Warning Signs

the Pacific Ocean. The islands form the northern part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, where earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are likely to happen due to friction between the tectonic plates below which created the islands in the first place. Fifty seven volcanoes are dispersed throughout the islands. On April one of nine, nearly everyone was sleeping when the eight point six magnitude earthquake struck. The Alaskans reported no injuries, and though it had shaken them, they went on with

their day. No one knew that the quake had caused the ocean floor to rise, or that the real damage was yet to come. Five hours later, and a hundred and thirty foot waves slammed into Unimac Island, taking out everything in its path. It crushed the reinforced steel lighthouse, sitting thirty feet above sea level. Inside were five people on watch. They most likely saw the approaching wall of water, but had no time to react and were killed instantly.

Two hundred miles to the south, twenty students and four teachers combed the shoreline on Lapahoehoe Point, a beautiful peninsula along the northeast shore of the island of Hawaii on Hilo Bay. The tide had receded unlike anything that ever seen before. Hundreds, if not thousands, of fish flopped around on the sand, Boats were stranded. No one knew what the fast preceding water meant. Unaware of the danger off shore, the children delighted and picking up the vibrantly colored fish.

Teachers were puzzled, but didn't see any reason to worry. Out in the Pacific, Captain Wickland of the U. S. Navy saw the tsunami first, but despite his warning, Hilo was unprepared. From his position on the bridge of the ship and forty six ft above sea level, he had a too close view of what he described as a monster wave over two miles long. That wave and subsequent surges destroyed a third of the city of Hilo. In Low Pahoehoe, sixty ft waves slammed ashore where the children

scooped up the fish on the sand. It crushed the schoolhouse, killing everyone inside. The waves even shoved a bridge three hundred feet from the river it crossed. The waves as tall as a thirteen story building were reported. Nine people died on the island of Hawaii that day, and a hundred fifty nine in the Hawaiian Islands combined. The property damage reached twenty six million dollars worth over a quarter of a billion. Today. In half Moon Bay, California, fourteen

foot surges pummeled the shoreline. In Santa Cruz, the surge is killed a person, and as far away as Chile, the waves damaged fishing boats. Despite technology that gives us earlier warnings, we don't always look at the social disaster underneath, and sometimes we ignore the signs altogether. I'm Lauren Vogelba. Welcome to American Shadows. In early America, colonists looking for a fresh start were drawn to Wisconsin's rich natural resources.

Immigrants tired of East Coast life and crowded cities where the few jobs that could be found didn't pay fair wages or treat them equally. Headed West, an abundance of minerals and lumber austered several industries, presenting them with the opportunities to make a good life. Mining had made Wisconsin one of the primary sources of lead in the world, though they also mined iron, zinc, and copper. Many found the area the perfect place for farming, while others turned

to logging. It was a good life. The town of Peshtigo in Mayrinett County sits just off the western shore of Green Bay. While French colonists arrived in the area in the late seventeen eighties, it wasn't until eighteen thirty eight, when the first sawmill went into operation, that the town became prosperous. Norwegian, Swedish, English, German, and Irish immigrants made

Peshtigo their home. The seemingly endless forests around Lake Michigan were perfect for the hard woods that made houses, furniture, and chips. The town's proximity to Chicago and railroads provided the residents with a way to transport lumber and earn a steady stream of income. It wasn't without risk, though, The logging and lumber industry wasn't well regulated and safe forestry practices were non existent. No care was taken on what to cut down, and loggers stripped the land, leaving

underbrush to bake in the sun. Scraps and refuse were dumped into tinder piles, making fires a constant threat. They didn't change their practices, though, and in May of eighteen sixty nine, a fire broke out in nearby Ashland, killing three people. The local papers reported that a spark from a worker's pipe had ignited dry tinder on the docks. Another fire broke out in the same town four years later,

killing four men. With the need for more lumber, paying more railroads workers laying tracks took out large swaths of trees, leaving them discarded and random piles nearby, and despite the fires, no one gave it much thought. Like other cities and towns, Peshtigo's buildings were made of wood with such an abundance they even used wood chips to pave their streets. The summer of eighteen seventy one had been one of the

hottest and driest summers on record. A few small wildfires had started in the area, though as usual, no one worried much, most of them fizzled out on their own. That changed on October eighth, when strong winds started early in the morning and continued most of the day. Residents noticed the increase in dust and debris, making some of them a bit nervous, while others scoffed at their concerns

and one about their day as usual. One of the town seventeen hundred residents was father Peter Pernin, who had moved Peshtigo in eighteen sixty nine. As he walked down the street near his church that day, he passed children playing, young couples walking, and townfolk out playing yard games with friends. None gave the clouds of smoke billowing above the forest tree tops a second glance. Such sites were a part of life in logging communities. There had never been a

fire they hadn't handled. Though the townspeople were acting perfectly normal. Pernan was uneasy, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something darker loomed just over the horizon. He continued his visits to his congregation up until around seven p m. That evening. The wind that had been blowing earlier picked up. The gusts felt stronger now, and more frequent. As he walked back to his home, he couldn't help but realize how quiet everything had become. No birds chirped or sang

in the fading light. He paused and listened. Then he heard it, a faint roar off in the distance above the tree line. Traces of red etched the sky. Despite the town's calm demeanor and dismissal of the nearby fire, he rushed home, certain that something terrible was about to happen. When he reached his house, Pernan went to the stable and set his horse loose once for he hoped the animal's instincts would kick in and it would run off to a safer place. Next, he began digging a trench

to bury his valuables. As he dug, the air became increasingly oppressive, making breathing difficult. He kept digging anyway. After a while, the silence gave way to the roar had heard earlier. To him, it sounded like several trains approaching a station in a thunderstorm. A crimson glow grew brighter over the tree line. Pernin was about out of time. He made several trips inside to fetch books, clothing, his dog and some items from the church. When he looked

at the sky again, the fire was evident. With deafening pops, Last sent sparks shooting into the sky. Convinced that the air itself would catch fire, he set off to the river, thinking that hurt a train, and knowing they never ran that. Late at night, people stepped outside of their homes to see what the noise was, Greeted by flames. They rushed to action without taking in the breadth of the fire. Women ran to get small children from their beds, while men and boys set up a fire brigade. They had

a fire department, so to speak. It amounted to one horse, a wagon and a steam pump, hardly sufficient for a logging town. An ominous black cloud covered the evening sky, blotting out the moon and stars. Ash fell like snow with each gust of wind. Durton made it difficult to breathe. The heat grew so intense that those fighting the fire could hardly keep their eyes open. The wind swirled in a virtual tornado of debris and flames. Realizing that fighting

the fire was futile, people fled towards the river. Some panicked and ran off into the forest. The poor ability caused people and wagons to collide on the roads. Some of the residents became so overwhelmed and terrified they stood paralyzed in the fire's path. A few ran to open fields, thinking that would save them. The thick smoke overtook them and they dropped to the ground, coughing and choking. Father Pernan tripped over something and realized it was a body.

He got back to his feet and ran, passing people who had taken refuge behind boulders. Determined to live, he called to anyone who could hear him to follow his voice to hurry to the river bank. He thought that if they could reach the river banks and wet themselves in water and mud, they might survive. On the other hand, the way the wind carried the flames, he feared that they might have to wade out into deeper water and risk drowning in the current. The flames lapped at their heels.

Father Pernan briefly wondered if Judgment Day had come to Peshtigo. When he reached the river, relief swept over him to see people had already collected on the banks. Unfortunately, few were in the water. Most stood in place. Confused, others stared at the sky crying. They asked him if this was their judgment to them, there simply wouldn't be any reason to get into the water if God had sent the fire, and the father's words of assurance that this was not the end of the world seemed lost on

most of them. He began pushing them into the water. Some were angry and complained bitterly about being soaked. Immersion in water is better than immersion in fire, he shouted back. As the fire continued to approach, he grabbed a few of the townspeople and dragged them to deeper water. The flames were so intense he could feel the heat of it even through his wet, heavy clothes. The wind carried pieces of fiery debris across the river, setting a flame

the dry leaves and felled trees there. Embers floated them, catching several people's dry hair and clothes on fire. On shore. People refused to get in the water. They insisted that if God wanted them to die by fire, they would obey. All he could do was call out to them and the hopes that follow him and the others into the river. With the heat so intense, survival instincts took over, and they began to jump in and swim away from the shoreline.

Within a matter of minutes, the fire reached the river banks. If they had waited any longer, they would have died. A mother held her young child by the hand as she checked the blanket in her arms. She screamed. The blanket was empty. In the chaos, the baby she had squaddled inside had slipped from her arms. As they ran toward the river, Those who had made it this far swam or waited until only their heads were above the water. While that much should have granted them protection, it did not.

Flames streaked across the river banks. Father Pernin's fear of the air catching fire seemed to have come true. The townspeople continually dunked their heads to keep their hair from catching fire. The temperature felt like hell itself. Anyone standing up out of the water risked their hair or clothing catching. The water grew thick with people and animals, and those who couldn't swim drowned. By midnight, nothing existed on the river banks. The entire forest on both sides was engulfed

in fire. Father Pernin looked towards the heavens, only to see flames where the moon and stars had once been. The phenomenon Pernin described has rarely been survivable. Experts say the firestorm created something akin to a hurricane of fire, with winds reaching a hundred miles an hour, and the people in the river were in the eye of it. The inferno had created a vortex, sucking the smoke higher into the sky, leaving the air below bright with flames.

For five and a half hours. The survivors stayed in the water. When the fires subsided, they bade their way back to the shore. They huddled together on the river bank, what hungry, injured, they waited for the earth to cool down enough for them to return to what was once home. On the outer fringes of town, rescue teams from nearby found blackened posts, the fences that once held gone, an iron railroad track spent and twisted. Nothing of the trains

endored except for their boilers. All that remained of the church was a ball of melted metal that had once been the bell. Inside the steeple, they discovered the bodies of a family of five, having no chance of escape. It appeared the father had cut his wife and children's throats, and then taken his own life rather than have them burned to death. In the area where the town tavern had stood, they found the remains of some two hundred people.

They stumbled over the scorched earth toward an open area where houses, barns, and trees had once stood. The fire had burned so hot that sand had turned to glass. Not a single tree remained. Holes and divots were the only clues of where they had grown. The fire had reduced the roots to ash. Beneath their feet lay a trail of corpses so charred that identification was impossible. In some cases, the bone fragments were indistinguishable from those of animals.

The survivors, those few who could still walk, made their way toward the search teams, and most were barely clothed, many burned. All were sooty, wet, and traumatized. That survived. The unsurvivable others stayed on the shore, their blungs still struggling, their throats swollen from breathing hot air and ash. Many who had kept their eyes open were blind, some permanently. Thick smoke lingered in the sky, eclipsing the sun. It would be days before sunshine broke through. More rescue teams

arrived from the town of Marionette. They took the most injured to their hospital and housed the less critical in homes and hotels. Over the coming days and weeks, many died from their injuries and sustained smoke inhalation. The many who did survive suffered permanent heart, lung, skin, or eye damage. Eventually, they returned to Peshtigo and rebuilt. They did their best to collect the dead, without knowing who was who, or even if they were burying people or animals. The town

folk decided on a single burial site and service. A few logging and lumber businesses reinvested in Peshtigo, and the town never re emerged as the epicenter it had once been. A father, Pernan survived and even found some of the valuable had buried were recoverable. Today they can be seen in the Pestigo Fire Museum. He wrote a memoir about the events of October eighth and ninth of eight one.

First published in his native French, it was translated to English and remains an important part of the fire's history. He titled it The Finger of God Is There While the town rebuilt their church. Parnin moved on to Minnesota, where he spent decades working with several churches, eventually becoming the Vicar General, the local diocese, highest office after the bishop. In his later years, after retirement from the church, he became the resident chaplain of St. Mary's, now known as

the Mayo Clinic. Today, the small town of Pestigo is home to just over thirty people. The Pestigo fire consumed one point three million acres about four hundred square miles. Historians think over a billion trees were likely destroyed. The fire cut a swath through the forest ten miles wide and forty miles long. Seventeen additional towns suffered damage and loss of life, though Pastigo suffered the most. The fire burned so hot it leveled the town to ash in

just two hours. Of the estimated twelve hundred residents, eight hundred died that night alone. However, records indicate that another twelve hundred railroad workers had arrived the day before, putting the population two hundred, and even that number didn't account for the travelers and businessmen who passed through regularly. As father Pernan pointed out, the town never had an accurate

population count. The researchers have pieced together information that suggests up to hundred people may have died from the fire that swept through Pastigo and nearby towns. Throughout eighteen, wildfires were reported across the Midwest. Michigan reported several large wildfires that year, with an additional death poll of around five hundred. But despite all that, you might be asking why you

haven't heard of the Pestigo fire before. Well, as it turns out, just two hundred and fifty miles south, on that very same night, another fire started that stole all the headlines, the Great Chicago Fire, in which three hundred people perished. Newspapers were quick to report about a disaster in a booming metropolitan city over a rural logging community. The damaged property and the economy in Chicago came to

some two hundred million. Pestigos came close at nearly a hundred and seventy million, but even that didn't stoke the media's interest. When word did break out, most of the help had already been sent to Chicago, leaving Pestigo to fend for itself. There was a story of a cow owned by one Mrs O'Leary kicking over a lantern and starting the Chicago fire, but it was later debunked years afterward. The reporter who wrote the story admitted to fabricating the tail.

So what did start so many fires across them? In West? In the Upper Midwest had had an unusually dry and hot season. Added to that, people had become careless about storing drag goods. As for the Peshtigo fire, their method of harvesting timber and their lack of good forestry practices were also to blame. Father Pernan admitted he was bitter about the attention the Chicago fire received and how Peshtigo's

survivors were mostly overlooked, not by everyone, though. Francis Fairchild, the wife of Wisconsin Governor Lucius Fairchild, was about to come to Peshtigo's aid. Francis was aboard a train heading to Chicago when she learned it was yet another train full of food and other provisions slated for the victims of the Chicago fire. She ordered the train stopped and had the provisions allocated to Pshtigo instead. She also coordinated

a blanket and betting drive for the families. To this day, the Peshtigo fire remains the deadliest fire in American history. The death toll makes it the second largest of all natural disasters in American history, behind only the Galveston Hurricane in nine hundred. There's more to this story. Stick around after this brief sponsor break to hear all about it. The earthquake hit an hour before sunrise and lasted a

mere sixty seconds. Though short, the six point six quake registered is the biggest to hit California in eighty years, exceeded only by the San Francisco earthquake in nineteen o six and the quake that struck Long Beach in three Still, to the people living in the San Fernando area on February nine, the quake was catastrophic. The earth shook so violently that bridges were flattened, highways collapsed, and power stations

toppled over and down. Power lines sparked fires. The earthquake traveled along the twelve mile fault zone under the San Gabriel Mountains at six o one am and startled from their sleep. People took cover as their homes rattled and shook. The destruction continued to Los Angeles, where freeways crumbled, sewer lines burst, and gas lines exploded, causing more fires. Phone lines went out to making it impossible for residence to

call for help. In San Fernando, nurse Betty Vanda car was just signing off the night that the Veterans Administration Hospital, tired from a long overnight shift. Betty just wanted to go home. When the quake hit, the entire Ward five building and its inhabitants disappeared into the coal and dark morning. Betty never forgot the site or the sound. The building groaned and rumbled, then buckled and caved in built in ninety six, the concrete wasn't reinforced. Forty four bodies were

recovered from the wreckage. Miraculously, a thousand people made it out alive. When the nearby six story psychiatric Ward at All of You Community Hospital collapsed, only three people were killed. Three more hospitals suffered severe damage. Buildings fell onto roadways, and overhead bridges collapsed onto the roads below. When the quake stopped and the dust settled, people were injured and sixty four were dead, nine from heart attacks. The monetary

damage exceeded just over five hundred and fifty million. For weeks afterwards, survivors were left without water, gas, and power. One resident recalled using camping gear for five weeks. He considered himself lucky. Other families had none of those amenities. The Salvation Army arrived with food, but residents were on their own when it came to shelter. The reservoir keeper for the lower San Fernando Dam tried to get out of bed to check on his family when the quake struck,

though he could barely walk. When the tremors subsided, he drove to the dam. To his horror, he found a crack and alerted his superiors. The earthen dam had partially liquefied and the top thirty feet of the structure had crumbled. The San Fernando Dam held three point six billion gallons of water. Directly below the dam were highly populated areas. The seismologists and employees held their breath. With every aftershock, chunks of earth fell away, bringing the water table closer

to the top of the dam. Police fanned out over nine square miles from the reservoir to Ventura Highway in an attempt to warn the residence to evacuate. Employees did their best to shore up the cracks while strong winds sent waves crashing along the rim. Fortunately, the dam held. If it hadn't, seismologists estimate a hundred and twenty thousand people would have drowned. Even today, no one knows why the dam didn't collapse, which would have made the earthquake

the worst natural disaster in American history. Seismologists conclude that had the quake lasted for another five to ten seconds, history would have been significantly different. The twisted railroads and collapsed roadways made recovery long and difficult. Out of the rebel came changes, though. The reconstruction spurred new laws, and Congress introduced new bills that established a national Earthquake Research program.

Although the quake wasn't what Californians referred to as the Big One, it had been a call to action that the nation didn't ignore. Previously, no one had paid much attention to seismic activity, and when newer bill things and roadways collapsed in the earthquake, it served as a wake up call to city engineers and developers. The solid concrete, they found out, and it wasn't flexible enough with stand tremors and aftershocks. They also realized that building homes on

top of fault lines didn't end well. The quake scruptured the surface, ripping through lawns and houses. Six years later, in the Earthquake Hazards Reduction Act passed, helping to establish current earthquake safety standards. When it comes to quakes, at least, it seems society has learned to pay attention to the

warning signs. American Shadows is hosted by Lauren Vogelbaum. This episode was written by Michelle Muto, researched by Ali Steed, and produced by Miranda Hawkins and Trevor Young, with executive producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. To learn more about the show, visit grim and mild dot com. From more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. M