THIRTY YEARS AGO
On duty in the midst of a tragedy—Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald
Thirty years ago during the early evening hours of November 10, 1975, I was on duty as an aviation forecaster at the Chicago office of the National Weather Service. I was teamed with Lead Forecaster, the late Jim Vermoch, and we analyzing the 6 p.m. CST surface weather map. An intense storm system was moving through the upper Great Lakes and storm warnings for winds in excess of 55 m.p.h. were posted for Lake Superior. Earlier in the day strong winds had been blowing out of the east piling up huge westward moving waves on the lake, but now in the early November darkness howling west winds often reaching hurricane force (74+ m.p.h.) were creating monstrous waves in the opposite direction.
About 7:30 p.m. the "Green" phone, an internal hot-line used for forecast coordination, rang. I answered the call and found myself speaking to the Coast Guard duty officer in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. He told me that he believed a ship on Lake Superior had gone down that evening during the storm. He thought it was named the SS Fitzgerald. I relayed the information to Jim Vermoch and we quickly made calls to the Meteorologist-in-Charge of the office, Ray Waldman and to our regional headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri. At that time, neither of us had any idea of the magnitude of the marine tragedy that was unfolding before us.
The next morning all the horrific details of the tragedy were becoming available. A large iron ore carrying vessel, the Edmund Fitzgerald had disappeared in Lake Superior 17 miles northwest of White Fish Point, and it was almost certain that all 29 men on board had perished.
As they say, the rest is history.
