Pennsylvania Disasters: True Stories of Tragedy and Survival by Karen Ivory

If you are from Pennsylvania, or are pretty familiar with it, this is a great book. It covers all kinds of famous tragedies and disasters starting in the 1700s and leads up to the Quecreek Mine Disaster in the early 2000s. I enjoyed reading some of the backstory on things I'd grown up hearing about. Agnes comes to mind first and foremost. Agnes was a huge flood in the 1970s that hit Wilkes-Barre in the 70's. My parents remember it well and have often talked about what it was like seeing the damage and hearing the stories first-hand. There was a section about the blizzard and floods of 1996 which I remember very well, having grown up in a flood plain! We got a huge blizzard with up to 2 feet of snow and didn't have school for a week. The following week, it warmed up quite a bit and we got a few days of rain. By the time my sister and I got out of school the final day, the National Guard was driving around with bullhorns telling us all to evacuate. Our house didn't flood, but most of our neighborhood did. Many of our friends and neighbors left their houses in boats. For weeks afterwards, you had to show ID to be allowed in the neighborhood because the National Guard was there helping with the clean-up. All in all it was quite an experience to live through and interesting to read about in this book. I also liked learning about the Yellow Fever epidemic in the 1700s and the many coal mining disasters. My great-grandfather died in the mines and growing up in Northeast PA, you can't help but feel some connection to the anthracite business. All in all, a good read if you like that sort of thing and have any interest in learning a different side of PA history.