Books About Tornadoes and Other Natural Disasters

[jules]

I'm reading F5 by Mark Levine about the Super Outbreak in 1974. It's so well written, and I was wondering - does anyone have any other recommendations for nonfiction books about historical tornadoes or other similar natural disasters? Other than Spann's books, I have those! I love anything with first hand accounts especially. Thanks for any leads!

 

[CheeselandSkies]

F5 is a good one; ever since 4/27 I've thought he should write a follow-up titled EF5 since it focused heavily on Tanner in Limestone County, and that community was hit again by the Hackleburg tornado.

The Tornado: Nature's Ultimate Windstorm by Tom Grazulis
Weathering the Storm: Tornadoes, Television and Turmoil by Gary England
What Stands in a Storm by Kim Cross - about 4/27 and while not by James Spann, heavily features him.

 

[TH2002]

Pictorial books:
The Joplin Tornado (about the 1971 tornado)
32 Minutes in May: The Joplin Tornado

Some other nonfiction books:
Sound and Fury: A History of Kansas Tornadoes 1854-2013
Tornado: Terror and Survival: The Andover Tornado April 26, 1991

 

[Tennie]

I also own F5, The Tornado: Nature's Ultimate Windstorm and What Stands in a Storm (my copy of the latter was even autographed by both author Kim Cross and James Spann!), and I also have a couple other books to recommend:

Storm Warning: The Story of a Killer Tornado by Nancy Mathis (about the May 3, 1999, Oklahoma tornado outbreak, with particular emphasis on the Bridge Creek-Moore F5 tornado).
The Mercy of the Sky: The Story of a Tornado by Holly Bailey (about the May 20, 2014 Moore, Oklahoma, EF5 tornado).

And while not entirely focused on tornadoes (it does cover several tornado incidents, but also several other weather disasters), I recommend Mike Smith's books Warnings (about the development of the modern weather warning process) and When the Sirens Were Silent (about how failures in the warning system contributed to the high death toll from the May 22, 2011, Joplin, Missouri, tornado).

 

[Austin Dawg]

I'm reading F5 by Mark Levine about the Super Outbreak in 1974. It's so well written, and I was wondering - does anyone have any other recommendations for nonfiction books about historical tornadoes or other similar natural disasters? Other than Spann's books, I have those! I love anything with first hand accounts especially. Thanks for any leads!

I'm sure lots of us would like to know (especially myself) Thanks for asking and starting a thread. I only remember one I had about Camille. It's just Camille for folks who lived in Mississippi in 1969. Great book

Monster Storm

 

[Equus]

Here are the tornado and hurricane related books I've gathered over the years (many of them quite worse for the wear!) for some ideas; I recommend nearly all of them if one can find them

 

[locomusic01]

And Hell Followed With It by Bonar Menninger is an excellent account of the 6/8/1966 Topeka F5. A World Turned Over by Lorian Hemingway also looks quite good, although I haven't yet had a chance to do more than flip through it a bit. It covers the 3/3/1966 Candlestick Park F5. There are several books on the Tri-State tornado as well, but tbh it's been so long since I've read most of them that I can't really remember one from the other anymore. Brantley Hargrove's The Man Who Caught the Storm (about Tim Samaras & Co) is also very good.

If you have any interest in hurricanes, I'd also recommend Sudden Sea: The Great Hurricane of 1938 by R. A. Scotti. And of course Erik Larson's excellent Isaac's Storm about the Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900.

 

[locomusic01]

I'm sure lots of us would like to know (especially myself) Thanks for asking and starting a thread. I only remember one I had about Camille. It's just Camille for folks who lived in Mississippi in 1969. Great book

Monster Storm

That reminds me - Roar of the Heavens by Stefan Bechtel is a great read as well.