I had never heard of this disaster before, and I am actually not sure how I managed to come across this book. It is possible that it was on a list of disaster books that I Googled. At any rate, I learned a lot of information from this book. It covered multiple people and perspectives of the events. I cannot imagine living through something like that. I can understand why it was described by so many as hell on earth. It seems like this would be something that was mentioned at some point during school, but I had to take Tennessee History and I didn't learn anything interesting the whole time I had to take that. I wonder if this was mentioned in Texas state history, but other reviews of native Texans suggest it wasn't common knowledge. This was a really dramatic and horrific read. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in Texas, United States History, or disasters.