From the Titanic to Hurricane Ida, disasters talked through.
Disaster Tales puts historical catastrophes next to recent ones, so a flaw in the Titanic's compartments and an 1869 mine inquest share the table with the hurricanes and fires of 2021. The talk is loose and good-humored, and it keeps coming back to what failed, who cut corners and how to be ready next time.
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Disaster Tales is a conversational history show about catastrophe, some of it caused by human decisions and some by weather. Kate Fairweather is the regular host and Barb Lonsky the co-host. Their exchanges have the ease of two people talking at home, and at least one episode is recorded in Barb's house near Genoa, New York. The history episodes focus on how things failed. On the Titanic, the hosts explain that the ship's compartments sealed off automatically, but their walls did not reach the ceiling, so water filled one and poured over into the next. The same episode takes a stranger turn with George Behe's book 'Psychic Forewarnings of Tragedy', which collects accounts of people who reported premonitions about the ship. 'Pennsylvania Mine Disasters' centers on Avondale in 1869. There, an inquest heard that the mine had only one way out because a second exit was judged too costly, and that connecting it to other mines would have let the men escape. The hosts are blunt about it: as they see it, the deciding factor was money, with little regard for human life. That episode ends on a mournful verse about men left in the dark. Recent disasters get the same scrutiny. 'August Disasters 2021' takes in Hurricane Ida, the California fires and events elsewhere in the world, and shows how one catastrophe feeds the next as burned ground loses the plants that hold its topsoil and gives way to flash floods and landslides. The hosts also note sharply rising prices for building supplies and a point where there is more disaster than relief available. Kate's job keeps her close to this material. In '2004 Multiple Hurricane Survivor', Barb explains that Kate is away, deployed with work, and carries the episode with a guest who describes getting adequate warning and not heeding it, and the preparedness lists handed out when hurricane season starts. Public infrastructure gets its turn too. 'History and Operation of the 911 System' covers how calls were once routed by where they came from, why shifting municipal boundaries made that unreliable, and how cell phones made it harder to pin down where a caller actually is. It opens with Kate's frank account of a hard 2021 that included a major surgery, a months-long house hunt and her husband's heart trouble. 'The Disaster of 2021' covers the same stretch and sets personal disasters beside the huge ones. Practical advice shows up at the ends of episodes: supportive care for a cold in one, and in another a planning list covering 72-hour supplies, scanned documents, family meeting points and the number of seat backs between a passenger and the nearest plane exit. The recurring sign-off stays simple: be safe out there.
Made for: Suits a listener who likes disaster history told conversationally, with attention to engineering flaws and cost-cutting, and who also wants practical preparedness advice for hurricanes, fires and everyday emergencies.
What sets it apart: It sets historical failures such as the Titanic's compartments and a mine with a single exit next to recent hurricanes and fires, and some episodes end on hands-on preparedness advice. Its regular host's job sometimes deploys her to disaster work, which gives the talk about current events a grounding in the field.
Disaster Tales is a conversational review of historical disasters and the issues that surround them. Each monthly episode examines both man made and natural disasters and the events and changes they cause.
Titanic compartments stopped short of the ceiling; your inner safety inspector just sat up.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A Titanic episode where eerie warnings give way to the engineering flaw that helped flooding spread.
This Titanic episode works best when it moves between omen and engineering, treating reports of forewarning as part of the story without letting them swallow the harder mechanics of the disaster.
A candid detour into personal disasters, delayed production, and the local history behind Disaster Tales.
Disaster Tales steps away from its usual run of hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, dam failures, and other large-scale catastrophes for a more candid check-in. The hosts turn delayed releases and personal disasters into the subject, giving the episode a different kind of weight.
A clear, grounded look at why locating a caller can matter as much as answering one.
The episode starts with a familiar public service, then pulls back to show how fragile its logic could be. Calls once depended on where a phone number appeared to be calling from, a setup that became less tidy as municipal boundaries shifted.
A Florida native recalls how hurricane warnings stayed abstract until preparation could no longer wait.
Disaster Tales follows Michelle Howe as she looks back on the 2004-2005 hurricane seasons and the uneasy way experience can make danger feel routine.
A plainspoken look at how fires, floods, crop loss, and infrastructure damage compound across a month of disasters.
August disasters treats a punishing month as more than a run of separate emergencies. Kate Fairweather starts with Hurricane Ida and California fires, then follows the pattern through severe storms, large hail in Italy, more fires in California and Oregon, and the steady rhythm…
Operational talk for disaster-minded professionals.
Overlooked lives, read from the sources, talked through warmly.
["Disaster Tales\u2019 'Titanic Disaster' uses George Behe\u2019s 'Psychic Forewarnings of Tragedy' to compare reported premonitions with skepticism about precognition.", "The episode cites W.T.
Disaster Tales uses this episode to explain a 367-day stretch of personal disasters that interrupted its regular release schedule.
["A disconnected phone can still reach 9-1-1, and a landline can hand dispatch an address directly, which Kate Fairweather and Lindsay Wilson use to open Disaster Tales.", "Wilson says she works at a PSAP that dispatches law enforcement and transfers EMS and fire while staying on the line.", "The episode tracks the move from zero-for-operator calls to Rosamund Reinhart's 1958 fire report, the FCC and AT&T's 1968 numbering decision, the first 9-1-1 call in Haleyville, Alabama, and the rise to about 99% access today.", "Wilson closes with practical advice on accidental calls, interpreter access, TTY services, and the gap between cell-tower estimates and the address a caller must still confirm."]
Barb Lonsky fills in for Kate Fairweather on Disaster Tales while Michelle Howe, a Florida native now living in King Ferry, recounts the 2004-2005 hurricane season.
Kate Fairweather frames "August Disasters 2021" as a month when fires, floods, quakes, tornadoes, and eruptions hit multiple continents almost daily.
Disaster Tales host Barb Lonsky examines the 1869 Avondale Mine Disaster near Plymouth, Pennsylvania, and the 1907 Dar Mine Disaster near Smithton.
Disaster Tales hosts Kate Fairweather and Barb Lonsky examine 1936 weather disasters, beginning with Dust Bowl farming practices and a self-feeding drought.
Disaster Tales examines Kristallnacht, which the hosts call the November pogrom, by tracing Nazi anti-Jewish violence through eugenics, racial propaganda, and earlier U.S.
Kate Fairweather and Barb Lonsky examine disasters dated March 11, beginning with Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander's 222 AD killing of Elagabalus and moving through floods, wars, blizzards, hostage crises, and earthquakes.
Disaster Tales marks Barb's January 31 birthday with disasters including the 1953 Great Storm of the North Sea, which killed 1,836 people in the Netherlands and raised water 18.7 feet above normal.
Kate Fairweather and Barb Blonsky examine pandemic effects beyond illness, including isolation, altered family routines, work disruption, and pressure on healthcare workers.
Disaster Tales examines disaster miracles through church survivals, tornado rescues, airplane-crash survivors, and the hosts' own childhood accidents.
Disaster Tales host Kate Fairweather interviews Diane Burden-Cox, CEO of Disaster Scope Incorporated and author of Resilient Americans, about how childhood disasters shaped emergency-management work.
Disaster Tales host Kate Fairweather and co-host Liz Root interview Paolo Terramani, CEO of Las Vegas startup Boxable, about factory-built rooms for housing shortages and disaster recovery.
Kate Fairweather and Liz Root discuss challenges in providing emergency housing for homeless disaster victims, focusing on documentation barriers.
An interview with a psychologist about his experience as a disaster and crisis responder.
This episode begins with technical difficulties before introducing the show's topic of historical disasters.