# Cities that recovered from major disasters **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 28, 2016, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-that-recovered-from-major-disasters/758618 "2016-06-28T12:09:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-that-recovered-from-major-disasters/758618/21 "2016-06-28T18:57:35Z")
OKC, OK with F5 tornadoes. Only affects small portions of the city at a time, tho. It’s just that when you (recently) get one with 300+mph winds, and one with a 2 1/2 mile wide footprint, and any other number of ‘special’ things about other storms, it sticks in the community mind. Several small communities along the Trinity River in TX have rebuilt after destructive floods. Fort Collins, CO had the Craft Brew Beer Shortage one night when I lived there. Devastating. . ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-that-recovered-from-major-disasters/758618/22 "2016-06-28T18:59:17Z")
> [@boffking](#): > > What are some other towns that suffered massive damage, but recovered well from it? Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Moscow, London, Berlin, Dresden, Coventry… the list is very long. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-that-recovered-from-major-disasters/758618/23 "2016-06-28T19:03:41Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > One other example that comes to mind is [Centralia, Pennsylvania,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia_mine_fire) where an unstoppable underground coal fire has released persistent toxic gases and caused ground subsidence over the past 50+ years. The town is now almost completely abandoned. The lovely story of [Times Beach, Missouri](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_Beach,_Missouri), featuring crooked company NEPACCO, disgraced and jailed Reagan appointee Rita Lavelle, of “Sewergate” fame, and the creation of new laws designed to prevent Toxic Waste dumping. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-that-recovered-from-major-disasters/758618/24 "2016-06-28T19:08:24Z")
> [@AncientHumanoid](#): > > OKC, OK with F5 tornadoes. Only affects small portions of the city at a time, tho. It’s just that when you (recently) get one with 300+mph winds , and one with a 2 1/2 mile wide footprint, and any other number of ‘special’ things about other storms, it sticks in the community mind. > > Several small communities along the Trinity River in TX have rebuilt after destructive floods. > > Fort Collins, CO had the Craft Brew Beer Shortage one night when I lived there. Devastating. > . [cite 1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Bridge_Creek%E2%80%93Moore_tornado) [cite 2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_El_Reno_tornado) [cite 3](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=beer+shortage&title=Special:Search&fulltext=1&searchToken=4w5fb5kaav7f0uoyooh4jaymj) . ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-that-recovered-from-major-disasters/758618/25 "2016-06-28T19:15:54Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Santander ([fire](https://pamelacahill.com/2013/08/02/1941/), 1941) Ah! That explains why the Spanish-owned _What Is That? Oh, It’s A… Bank?_ of that name has a [stylized fire as its logo](https://www.santanderbank.com/). Or not. They’re a little creepy, in any case. ---
**Author:** ![2gigch1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/2gigch1/32/3313_2.png) [@2gigch1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2gigch1)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-that-recovered-from-major-disasters/758618/26 "2016-06-28T20:13:34Z")
[Great Baltimore Fire of 1904](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Baltimore_Fire) destroyed most of downtown. ---
**Author:** ![Dragwyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dragwyr/32/2855_2.png) [@Dragwyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragwyr)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-that-recovered-from-major-disasters/758618/27 "2016-06-29T15:48:40Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > How about New Orleans since Katrina? I was just in New Orleans. It is doing OK, but still recovering. We stayed in a hotel that made it through the hurricane ok, but the building next to it is still abandoned 10 years later. They have a ways to go, but they are recovering. ---
**Author:** ![mascaroni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dc4da7/32.png) [@mascaroni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mascaroni)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-that-recovered-from-major-disasters/758618/28 "2016-06-29T16:05:07Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > Boston had [The Great Molasses Flood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood). It actually only affected a small portion of the city, but I’m sure the event and the aftermath were both spectacular. Similarly, [The London Beer Flood](http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/The-London-Beer-Flood-of-1814/) in 1814. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-that-recovered-from-major-disasters/758618/29 "2016-06-29T16:31:39Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > Galveston, TX, after the hurricane of 1900. For certain values of “recovered.” Galveston before the storm was sometimes called the “Wall Street of the South”, as it was the financial center for the entire cotton-farming industry in the South, as well as one of the nation’s major ports. It was the largest city in Texas, and generally a happening place for the late 19th/very early 20th century. After the storm, which killed roughly 1/3 of the pre-storm population of 37,000 and leveled something like 95% of the city, Houston led an effort to dredge a channel north through the bay and bypass Galveston, leaving it a sort of sleepy coastal tourist town and little sister to their northern neighbor, which is where remains today. It’s an interesting place though; up through the 1960s, it had large ethnic communities more reminiscent of East Coast cities- Jewish, Italian, German and Greek in particular, and had their own organized crime families on par with those of Chicago and New York. Also, in one of the more impressive demonstrations of civic resolve, the city fathers built a 17 foot seawall, and \*\*\*raised the entire city \*\*\*behind the wall up to that level by 1910. So a decade after a storm had leveled their city and killed a third of its inhabitants, they’d raised the city and built a wall to prevent that kind of thing from happening again. People are STILL whining in New Orleans, and AFAIK, haven’t really done anything to prevent a reocurrence. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-that-recovered-from-major-disasters/758618/30 "2016-06-29T18:37:02Z")
Sacramento had annual flooding in the 1800s which caused the original downtown to be impassable. The city fathers finally raised the street level, and you can still visit Underground Sacramento in Old Town. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-that-recovered-from-major-disasters/758618/31 "2016-06-29T20:06:41Z")
> [@boffking](#): > > Our town motto is “Resurgam”, latin for “I will rise again”, refering to the many times the city was destroyed and recovered. Similarly, the city of Atlanta was burned/destroyed during the Civil War and recovered to be a major transportation hub and business center. The city motto is “Resurgens”, Latin for “We are rising”, and it’s symbol is the Phoenix rising from the ashes. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2016, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-that-recovered-from-major-disasters/758618/32 "2016-06-30T00:30:59Z")
It’s just past the 50th anniversary of a tornado that on June 8th, 1966, wrought massive devastation here in Topeka Kansas. It would now be called an EF5, and at the time, doing damage over $100 million dollars, was the most costly tornado. Thousands of homes and businesses were destroyed, the city bus barn, a small airport, and every building on the university grounds was either damaged or destroyed. At that we were lucky. If the path of the storm had been just five or six blocks further north, both main hospitals, Stormont-Vail and St. Francis, would have been taken out. A large piece of something, said to be a house, damaged the state capital dome. Things were rebuild quickly and now it’s just a memory. But for my then eleven year old self it was scary beyond belief. The news journalist Bill Kurtis was then a law student at Washburn University. He’d even already accepted a job in Wichita, Kansas, pending passing the bar. But that night he anchored the weather reports at WIBW, and his calm on-air demeanor, along with the plea “For God’s sake, take cover!” is credited with saving many lives. It sure changed the course of his life, after network execs took notice of him. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2016, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-that-recovered-from-major-disasters/758618/33 "2016-06-30T03:29:19Z")
Philadelphia and the [Yellow Fever epidemic of 1793.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1793_Philadelphia_yellow_fever_epidemic) 10% of the population died and almost 1/2 fled the city. The city recovered, but its status as the largest city in the fledgling USA would founder as a result. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2016, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-that-recovered-from-major-disasters/758618/34 "2016-06-30T12:16:02Z")
[Barneveld, Wisconsin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barneveld,_Wisconsin) was hit by [an F5 tornado in 1984:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Barneveld,_Wisconsin_tornado_outbreak#The_Barneveld_Tornado) > [@Wikipedia](#): > > The tornado was responsible for nine deaths and nearly 200 injuries in Barneveld while causing about $25 million in damage. In total, all three churches (the Congregational United Church of Christ, the Lutheran Church, and the Roman Catholic Church), 93 homes were destroyed as well as 17 businesses out of the town’s 18, including the library, municipal building, fire station, bank, and post office. The village’s water tower, though damaged, was not toppled by the winds. In addition, 64 other homes were badly damaged. > [@Wikipedia](#): > > In all, about 170 of the village’s 225 commercial, agricultural, and residential buildings were either destroyed instantly or damaged seriously enough that they were unable to be rebuilt. They rebuilt. 30+ years later, things are pretty much normal; the population of the town now is about double what it was when the tornado hit. ---
**Author:** ![Waltzes\_with\_Cacti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90ced4/32.png) [@Waltzes\_with\_Cacti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waltzes_with_Cacti)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2016, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-that-recovered-from-major-disasters/758618/35 "2016-06-30T14:49:00Z")
Most of downtown Boston went up in flames in 1872. [Great Boston Fire of 1872 - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Boston_Fire_of_1872) ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2016, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-that-recovered-from-major-disasters/758618/36 "2016-06-30T18:05:02Z")
[Pompeii](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eruption_of_Mount_Vesuvius_in_AD_79) didn’t recover. ---
**Author:** ![xizor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xizor/32/102_2.png) [@xizor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xizor)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2016, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-that-recovered-from-major-disasters/758618/37 "2016-06-30T21:08:57Z")
[Nashville](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Tennessee_floods) experienced epic flooding in 2010, damaging many of her touristy spots to the tune of billions of dollars. Six years later, you would be hard pressed to find any lasting effects. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2016, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-that-recovered-from-major-disasters/758618/38 "2016-06-30T22:05:35Z")
Cedar Rapids, Iowa experienced a flood in 2008 that crested 12 feet higher than any other known flood. :eek: It happened very rapidly and nobody could have predicted or prevented it. The city is still reeling from its effects. > **[Iowa flood of 2008](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_flood_of_2008)** > > The Iowa flood of 2008 was a hydrological event involving most of the rivers in eastern Iowa which began June 8 and continued until July 1. Flooding continued on the Upper Mississippi River in the southeastern area of the state for many more days. The phrase "Iowa's Katrina" was often heard. > The flooding included (from north to south, east to west), the Upper Iowa River, Turkey, and the Maquoketa Rivers; outside of the Driftless Area, they include the catchments of the Wapsipinicon River and t... Joplin, Missouri started to rebuild literally within hours of the 2011 tornado that destoyed a huge percentage of the city. > **[2011 Joplin tornado](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Joplin_tornado)** > > The 2011 Joplin tornado was a large and devastating multiple-vortex tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri on the evening of Sunday, May 22, 2011. Part of a larger late-May tornado outbreak, the EF5 tornado began just west of Joplin and intensified very quickly, reaching a maximum width of nearly one mile (1.6 km) during its path through the southern part of the city. The tornado tracked eastward through Joplin, and then continued across I-44 into rural portions of Jasper and Newton counties, we... ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2016, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-that-recovered-from-major-disasters/758618/39 "2016-07-01T00:01:59Z")
Every major city in Germany ---
**Author:** ![boffking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/858c86/32.png) [@boffking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boffking)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2016, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-that-recovered-from-major-disasters/758618/40 "2016-07-01T00:40:42Z")
The anniversary memorials are going up in Portland for the fire I mentioned in my OP. They have put up flame signs around Portland to represent where buildings were lost in the 1866 fire. It is incredible walking through downtown and seeing how far they go. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-that-recovered-from-major-disasters/758618.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-that-recovered-from-major-disasters/758618.md?page=3)