(History.com) Later on in the 1900 hundreds, there were several more reports of ships being hit by what was said to be a freak wave or rogue wave. One of the most famous ships to get hit by a rogue wave was the Queen Mary. In 1942 while carrying 15,000 American troops 608 nautical miles (700 mi/1,126 km) from Scotland during a gale, RMS Queen Mary was broadsided by a 92-foot (28 m) wave and nearly capsized. Queen Mary listed briefly about 52 degrees before the ship slowly righted herself. (live science.com) One of the most memorable rogue wave occurrences was on October 30, 1991.
One of the most well known skyjackings is that of Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305. This skyjacking was pulled off by a man named D.B. Cooper. The hijacking of Flight 305 has led to a 41 year old case by the FBI and several death bed confessions by people claiming to be D.B. Cooper.
(i) Description of Disasters: Hurricane Katrina is said to have been the most costly and deadliest hurricanes in U.S history, resulting in $81.2 billion dollars in damage and 1836 casualties6. The hurricane made landfall in New Orleans in the early morning of August 29th, 2005 as a Category 3 or 4 storm. The heavy rains that were produced as the hurricane moved inland, along with the poorly designed levees, caused all 56 levees in New Orleans to fail, resulting in freshwater flooding of 80% of the city15. Hurricane Katrina devastated an area over 160 km from the storm’s eye, which included parts of Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and most importantly, Louisiana6. It originally formed off the Bahamas, on August 23rd, as a Tropical Depression and strengthened to a Category 1 storm once it made landfall in Florida on August 25th.
Panhandle: A narrow strip of territory projecting from the main territory of one state into another. Location On Tuesday, August 23, 2005 a storm located near the south of Bahamas called Tropical Depression 10 reacted with a tropical wave creating an intense tropical storm. The day after on Wednesday a tropical storm in the Caribbean was called Katrina, the Thursday after the storm had grown to the size of a Hurricane. Later that day, Katrina was blown to the shore of the east coast of Florida and killed four people and left approximately 1,000,000 people without power. It was expected to hit the panhandle next, while it was travelling at tremendous speeds through the eastern gulf of Mexico.
The two raids killed at least 243 people and between 300 and 400 were wounded. Twenty military aircraft were destroyed, eight ships at anchor in the harbour were sunk, and most civil and military facilities in Darwin were destroyed (source 1).” This text is very relevant to the issue because it provides a very detailed outline of the horrific damage caused by the bombing of Darwin. It is believed that the bombing of Darwin was the one of the largest Japanese attack since Pearl Harbour. The Japanese inflicted very heavy losses upon Darwin, seeing as the town was poorly defended. The raids also caused urban areas of Darwin to suffer some damage, and there were a number of civilian casualties.
The first wave, consisting of 134 bombers/fighters, was twenty-five minutes long and did much more damage than the second wave of flights. Overall, the Japanese only lost 29 planes. On the other hand, Pearl Harbor was “the worst naval disaster in U.S history”(article 7). The United States lost more than two thousand casualties, dozens of aircrafts, and 21 ships either damaged or completely destroyed (article 7). The purpose of this attack was to disable the United States fleet making
Oil washed ashore on both islands resulting in one-thousand penguins being oiled and five-thousand birds died either during transportation or in the first few days after arriving at the rescue stations (Adams). Luckily, four-thousand-seven-hundred-eighteen penguins could be cleaned by the South African National Foundation and later returned to their habitat. The Apollo Sea tragedy was the largest South African oil spill for penguins before the sinking of the Treasure (Anderson). Shortly after, it became noticed that there was a larger number of seabirds at risk of being oiled off South Africa. Actions were immediately taken to help reduce the risk of more penguins becoming oiled.
“Until my ghastly tale is told, this heart within me burns.”; a quote from Samuel Taylor Coleridge in the famous, longest major poem called The Rime of the Ancient Mariner which tells a story about Albatross. Midway Island, also known as Pihemanu, is an island in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean and located more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent where Albatross live and breed. Midway Atoll was used to be “Albatross’ paradise”, but now, it is a graveyard for them. Do you know why they die so easily? We can find numerous bottle caps, wires, metal or non-biodegradable plastics or materials, lighters or even a toothbrush inside their stomach – undigested; especially inside the Albatross’ babies.
The hijackers first to arrive in the States were Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi who resided in the San Diego area, coming to the U.S. over a year and a half before the attacks took place. Next, the three hijacker pilots, Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, and Ziad Jarrah arrived a couple months later to attend flight training. And lastly the fourth hijacker pilot, Hani Hanjour, arrived in San Diego. Although the hijackers actually resided in the United States for over a year, no one even expected anything. Nowadays when one sees a Muslim or someone who looks like a Muslim, that person is automatically deemed as either being dangerous or a terrorist.
“Sandy became a hurricane, made landfall near Kingston, Jamaica, a few hours later, re-emerged into the Caribbean Sea and strengthened into a Category 2 hurricane...” (“Hurricane Sandy” 1). On her passing hurricane Sandy took the lives of people, electricity was limited and schools had to be put on hold. Sandy started around the equator, making her way up to Jamaica taking toll mostly on the eastern parts of Jamaica, where she injured two hundred and thirty seven (237) people and “one man was killed by a boulder that crushed his house due to strong winds...” (Cristina Constantini 1). In like manner, Sandy affected the entire east coast of the United States of America, and according to reports hundreds of people were injured,