INJURY ON STARBOARD SIDE
The horrible fact, about which there can be no dispute, is that the Storstad crashed bow on into the side of the big Canadian liner, striking it on the starboard side about midway of its length. The steel-sheathed bow of the collier cut through the plates and shell of the Empress and penetrated the hull for a distance of about twelve feet, according to the best testimony.
The water didn’t flow in. It rushed in. From such stories as could be gathered from survivors and from members of the crew, it appears that Captain Kendall and his officers did all that was humanly possible in the fourteen minutes that the Empress hung on the river.
Captain Kendall said that he rang to the engine-room for full speed ahead, with the object of trying to run ashore and save the passengers, but almost immediately after the engines stopped and the ship began to list rapidly. The captain of the Storstad declares that it was this action of Captain Kendall that prevented him from holding the bow of the Storstad in the gaping hole it made and that it was the Empress herself, with the way upon her, following the order “Full steam ahead,” which drew away from the Storstad, bending the collier’s bow out of the great gash in the liner’s side, and disappeared in the fog. What further damage may have been done as the vessels parted no one seemed to know certainly.