North Carolina has had more than its share of disasters during the course of its history. Twenty of these dramatic incidents come to life under the pen of veteran history writer Scotti Cohn. Spanning the early nineteenth century through contemporary times, these incredible stories tell of people facing all kinds of catastrophic events, from hurricanes and fires to train wrecks and airplane crashes, including: >The Great Fire of 1831 in Fayetteville, which was the most destructive fire in all of U.S. history, destroying 600 homes, 125 businesses, and the State House.>The Great Hurricane of 1899, during which Rasmus Midgett of the Gull Shoal Life-Saving Station single-handedly rescued ten people from a cargo vessel that was driven ashore.>A seven-year-old's eyewitness account of the 1925 Coal Glen Mining Disaster in Sanford, in which fifty-three men were killed, leaving forty women without a husband and seventy-five children fatherless. These and other accounts offer fascinating reading for anyone interested in real-life drama set in North Carolina.