Wicked Weather: Natural Disasters That Changed History and How to Stop Them from Happening Again

Looks at the most significant natural disasters in Earth’s history and considers whether we can prevent them from happening again.

Natural disasters occur on a regular basis throughout the world with severe events occurring every few years or less. Each disaster type impacts human settlements in different ways and can be local, affecting small countries or areas, or global, affecting the world. These disasters destabilized populations, the governments of provinces and countries, and drastically impact populations and the priorities of a nation in response to a natural disaster. In other words, they changed history.

In Wicked Weather, Alexander Gates explores these notable environmental disasters and their impacts, raising the question: What can we do to prevent this from happening again? After an introduction on why certain disasters occur most often in specific areas, Gates covers history’s most impactful volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, hurricanes/cyclones/typhoons, tornadoes, droughts, floods, and tsunamis. Each chapter investigates significant cases of each environmental disaster that shifted power in a region, caused wars, toppled governments, or changed policies and the way people approached life in these parts of the world.

Gates also examines the field of disaster management and the agencies that handle it-what can be done during, immediately after and well after a natural disaster and how society can respond and recover. These progressions can lead to complete rebuilding of communities with safeguards to reduce the impact of the next disaster. Wicked Weather is a fascinating study of our worst disasters, a call to action as we face a dangerously changing climate, and a guide to limiting our susceptibility to the forces of nature.

Alexander Gates is a distinguished service professor and former vice chancellor at Rutgers University, Newark, NJ. He has been at Rutgers University for 37 years and served as chair of the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences for 20 of those years. Gates is a field geologist who has conducted research on structural geology and tectonics from Maine to Alabama and in Colorado on a variety of topics. He is the author of 9 books, including the forthcoming Reclaiming Our Planet: How Environmental History Can Help Solve the Climate Crisis, and 81 professional papers and has edited 11 professional volumes. Gates has appeared on four television documentaries by PBS and the Discovery Channel among others and is commonly interviewed on television, radio, and newspaper features. He has developed several geology displays for large museums that are visited by hundreds of thousands of people. Gates also developed the Highlands Environmental Research Institute and served as director for eight years.