Disaster Area

The name conjures up images of the bare skeleton of a ghost town, swallowed in smoke and haunted by the spirits of its past. But Centralia was once a normal small Pennsylvania town full of hard-working Americans who just wanted to live safely in their homes. The few who still live there still feel the same way.

It towered over Commercial Street in the North End of Boston, its massive form looming over the elevated train tracks and Engine #31 firehouse. It groaned loudly every time it was filled, its contents leaking in an absurd mockery of bleeding. It wordlessly threatened for years to collapse. Finally, on January 15, 1919, it spilled its contents onto the neighborhood -- 2.3 million gallons of molasses.

Heavy rains soaked the Norwegian Labour Party's youth camp on Utøya that Friday in July of 2011. What might have otherwise been a miserable day was lightened by a visit from former prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland. The campers -- all smart, capable, and eager to change the world -- could deal with a little rain if it meant meeting one of their idols. But after she left the island, they started to receive texts. A bomb had exploded in Oslo. As terrifying as it was, though, they all felt safe on Utøya.

Dust seems so harmless most of the time ... annoying, sure, but not deadly. However, on December 22, 1977, dust would lead to the sudden and tragic destruction of a Louisiana grain elevator, taking the lives of 36 people only days before Christmas. However, theirs was not the only facility to suffer an explosion that week, or even that day.

Creeping tendrils of smoke particles and sulfur dioxide wound their way through the fog already blanketing London on the evening of December 5, 1952. When it infiltrated the harmless fog, those dangerous invaders turned the mist into a lethal smog so thick you couldn't see an inch in front of you. Thousands would die before anyone would realize the effects of the smog on Londoners.

In 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.)

The Halloween party thrown by the Macedonian Association in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1998 was a popular event -- far too popular. Teenagers crammed in shoulder to shoulder with barely enough room to dance. Everyone wanted to get in, but some who couldn't wanted to get back at those who had. What followed sent a horrified shockwave through Sweden.

It was a beautiful day to visit Kings Island in Ohio, and church groups poured from buses to enjoy the rides and games. One of those groups, the Radcliff Assembly of God and their friends, would travel home that night on a school bus with a fatal flaw. Everything would come to a head when a drunk driver heading the wrong way down Interstate 71 emerged from the darkness right in front of them.

August 31, 1986, was a beautiful day to fly the skies over the neighborhood of Cerritos in Los Angeles. William Kramer was on his way to Big Bear Lake in his Piper Cherokee with his wife and daughter. Aeromexico Flight 498 was about to land after a morning of stops across Mexico. Neither plane saw what was about to happen -- nor did those readying for a lovely Labor Day weekend below.

Marten Hartwell was a bush pilot in the wilds of northern Canada tasked with an emergency medivac flight to Yellowknife. He and his three passengers never made it. But Hartwell did end up rescued alive from the wilderness a month later, and with a harrowing story to tell.