In this video I note that the fire had a lasting impact on the operations of the Tucson Fire Department... a positive impact. It's only because of this fire that the Department has access to the resources and training it does today.
But this positive impact came at a cost. Right after the fire, the Tucson Fire Department was devastated. To begin with, several firefighters suffered serious in the process of fighting the fire. In fact, if you look closely at this photograph you c...
2022-05-17 10:15:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
There should be a video displaying above... but Patreon doesn't seem to like shorts. I've gotten in touch with Patreon support and they say that it's a problem on their end, and that they're working on it, but that they have no idea when it will be fixed. So, in the meantime, here's a link to the video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/gqKgI0neDpU...
2022-05-13 10:15:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
I'll be the first to admit that I know absolutely nothing about golf... so this was an interesting story to research. Getting my head around the difference between the PGA Championship Tour (a tour) and the PGA Tour (the company that organises the tour) was just one of several learning experiences.
That said, I can absolutely see why Payne Stewart was the focus of a lot of reporting on this incident. He had quite the meteoric career, and 2022-05-10 10:15:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
There should be a video displaying above... but Patreon doesn't seem to like shorts. I've gotten in touch with Patreon support and they say that it's a problem on their end, and that they're working on it, but that they have no idea when it will be fixed. So, in the meantime, here's a link to the video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0F8lIl9bXv4...
2022-05-06 10:16:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
I spent a huge amount of time trawling the internet to try and find pictures of the inside of the Sampoong Department Store before the collapse... but I just couldn't track down any. The outside of the building - with its pink colouring - is so distinctive that I was extremely curious about the inside.
There is an episode of Seconds from Disaster that has some interior shots of department...
2022-05-03 10:15:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
If you want to learn more about this disaster, I'd recommend the excellent book The Hamlet Fire: A Tragic Story of Cheap Food, Cheap Government, and Cheap Lives by Bryant Simon.
Not only does it tell the story of the fire in great detail, but it also provides a lot of really interesting context. It talks about why the plant was based in Hamlet, and where the chicken it processed was sold.
2022-04-26 10:15:59 +0000 UTC
View Post
There should be a video displaying above... but Patreon doesn't seem to like shorts. I've gotten in touch with Patreon support and they say that it's a problem on their end, and that they're working on it, but that they have no idea when it will be fixed. So, in the meantime, here's a link to the video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/PYYrTbVyyjc...
2022-04-22 10:15:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
The Marchioness Disaster is one of many accidents that has since been made into a dramatized film. I looked everywhere to see if I could find a copy online, but couldn't. I did come across these clips, though. They're painful viewing in more ways than...
2022-04-19 10:16:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
In terms of the area affected, this has to be one of the biggest disasters I've ever covered. It's extraordinary how much material there is out there; thousands of people were lucky enough to survive, and every one of them had a story to tell.
You can find some of those stories here, on the St Francis Dam Memorial website, where extracts from many...
2022-04-12 10:16:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
This was a very interesting video to research. Given that it was an event attended by at least 300,000 people, there are endless accounts of the Altamont Free Concert floating around on the internet - many of which completely disagree with one another.
If you're interested in learning more about the concert, I'd certainly recommend this article, publis...
2022-04-05 10:15:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
This video is mostly just a bit of fun, but while I was watching and re-watching the film which inspired it, I couldn't help but notice that InGen really does fail to follow a bunch of basic safety principles.
First and foremost, the systems in place don't fail safely. If the power fails or the computer system goes out... doors unlock and fences switch off by default. In an ideal world, there'd be plans in place so that whenever a system cannot do its job, it falls back to a safe rather...
2022-04-01 09:30:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
During this video, I show a picture of a yellow school bus perched precariously on the edge of a piece of concrete rubble. You can read the full story of that school bus right here.
To summarise, though, it was no doubt a horribly frightening experience... but everyone on the bus survived. 52 children and the 9 adults accompanying them all escaped through a fire exit at the...
2022-03-29 10:15:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
There was one little side story to this piece that I wanted to include, but couldn't quite find space for. It's certainly an interesting one, though, as it shows that animals and people lived in close proximity back in the 1800s, and that this disaster was a pretty terrible time for the city's animal population, too.
The Irish Times
2022-03-22 11:16:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
There are many tangents and side stories to this disaster that I wasn't able to include in the video. One of them really stuck out to me, though: the story of Barbara Morgan.
Barbara was also selected as part of the Teacher in Space Program, and was to be Christa McAuliffe's backup. She was, in fact, watching the launch from the ground when Challenger exploded. Here's a video of her reaction.&nb...
2022-03-15 11:16:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
This was another story where being able to virtually visit the location where events took place was incredibly helpful in the course of telling the story. Here's a Google Street View close to the place where the blaze began.
By looking around you can see the memorial to those who lost their lives, and take a look a...
2022-03-08 11:15:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
It can sometimes be difficult, when researching these stories, to pick apart fact from fiction - that was particularly tricky with this story. Not only are the many conflicting accounts of Christopher's life... but there has also been a fictionalised version of his story told in the film Into The Wild.
When you look for photographs of the bus where Christopher lived (often referred to as "Bus 142" or "The Magic Bus") about half the pictures you'll find aren't of the ac...
2022-03-01 11:16:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
I never got to travel on Concorde when it was still in service... but my older brother did. I asked him what it was like while I was researching this video, and he said it wasn't as great as it sounds.
Apparently the food and the service were both amazing - like being in a flying five star hotel. But the seats were cramped, with very little headroom. It was also incredibly loud - twice as noisy as being on a normal plane.
It was a good thing the flight was so short, he sa...
2022-02-22 11:15:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
Something I came across while researching this video really stuck with me. I mention briefly that obscene graffiti was found in the ruins of Pompeii. You can actually read translations of some of the more interesting scribblings here.
What really struck me about this is how similar the things people wrote back then are to the kinds of things you see written on ...
2022-02-15 11:15:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
Often, when researching a video, I find that a lot of the resources which might be most useful have simply disappeared from the internet. That was the case with the full version of the report on this accident.
Whenever this happens, I always make sure to check the Wayback Machine. It's actually quite amazing just how much it saves. In this case, while I couldn't retrieve the full report, I could at least get access
2022-02-08 11:15:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
I have fond memories of visiting Woolworths as a child. There was no other high street store like it at the time. If you'd asked me back then I couldn't really have told you what it sold - except that it was "a little bit of everything". The huge selection of pick 'n' mix sweets was definitely the highlight, though.
If you want to either revisit memories of Woolworths, or find out more about the history of the store, I'd recommend a source I used for the video: 2022-02-01 11:15:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
This is a disaster I've been asked to cover many times over the last year or so... but I always had to put it off because there was so much reading to do, so much material to cover, and so many details to get to grips with.
If you want to learn more, the official accident report is a great place to start. It lays everything out very clearly and in great detail.
But t...
2022-01-25 11:15:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
Ever since I learned about this disaster it's a story that I've been wanting to tell. What the survivors went through is really quite extraordinary... and it's a part of World War II that I thing everyone should know about.
One thing that I wanted to include more detail on was the role of Lieutenant Commander Robert Adrian Marks. He and his crew were the very first rescuers to reach the men in the water, and they had to take some pretty significant risks in order to do so.
2022-01-18 11:15:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
This was a really interesting (and actually quite enjoyable) topic to research. Although each of these broadcasts did cause quite a bit of fear and uncertainty, there were at least no recorded deaths or serious injuries in each case. Phew.
If you want to listen to a recording of the original 1938 The War Of The Worlds broadcast, you can find a copy here. It really is quite convincing! Altern...
2022-01-11 11:15:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
In this video I quote Alf Morris, a survivor who was interviewed by the author of Spitalfields Life in February 2010. I use only a small part of the interview in the video, but it really is worth reading the whole thing. Alf gives such a clear and moving description of what it was like to be caught up in the disaster as it unfolded.
Here's another little extract, and 2022-01-04 11:15:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
There was so much about this story that I couldn't find space for in the video, but the thing I most regret leaving out is what happened to the people involved afterwards.
Incredibly, both pilots went back to flying, and had long and successful careers. Tim Lancaster even dealt with a few other emergencies in his time - though none quite as dramatic as this one! Alastair Atchison flew until he was in his 60s before retiring.
Nigel Ogden was awarded the 2021-12-28 11:16:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
I first learned that legionella existed many years ago when I was working at a University. Over the course of the summer (when most of the accommodation on campus was empty) maintenance teams had to go around running the showers in every empty room at least once a week.
One day I asked them why they were doing this, and they explained that it was to prevent legionella bacteria from breeding. By running every shower on the hottest temperature possible for at least five minutes every week...
2021-12-21 11:15:59 +0000 UTC
View Post
This story is one that I've wanted to cover for a while... it's one of those true stories that seems so strange and unlikely that it reads more like fiction. Although the ending is rather saddening, it was fascinating to research it.
One of my best sources in this case was the book The Radioactive Boy Scout by Ken Silverstein. It's a wonderfully detailed book that paints a nuanced and compassionate portrait of David and his actions.
If you want to learn more, you can read...
2021-12-14 11:16:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
Thanks to Archives New Zealand, I was able to source several crystal clear, detailed images to put into this video. The clarity and sharpness of the pictures sometimes made it hard to appreciate that this disaster took place more than 50 years ago.
One source I quoted which drove this home for me was the announcement made by New Zealand Prime Minister Sidney Holland on Christmas Day. You can listen to the whole thing
2021-12-07 11:16:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
In this video I mention that there was a very large number of Pacific Southwest Airlines employees on board Flight 182 when it crashed. Here's my source for that, which provides a little more about those employees, and the impact it had on the company.
Most of these employees weren't working at the time of the crash. In fact, they were "deadheading". That's an airline industry term for the practise o...
2021-11-30 11:15:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
A great starting point for finding out about incidents which have taken place during Black Friday sales is this website, which keeps track of deaths and injuries attributable to the event year on year. I'll be watching to see if it receives an update following this year's sales!
One other thing that I wanted to share was this quote, which was given by Walmart spokesperson Greg Rossiter following the pepper spray ...
2021-11-23 11:15:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
