Edward McClelland recounts the story of Dennis Hale, the sole survivor of the SS Daniel J. Morrell, an iron-ore ship that capsized during a blizzard on Lake Huron in 1966, killing 28 men. McClelland zooms out:
Melville wrote that the Great Lakes “have sunk many a midnight ship, with all her shrieking crew.” But there hasn’t been a Great Lakes shipwreck since the Edmund Fitzgerald sank [in 1975]. There may never be another. The decline of the steel industry means fewer ships ply the Lakes. Doppler radar alerts sailors to the violent storms that sank the Morrell and the Fitz. No longer paid tonnage bonuses, captains have no motivation to persist through rough seas, risking the lives of their crews.
(The lyrics to Gordon Lightfoot’s “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”, seen above, are here.)
The Dish 