While usually well written, they can lose sight of the causes, especially in man-made catastrophes where poor engineering, human error or negligence have combined to cause failure.
On the other hand, authors who have been directly involved in an accident can reveal facts which have not been widely known, and provide insight into the problem.
It is a well composed book and written with good documentary accuracy, the author having accessed the many documents which have survived, especially the massive government report of 1880.
It did have a very positive benefit in stimulating others to write up their interpretation of the event, such as John Thomas in his New Light on the Tay Bridge Disaster published in 1972.
The sinking of the RMS Titanic in April 1912 was vividly recreated by Walter Lord in his A Night to Remember published in 1955, a book that became a best-seller and still remains in print for its accuracy and detail.