RUTHLESS TIDE: The Heroes and Villains of the Johnstown Flood, America's Astonishing Gilded Age Disaster by Al Roker, New York Times bestselling author and beloved, Emmy-winning co-host of NBC's Today (Hardcover; $28.99).

This May marks the 129th anniversary of the Johnstown Flood, the deadliest flood in U.S. history. RUTHLESS TIDE is the first major work on the disaster in fifty years. As he did in his acclaimed The Storm of the Century (2015), Roker draws on his decades of coverage of extreme weather events and deep primary-source research to tell the dramatic story of the Johnstown Flood through the individuals who experienced it and its aftermath. He also reveals the tragedy's startling contemporary relevance, as we seek to grapple with climate change, our decaying infrastructure, and the growing income inequality that increasingly mirrors Gilded Age society.

Central Pennsylvania, May 1889: After a deluge of rainfall-nearly a foot in less than twenty-four hours-swelled the Little Conemaugh River, panicked engineers watched helplessly as swiftly rising waters threatened to breach the South Fork Dam, built to create a private lake for a fishing and hunting club that counted Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Mellon, and Henry Clay Frick among its members. Though they telegraphed neighboring towns on this last morning in May to warn of the impending danger, many residents-factory workers and their families-remained in their homes.

At 3:10 p.m., the dam gave way, releasing 20 million tons of water. Gathering speed as it flowed southwest, the deluge wiped out entire towns in its path and picked up debris-trees, houses, animals-before reaching Johnstown, fourteen miles downstream. Travelling 40 miles an hour, with swells as high as 60 feet, the deadly floodwaters razed the mill town-home to 20,000 people-in minutes. The Great Flood, as it would come to be called, remains the deadliest in U.S. history, killing more than 2,200 people and causing $17 million in damage.

RUTHLESS TIDE follows a compelling cast of characters whose fates converged because of that fateful day, including John Parke, the engineer whose heroic efforts failed to save the dam; Henry Clay Frick, the robber baron whose fancy sport fishing resort was responsible for modifications that weakened the dam; and Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross, who spent five months in Johnstown leading one of the first organized disaster relief efforts. Weaving together their stories and those of many ordinary citizens whose lives were forever altered by the event, Roker creates a classic account of our natural world at its most terrifying.

The tragedy was also notable for overhauling the American system of legal liability, driven by public outrage when flood victims lost their court case against the dam's owners whose irresponsibility contributed to the disaster.