This one ( which for me along with COWBOY is the best Dunning score)..and maybe another forerunner is HELLFIGHTERS by Rosenman.But AIRPORT must be considered the godfather I guess.
I'm not familiar with the film (I think I've heard the title in passing once or twice), but I've always considered THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE the first proper 'distaster movie', the way we think about the genre today.
Check out THE LAST VOYAGE (1960). The producers used the mothballed ocean liner Ile de France and practically blew it up during filming. There are lots of precarious situations that are similar to those seen in POSEIDON.
An additional note... That sweet little girl Tammy Marihugh? After leaving acting, Tammy became an exotic dancer and by the late 1970s she was a dancer in Las Vegas. She eventually married bodybuilder Rodney Larson, ten years younger than her, who turned out to be a violent and abusive husband. In March 1996, after a night of heavy drinking, Tamra, as she was known by then, arrived at home and shot her husband in the back. She pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, but given probation.
Irwin Allen's last disaster movie, When Time Ran Out, is a virtual remake of The Devil at 4 O'Clock, making it the beginning and the end of the original disaster movie cycle in a way... This was an early LP purchase for me, done purely so I could have some George Duning music because I loved his Star Trek scores so much and at that point it seemed impossible they would ever be released. I found in Devil at 4 O'Clock (and Picnic, which I snapped up shortly after) exactly what I loved about his Star Trek music--beautiful, touching love themes, haunting moments of melancholy, great, exciting energy, and just tremendous, accessible melodies in general. Devil at 4 O'Clock has to me what is still one of the most gripping and transcendent finales I've ever heard in a motion picture score. I mentioned this score to John Williams once because he'd played piano on it (that staccato "fleeing from the lava" music--and interestingly Arthur Morton, who dealt with a lot of later staccato piano music for Jerry Goldsmith, was Duning's frequent orchestrator), and Williams quickly said he'd worked a lot with and learned a lot from Duning, who he said should be appreciated much more than he is.
