Iceberg with Miami in the Background.
Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard.
The Ghostly Ally of Disaster.
Berg in the lane of Atlantic travel, continuously watched by Coast Guard Cutter, safeguarding thousands of human lives.
The experiment of trying to demolish the larger bergs by gunnery was tried, and a six-pound shot was fired full at close range at one of the bergs. But it had no other result than to shake down a barrelful of snow-like dust. Following up the various bergs kept the Miami busy. At the same time she sent and received messages from passing steamers along the line of travel.
Only one large berg really got into a dangerous position, and this one was as carefully plotted and its position as thoroughly made known to vessels navigating the Atlantic as though it were a fixture. The course of the large Atlantic greyhound La France lay directly in the path of the berg and, had it not been for the warnings of the Miami, there might have been another ocean disaster to record. As the summer months approached, the cruising was delightful but not particularly interesting, and Eric, who craved excitement, was glad when, at the end of June, the Miami was ordered to resume her old station at Key West.
Two months passed before an emergency arose, but when it did come, it proved to be one to tax the Coast Guard cutter to the full. Toward the end of September a storm warning of a hurricane was issued, and the Miami, which was searching for a derelict reported two hundred miles west of Daytona, Florida, decided to run for Matanzas Inlet. About daylight the next morning, the first actual warning of the hurricane, aside from the notice sent out by the Weather Bureau, began to show itself in short gusty puffs. The barometer fell low, finally touching 28°, lower than Eric had ever seen before.
The sky clouded gradually, and by breakfast time, the wind was freshening from the southeast. By ten o'clock, the wind had risen to half a gale, and before noon it was blowing not less than forty to fifty miles an hour. The Miami made good weather, but in the afternoon the hurricane reached such a pitch of violence that it was decided to run before the storm and try for the lee of Cape Fear, possibly finding a safe anchorage in Masonboro Inlet.