Into the Raging Sea: Thirty-Three Mariners, One Megastorm, and the Sinking of El Faro

by Rachel Slade

The Taíno called these storms juracánes—acts of a furious eponymous goddess, which they depicted as a disembodied head adorned with two propeller-like wings. She looked remarkably like the hurricane symbol you find on modern maps.

Mendoza also noted signs of an imminent hurricane, including odd behaviors among birds, which are exquisitely sensitive to shifts in barometric pressure. When they sense a pressure drop, they might try to outrun it. The result is unusual species showing up in unexpected places, sometimes migrating from America to Europe to escape a hurricane. A few days before a storm, birds might go into a feeding frenzy to bulk up before winds and rains wipe out their feeding grounds. All these behaviors are easily observable.

The office worries about customers and profits; captains worry about everything else. Sometimes their interests diverge.

landlocked nations, which underscores the free-for-all nature of this system and the Wild West nature of the sea. When a non–Jones Act ship goes down, Langewiesche notes, there’s little risk to the customers and shipping companies. The hulls and cargoes are fully insured and actual ownership is obfuscated by a rat’s nest of LLCs and shell corporations.

Shipping is the engine that drives the modern world. It’s our T-shirts, diapers, beer, and crisp new sheets. It’s everything we wear, everything we touch, the parts inside our cars, our laptops, and our dinner. More than 90 percent of the things people need come by ship. Cheap transport has shaped the needs of every man, woman, and child on Earth. It binds us together.

The sinking of the Titanic coupled with other major maritime tragedies in the early twentieth century, along with the successes of the organized labor movement, reinforced the need for a strong maritime regulatory agency. The volatile steam engine and its failings finally bound capitalism to workers’ welfare.

In his book Deep Survival, Laurence Gonzales writes, “The word ‘experienced’ often refers to someone who has gotten away with doing the wrong thing more frequently than you have.” This captain was experienced in exactly in that way.

But the encounter scared him. In his eighteen years at the NTSB, he had always been treated respectfully, as the truth seeker he was. The world, however, was changing. Facts were no longer just facts. Everything was debatable. Playground bullies in expensive suits had stormed the gates.