Five years ago this past Tuesday evening (September 29, 2015) the cargo ship El Faro departed JAXPORT on a routine round-trip voyage to San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Meanwhile, just north of the Bahamas, Tropical Storm Joaquin was brewing.
Joaquin intensified to a Category 4 hurricane and in the early morning hours of October 1, 2015, El Faro and Joaquin met on the 40 foot high seas. All 33 crew members aboard were lost (28 Americans and 5 Poles), making it the worst U.S. maritime disaster in decades.
In 2016, the Jacksonville City Council voted to rename Dames Point Park, under the Dames Point Bridge, the “El Faro Memorial at Dames Point Park.” A statue was erected to memorialize the ship’s deceased crew members. El Faro means, the lighthouse, and that’s what the statue was crafted to resemble. The location was selected due to its position near the mouth of the St. Johns River, Jacksonville was home to many of the El Faro crew and where their memorial now stands may have been the last they saw of home..
There are other memorials;
A fountain at Evergreen Cemetery.
Another monument in Puerto Rico, the ship’s intended destination.
A plaque placed nearly 3 miles deep, on the deck of the cargo ship.
In August 2016, after recovering El Faro’s voyage data recorder, the remotely operated vehicle called CURV left a plaque commissioned by the families of the crew to honor them. The plaque was placed on top of what was left of the ‘house’, where the top two decks were sheared off.
It reads: This plaque was placed on this site August 2016 to honor the crew of the El Faro who were lost at sea during Hurricane Joaquin October 1, 2015.
Additional memorials are located in Poland, home to 5 crew members, and in Maine, several crew members were graduates of Maine Maritime Academy, and or residents of Maine.
Memorials are nice but what about prevention?
Former crew members of El Faro expressed surprise and shock that the vessel set sail with a major storm in its course. They said the vessel was “a rust bucket” that “[was not] supposed to be on the water.” They also said that El Faro suffered from drainage issues and that leaking was common in the galley (kitchen) compartment. They said that the ship was covered in rust and its decks filled with holes as recently as August
“El Faro had leaks, holes, other structural issues, former crew members say”
In the words of NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt “The El Faro didn’t have to sink.”
But Hurricane!
NO!
But money!
All of the things the NTSB board stated the El Faro should have had, cost money; enclosed lifeboats, direct transmission of weather data, changing the practice of grandfathering in of (older) vessels. El Faro was over 40 years old and not held to the same safety standards as more modern vessels, due to being “grandfathered in” , training of personnel …and checking the damn engine oil levels.
All of the above played a part in the loss of 33 crew members. Then there’s the issue of personal protection gear, gear meant to help U.S. Coast Guard and US Navy Search and Rescue Crews to locate those in danger at sea, gear that was not provided; personal locator beacon ($300) and a free-floating, GPS-enabled EPIRB ($800).
It is heart wrenching to think that for $300 per crew member, and or for the cost of modern lifeboats, 33 people could still be alive today.
Maritime writer Robert Frump wrote, concerning maritime safety, “Changes only occur when there is a meaningful disaster.”
We have had the meaningful disaster. We are still waiting for the bulk of the changes recommended by the NTSB to be implemented.
Photography courtesy of Earl Ware, 3rd-Rate Photography