Top 10 Shipwrecks and Maritime Disasters in U.S. History

Boats have been one of the most efficient ways to transport everything from vital supplies to humans throughout history. But this efficiency can come with a price, as human error and nature’s power sometimes leads to disaster. Here are the top 10 shipwrecks and maritime disasters in or near United States waters.

1. USS Arizona

Just before 8 a.m. on Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese aircraft from six fleet carriers attacked the heart of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet in the port of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The two attack waves destroyed or severely damaged many vessels including several of the U.S. Navy’s prized battleships: the USS Arizona, California, Oklahoma and West Virginia. The Arizona sustained eight direct bomb hits, one of which penetrated the deck and the black-powder magazine. The subsequent explosion and fire ripped through the forward part of the ship. The Arizona sank at its mooring taking the lives of 1,177 of the 1,400 sailors on board making it the greatest loss of life on any warship in U.S. history. Its fires burned for more than two days and oil continues to seep up from the wreckage to this day. In all, 2,402 Americans were killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor, which came to be symbolized by the destruction of the USS Arizona.

2. SS Sultana

SS Sultana, a steamship that regularly traveled from St. Louis to New Orleans, was commissioned by the war department to transport just-released Union prisoners of war back home. The ship was legally registered to carry a maximum of less than 400 people, but with the government paying $5 per soldier, 2,300 soldiers were packed in so tightly that they could barely stand. At 2 a.m., April 27, three of the ship’s boilers exploded since they were rapidly and poorly repaired in order to get “first dibs” of the POWs. Fire quickly spread throughout the ship and those who survived jumped into the river and drowned. By the time the sun came up, more than 1,700 soldiers were dead and the Sultana sank about seven miles north of Memphis, Tennessee.

3. PS General Slocum

On June 15, 1904,  1,358 passengers boarded the ship for an annual church event up the East River. Shortly after launch, a small fire began in the forward section and within the hour, the fire had spread to a paint locker that contained gasoline and other flammable liquids. Unfortunately, the captain had not maintained any safety standards so all of the fire hoses had rotted away, the lifeboats were bolted in place, and life jackets were unusable. To make matters worse, the captain sailed into headwinds that actually spread the fire over the majority of the ship. By the time it sank off the Bronx shore, 1,021 people had died and it was New York’s largest loss of life in a single disaster until the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

4. SS Eastland

On July 24, 1915, the passenger ship SS Eastland was docked on the Chicago River in downtown Chicago preparing to depart for Lake Michigan. The ship had been chartered to take Western Electric Co. employees and their family members on a well-deserved cruise and picnic. As the 2,700 passengers boarded the ship, it began to list while still moored to the dock. Eventually, the weight caused the ship to roll onto its side, spilling hundreds of passengers into the river with the rest trapped underwater in the interior cabins. The disaster killed 844 passengers, mostly women and children. Its center of gravity was simply too high, which made it susceptible to listing.

5. Texas City Disaster

On April 16, 1947, a 437-foot French-registered vessel was docked in the port of Texas City on the Texas Gulf Coast. Known as the SS Grandcamp, its cargo included 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate that was used for fertilizer and high explosives. After a small fire started in the cargo hold, the captain ordered his men to steam out the fire in order to protect the cargo. The steam actually liquefied the ammonium nitrate and raised the temperature of the hold to 850 degrees Fahrenheit, which caused the water around the ship to boil. At 9:12 a.m., the ammonium nitrate detonated with an explosive force that shattered windows 40 miles away, ignited nearby oil refineries, destroyed hundreds of buildings and even sheared off the wings of overhead planes. The explosion, dubbed the “Texas City Disaster,” injured thousands and killed an estimated 600 people.

6. SS Central America

On Sept. 3, 1857, the ship departed from Panama with 476 passengers and three tons of gold, which included 5,200 newly minted $20 gold pieces from the San Francisco Mint. On Sept. 9, the ship was caught in a Category 2 hurricane off the Carolinas with sustained 100-mile-per-hour winds. With shredded sails, a boiler failure, and a leak in the paddlewheel, the ship began taking on water. After a failed attempt to bail the rising water, the crew flew the ship’s flag upside down (the maritime distress signal). But no one came to their rescue and the ship sank with 426 passengers on Sept. 12, 160 miles east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. The 50 remaining survivors were rescued by a Norwegian vessel five hours later.

7. USS Thresher

The USS Thresher was a 3,700-ton, nuclear-powered attack submarine commissioned in August 1961. On April 9, 1963, the Thresher sailed to an area 220 miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and began a series of deep-sea trials. With a fleet of rescue ships that included the bathyscaphe Trieste, the submarine was found broken into six major sections at a depth of 8,400 feet.

8. SS Andrea Doria

On July 25, 1956, it was headed for New York near the island of Nantucket with 1,706 passengers. At the same time, the 528-foot MS Stockholm was on its transatlantic voyage back to Sweden. Unfortunately, the two ships charted similar courses at full speed completely unaware of each other’s presence. Once the ships spotted each other, it was too late and crucial errors in steering only made it worse. 1,660 passengers were rescued while 46 people died as a consequence of the collision.

9. SS Edmund Fitzgerald

On Nov. 9, 1975, the ship departed for Detroit loaded with more than 26,000 tons of iron. The Edmund Fitzgerald ran into a storm early the next morning, and by mid-afternoon, reported encountering 25-foot waves with 50-knot winds.

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank minutes later in Canadian waters 17 miles northwest of Whitefish Bay, Michigan. The entire crew of 29 went down with the ship and no bodies were recovered.

10. Exxon Valdez

On March 24, 1989, a 987-foot oil tanker, the Exxon Valdez on its way to California through Prince William Sound in Alaska. As Captain Joseph Hazelwood slept off an alcohol-induced bender below decks, his third mate steered the vessel right into Bligh Reef. The error spilled approximately 11 million gallons of crude oil, which eventually covered 1,300 miles of coastline and killed an estimated 250,000 seabirds and other marine life.

 

Source :- http://worldtoptenthings.blogspot.in/2011/12/top-10-shipwrecks-and-maritime.html