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November 10, 2004
We are holding our own
According to this timeline of the events of November 10, 1975, those were the last words from the Edmund Fitzgerald. Sometime between 7:10 and 7:30pm EST on that date, she slipped beneath the waves taking 29 men with her. The story is as fascinating as it is vexing. Why did it happen? We will never know. Like most tragedies, there was a long chain of events that led up to it. If the chain had been broken, the Fitz might still be plying the lakes or sitting dockside next to a museum. But the chain wasn't broken. Everything seemed to go wrong.
The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald gets a lot of attention because of Gordon Lightfoot's song and because it happened in our own time. Stories of shipwrecks often evoke images of bygone days, before the advent of modern navigational equipment. The Fitz had two radars. Both failed. There was a light and a radio beacon nearby. They failed. Ships in the area, such as the Arthur Anderson, were powerless to help. In the end, she succumbed to the gales of November like so many before her.
In her day, though, she was the pride of the fleet. For more than a decade she was the largest on the lakes and was the first to carry more than a million tons of ore through the Soo Locks. Thanks to Gordon Lightfoot and so many others who keep the story alive, the Edmund Fitzgerald will never be forgotten.
In memoriam
They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; These see the works of the LORD, and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits' end. Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven. Psalm 107:23-30
Posted by William Polley at November 10, 2004 9:14 PM