Disaster

“ What is certain is that the shadow of incredible disaster which was soon to fill the whole heaven still lurked below the horizon, or if it showed itself there, took the form of retreating clouds which we had but to keep on laughing and singing in order to smile altogether out of sight. ”

“ Often in the quietest backwaters, where no current is, where not a ripple disturbs the still surface, disaster so absolute, so overwhelming comes, that the very tragedy of it sinks out of sight also, unrecognised, unrecorded. ”

“ The terrible situation on the second day after the great disaster only intensifies the horror. As information becomes more full and accurate, it does not abate one tittle of the awful havoc. Rather it adds to it, and gives a thousand-fold terror to the dreadful calamity. ”

“ But the great hidden teaching of disaster is that the laws of nature are eternal and inexorable; that they move with unerring precision and resistless force. And this truth applies not only to the tremendous powers of the hurricane, the flood and the earthquake, but to economic principles, which are simply a translation into human terms of the laws manifested in inanimate nature. ”

“ Ingenious and masterful as the human intellect is in guiding and controlling the ordinary forces of nature, how impotent and insignificant it appears in the presence of such a transcendent disaster! It is well nigh inconceivable that a great section throbbing with populous towns, and resonant with the hum of industry, [Pg 112] should be wiped out in the twinkling of an eye by a mighty, raging torrent, more consuming than fire and more violent than the earthquake. ”

“ The night with every passing moment seemed yawning wider and wider before him in a chasm that threatened ruin, and disaster, and the wreckage of everything that in life was worth the living, and—no,’ Not yet! ”

“ It was during one of these great storms that I rode in one of the last covered wagons, one of the few tangible links between the pioneers of the past and the pioneers of the present—and a poignant, graphic reminder that men and women had endured storm and discomfort and disaster for decades as we were enduring them now, and as people would continue to endure them as long as the land remained to be conquered. ”

“ Disaster would befall the nation—death, perhaps, the individual.” “A feaster unable to do his full part, might, if he could, hire another to aid him; otherwise he must remain in his place till the work was done.” ”

“ We should hear that one perished when the first that one perished when the first great drops of the crimson great drops of the crimson shower began to fall, when the shower began to fall, when the darkness of that first disaster at darkness of that first disaster at Manassas fell like an eclipse on Manassas fell like an eclipse on the nation ”

“ They clung to the ropes and glued their gaze upon the sight so far beneath them. The storm had magically cleared away. The sunlight now pierced the whole landscape for the first time since the disaster. The lost city, in black, shapeless ruins, lay directly beneath them.
"We will go down." The professor opened the safety-valve cautiously. "The devil has been chased away by the storm," he said emphatically. ”

“ Meanwhile the careless begetters of this havoc are making their leisurely way toward the outer world of civilization, [162] serenely noting that the woods are on fire, and complacently congratulating themselves that the disaster did not come to spoil their outing; never once thinking that by a slight exercise of that care which all men owe the world, this calamity, which a century cannot repair, might have been avoided. ”

“ The hand of a terrible fate, or the coming of the end of the world, must have been shouted from city to city as the only explanation of this apparent disaster in the heavens.
But the work had to go on.... ”

“ Cities have been shaken down by earthquakes, and the ocean has swept in over the land, drowning thousands of people. Even the mountains, which stand upon broad and firm foundations, sometimes bring disaster, by means of avalanches and land-slides, to the people who live at their bases. ”

“ A completeness without a clue, and a stealthy silence as of a neatly executed crime, characterise this murderous disaster, which, as you may remember, had its gruesome celebrity. The wind would have prevented the loudest outcries from reaching the shore ”

“ The idea is that on a wet and slippery day mere exercise of human caution would be sufficient to avert the disaster, but happening in bright, dry weather, it becomes indubitably a manifestation of the will of Heaven. ”

“ The flood disaster that has befallen our state is of such magnitude in loss of life and human suffering that I respectfully urge upon your honorable body the importance and propriety of making an appropriation for the succor of those in distress. ”

“ I have learned that for us 'strikes' are fearful catastrophes—social earthquakes so far-reaching in consequences that you opulent dwellers on a serene plateau, immune from disaster, can form no adequate estimate of the ghastly wreck wrought in substrata of the laboring class. Especially ruinous is the strain on our women. ”

“ Everywhere building was going on, indicating hopeful fortunes, or, more likely, recent disaster, for it is the prevailing dampness alone that saves the whole mountainside from being swept by fires, and they are all too frequent as it is. ”

“ With impassive gaze, Michael, prince of warriors, measured the extent of the disaster, and his keen intelligence penetrated its causes. The armies of the living God had taken the offensive, but by one of those fatalities in war which disconcert the plans of the greatest captains, the enemy had also taken the offensive, and the effect was evident. ”

“ As matters progress to the climax, as disaster after disaster overtakes human effort, and disintegration descends into the dissolution of law and order, the whole earth will be “filled with violence”. ”

“ And strangely enough, if there are but few references to the problem in all our rapidly-growing literature, it is not because catastrophies are few. Indeed it would seem that with the advent of the industrial age, disasters grow more frequent every year. [1] Many are small, no doubt, touching but the life of a village or a borough—a broken dyke, a bridge swept out by ice, a caved-in mine. Others again write themselves on the pages of History—an Ohio flood, an Omaha tornado, a Chicago fire, a San Francisco earthquake, a Halifax explosion. ”

“ But the best of the joke in this case was that the poor mortals had no idea whatever of the cause of the disaster which had so unexpectedly befallen them, and a lengthy correspondence was carried on in the newspapers 149of a certain country whose inhabitants think themselves wiser than anybody else, as to the cause of storms, the efficacy of storm signals, and the possibility of foretelling when the weather is going to be calm or rough. ”

“ On the other hand, we shall probably learn, when the enquiry is completed, that hundreds of deaths, accidents, wounds and cases of individual ruin and misfortune included in the great disaster were predicted by clairvoyants, by mediums, by dreams and by every other manner of premonition with a definiteness sufficient to eliminate any kind of doubt. ”

“ Numbers of the inhabitants, who had carried the fear of this disaster in their minds for years, had become so alarmed by the long continued rains, and the floods that were already upon them, took their families and fled to the high grounds on the hillsides. ”

“ A romantic valley, filled with busy factories, flourishing places of business, multitudes of happy homes and families, has been suddenly transformed into a scene of awful desolation. Frightful ravages of Flood and Fire have produced in one short hour a destruction which surpasses the records of all modern disasters. No calamity in recent times has so appalled the civilized world. What was a peaceful, prosperous valley a little time ago is to-day a huge sepulchre, filled with the shattered ruins of houses, factories, banks, churches, and the ghastly corpses of the dead. ”

“ The news of the disaster spread rapidly from village to village. Soon numbers of men, women, and children were singularly affected. Some complained of pains in their heads, and others of pains in various parts of their bodies. ”

“ But is it so incredible, that in a storm where twenty two perished in a short time and in a fearful manner, and but one escaped, that that one should be beset with peril, should win his way, with great difficulty, to the shore, and suffer the disasters he has attempted to describe? ”

“ We have learned many painful lessons from past disasters but we continue to be alert and prepared in our disaster response. It has, in fact, been commented that sometimes we are over-prepared for such natural disasters. ”

“ The catastrophe seems almost symbolic of the disasters that ever and anon befall the devoted Republic, which from time to time rises phoenix-like from its own ashes, and after having vainly fluttered its wings for a flight into the empyrean, falls back to earth with broken pinion. ”

“ I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity. ”

“ Earthly deposits probably completed the disaster—there were, it is said, both earthquakes and inundations—and the soil was ever rising, the alluvia of the young Christian world buried the ancient pagan society. ”

“ Our theory of disaster, of sorrow, of affliction, borrowed from the poets and novelists, is that it is incessant; but every passage in our own lives and in the lives of others, so far as we have witnessed them, teaches us that this is false. The house of mourning is decorously darkened to the world, but within itself it is also the house of laughing. ”

“ The last 12 months will go down in history as a litany of disasters of every description, from the Midwest floods to the California fires and earthquakes to the winter storms that gripped a large part of the country. ”

“ “I can offer you no consolation, my friend,” said he; “your disaster is irreparable. What do you intend to do?” ”

“ It has been held by many geologists that numerous catastrophes or cataclysms antedated the existence of man. In literature, the final event of a drama is the catastrophe, or denouement. Misfortune ordinarily suggests less of suddenness and violence than calamity or disaster, and is especially applied to that which is lingering or enduring in its effects. ”

“ It embraces the most important disasters of the rushing waters on record, and shows what a destructive force the same element has proven which babbles in noisy brooks and sings merrily as it courses down the mountain sides. ”

“ The very disasters before which our ancestors bowed most hopeless and most helpless, are those whose attacks we dread the least. Hail and lightning, storms on the ocean and fire in populous cities, we read about with small concern providing our property is well insured. ”

“ And then there would also come the cold blasts of winter, the disasters of slack times, the hurricanes of consumption carrying off the weak, whilst the strong clenched their fists and dreamt of vengeance. ”

“ The Westerly Wind asserting his sway from the south-west quarter is often like a monarch gone mad, driving forth with wild imprecations the most faithful of his courtiers to shipwreck, disaster, and death. ”

“ And looking at him I seemed to see again the other one—the father, cast out mysteriously by the sea to perish in the supreme disaster of loneliness and despair.” ”

“ So disasters come not singly;
But as if they watched and waited,
Scanning one another's motions,
When the first descends, the others
15Follow, follow, gathering flock-wise
Round their victim, sick and wounded,
First a shadow, then a sorrow,
Till the air is dark with anguish. ”

“ Her question was quite natural to a woman.
“Done!” echoed her fine manly lover. “Why, lots of our disasters have been proved to be due to their machinations. The authorities well know that all our disasters do not appear in the newspapers, for very obvious reasons. ”

“ Disasters, therefore, and losses, and wrongs, have only the same power over virtue that a cloud has over the sun. ”

“ Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace
The day's disasters in his morning face; ”

“ My narrative may be invaded by inaccuracy and confusion; but if I live no longer, I will, at least, live to complete it. What but ambiguities, abruptnesses, and dark transitions, can be expected from the historian who is, at the same time, the sufferer of these disasters? ”

“ disasters have their use;
And life might e’en be too sunshiny:
Nor would I make myself a goose,
If some big dog should swallow Tiny. ”

“ These are unnecessary disasters, but they may be unavoidable disasters.{v2-594} Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. ”