read it here. disastroushistroy.substack.com/p/wildfire-s...

You cannot want more prescribed burns and full suppression on all wildfires. You cannot want better forest management practices and full suppression on all wildfires. You cannot want to keep wildland firefighters safe and and full suppression on all wildfires. These things are not possible.