Many had hoped this year's climbing season would bring success and restore confidence in the route after deadly disasters cancelled climbing the previous two years.
It's not that disaster is a game of perverse one-upmanship where the greater catastrophe cancels out one not quite as awful.
Minutes after the second plane hit the World Trade Center, hospitals in Manhattan activated their disaster plans: They canceled elective surgery, discharged stable patients and closed walk-in clinics, emptying their beds to await the thousands of expected casualties.
Plagued with disaster, from the canceled appearances by Bad Company (or the Paul Rodgers show) to the departure of (and lawsuit from) one of Styx's most innovative members, Dennis DeYoung, the group puts its face to the wind and presses forward.
Yes, the tax credit cuts have been cancelled and disaster averted for many families, but others are still going under.
Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, we can now have some confidence that our insurance cannot be unfairly cancelled when disaster strikes and we need it most.
In one particularly memorable disaster, an interview was canceled by the company with less than a few hours notice.
Imagine that the Hubble Space Telescope never existed that it fell victim to budget overruns, schedule slips, and the tragedy of the Challenger disaster, and was ultimately canceled.
The threat from the storm prompted the Okinawa government to cancel a disaster drill for the island.
The past few weeks, I find myself walking on eggshells around these depressed folk, who mope around campus as though they just lost all their belongings in a level 10 natural disaster, the CW just canceled Gossip Girl, and they found out that Mario Lopez was gay.
