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This is the kind of book that I have a hard time picturing someone wandering the bookstore or library looking for without a very specific goal, whether it is learning more about the Columbia disaster or something broader like volunteerism or how people react in disasters. Yet I've stumbled upon books like this, thought they looked interesting, and curiosity was enough to prompt me to try them. Sometimes what you'll get from them is the slant or overriding theme the author was aiming for- in this case, how people pull together in catastrophic circumstances- and other times it might be something entirely different.
Near the beginning of the book, Starr described his area of Texas as "some of the harshest terrain in the country." I looked at the mountains outside my window and said, "Who does he think he's kidding?" From my drives through this area, I know it is relatively flat, but didn't consider the difficulty in attempting to search every square foot over a large area through thick vegetation and a hot, humid climate. By the end of the book, I understood that there are different kinds of harsh. Managing the volunteers who come and go and coordinating the many government agencies involved in different aspects of the effort required putting together an ad hoc management structure that was in continual flux. Some government agencies have experience with this for such things as fighting forest fires or reacting to certain kinds of natural disasters, but there is no blueprint for something unprecedented, like the Columbia disaster. In the case of "Finding Heroes," I got the point the author was aiming for, that ordinary people rise to the occasion and put forth heroic efforts at times like this, but also found myself in awe of the logistics involved in an operation like this one.
**Originally written for "Books and Pals" book blog. May have received a free review copy. **
Anonymous
Posted July 11, 2010
No text was provided for this review.
Anonymous
Posted April 20, 2010
No text was provided for this review.
LendMe™
Overview
The story of the search and recovery effort during the 2003 Columbia disaster. Mr. Starr and his family run a funeral home and were called upon, along with hundreds of other volunteers from the area, to help search for and catalogue debris from the shuttle, and sadly, the bodies of the astronauts. In searching for the heroes, they discovered the heroes within themselves.