True-Life Tragedy

c.2006 Carol M. Highsmith's America, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

ZEITOUN 
by Dave Eggers
         This is one New Orleans family's story of survival and hope in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
         Abdulrahman Zeitoun was a hard-working, honest and prosperous Syrian-American, husband of an America woman who'd converted to Islam, and the father of four children. When Hurricane Katrina hit, he sent his family to stay with relatives, but he chose to remain behind and ride out the storm to protect his house and contracting business. In the chaotic aftermath of Katrina, he traveled the flooded streets of his neighborhood in a secondhand canoe, passing on supplies, feeding pets abandoned by their evacuated owners, and helping those in need. Then, a week later, on September 6, 2005, Zeitoun abruptly disappeared.... 
          Moving and powerful, it's a work of non-fiction that reads like a novel. This book is a warning of the chaos, suffering, and racial profiling that follow in the path of monumental national disasters, as well as a look at life under martial law in America. Highly recommended for reading by every American citizen. This could happen to you and your family next time around.

THE BEAR’S EMBRACE 
Patricia Van Tighem
          ©2001 This is not a book about the Great Outdoors. And it’s not a story about a bear. It’s one young woman’s heart-breaking, true story account of being mauled by a grizzly bear and her long journey through the pits of depression and despair as she struggled to heal from her trauma.
          Patricia, a nurse, and Trevor, a med student, were a young Canadian couple experienced in back country travel. They followed all the bear country rules. This never should have happened to them. They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time --- then BAM! Their lives were changed forever.
          This book, which mostly takes place in hospitals, tells of Trish’s ordeal of healing and coping with her life, now that she is horribly disfigured. Her husband, who was also attacked twice by the bear, was seriously injured too, but his scars are less noticeable. The couple go on to start a family (four kids), build a new home, and get on with their lives. Trevor is a rock through it all, but over the course of the next 17 years, Patricia undergoes countless reconstructive surgeries, endures endless pain, recurrent infections, and spends much of her time in and out of hospitals, sinking deeper into the darkness where the bear continues to torment her.
          This was a hard book to read, wondering if Patricia and Trevor’s marriage would survive their ordeal and hoping that Trish would eventually get better. The benefit I get from reading about other people’s tragedies is in putting my own small problems, which I sometimes feel are so overwhelming, into proper perspective. I do know one thing. If I was mauled by a bear, I sure wouldn’t want to live to tell about it. There’s no way I could have survived what Trish and Trevor went through.

THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD
by David McCullough
          ©1968 A well-researched and vividly descriptive account of one of the worst “natural” disasters America has ever suffered: the Johnstown Flood of May 31, 1889.
          The book starts out a little slowly, with an overview and history of the area and the story of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, an exclusive summer resort for the families of millionaire steel magnates from Pittsburgh.
          An old, earthen dam had been hastily rebuilt to create Lake Conemaugh, with its sailboats and prime fishing, up in the mountains above Johnstown, Pennsylvania. For years the citizens of Johnstown and nearby villages on the Conemaugh River had lived in fear of the shoddy dam breaking and washing them away, which it did, one spring day in 1889, after torrential rains had deluged the area. The official death toll was 2,209 souls.
          The second half of the book covers the rescue, relief and rebuilding efforts, as well as the litigation that followed. It doesn’t surprise me that nobody was held responsible for the negligent situation that led to this great tragedy. The people affected by the flood lost everything; club members were wealthy enough to convince the court that the flood had been an “act of God.”
          It was interesting to learn that the Johnstown Flood was the first major disaster aided by the newly-formed American Red Cross. The group’s founder, 67-year-old Clara Barton, was on the scene with fifty doctors and nurses to set up the cleanest, best-organized hospital in town. She personally stayed on the scene for five months, directing the care of the injured, ill and destitute survivors.
          There’s a very long list in the back of the book that gives the names, ages, and addresses of those who perished and where they were buried, if indeed they were found at all. It was heartbreaking to read of whole families wiped out by the wall of water that raged down the valley, sweeping away nearly everything in its path. A section of old photos is included. This is a truly sad story, filled with unbelievable suffering and heroic stories of brave rescues.