Disaster Research

1. Disaster Research Writing your introduction

2. Draft a thesis statement • For essays, declare your main idea and purpose in a thesis statement. • Your thesis statement can appear anywhere in the introduction paragraph. • Your introduction should appear after an attention-grabbing hook.

3. Evaluate your introduction • After you complete your draft, use questions such as the following to help you decide how to best revise the introduction: • Does the introduction have a clear thesis statement? • Is the introduction both interesting and factually correct? • Does it tell readers what they can expect to learn in the rest of the paper? • Did you state the name of the disaster, the date & where it occurred without giving too much information away? • Did you TRANSITION from your hook to your intro paragraph?

4. Indian Ocean Earthquake & Tsunami Waves as high as thirty meters crashed down on helpless coastal communities, destroying every building and structure in their path…Coral reefs and coastal wetlands were either severely damaged or completely demolished during this horrible disaster of the Indian Ocean. On that fateful morning of Sunday, December 26, 2004, the Burma tectonic plate, located in the Earth’s crust,  snapped, slipping away from its partner. The abrupt movement caused a monster earthquake, measuring 9.3 on the Richter scale. Soon to be known as the Indian Ocean Earthquake Tsunami of 2004, the unexpected quake resulted in a tsunami that caused huge waves to wash away coastal villages as far away as Africa. Enormous waves, some as high as one hundred feet, hit the formerly calm coasts of eleven countries; at least fourteen countries were affected by the disaster. The 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake Tsunami was recorded as the third largest earthquake in the world, and one of the deadliest.

5. Johnstown Flood The lost survivor staggered across the muddy ground…. The work of the flood had done that.  It left hundreds of people in Death’s grasp.  The pain and the misery added to the feeling that the world had been turned upside down. That tragic day was May 31, 1889.  It was a little after 3:00 p.m. on a cloudy, rainy day when the South Fork Dam failed, sending 20 million tons of water soaring downhill to engulf everything in its path.  The water bulldozed through South Fork, Mineral Point, Woodvale, and East Conemaugh like a raging army charging into battle.  The flood finally hit the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania at around 4:00 p.m.  Here the flood brought swathes of destruction on hundreds of innocent people.  All of these people had just become poor victims of one of the most disastrous floods of the nineteenth century.

6. 9/11 What if you were there? Like an anthill where everyone wants out at the same time…All of this happened on that awful and horrific day. That fateful day will be forever remembered and known as nine-eleven. It happened on September 11, 2001 and killed almost 3,000 people. A series of plane hijackings took out the 1 and 2 World Trade Center towers in New York City, New York. The third hijacking took out part of the Pentagon upon impact. Passengers on the fourth plane received information via cell phone and stormed the cockpit in hopes to regain control, but to no avail. All passengers on the four planes died including 19 members of a terrorist group known as al-Qaeda. Of the 2,996 people, 19 were al-Qaeda, 23 were New York police officers, and about 184 died in the Pentagon.

7. Remember to write your introduction paragraph stating your thesis without giving too much information away! Make sure to use a transition from your hook to your introduction!