Then young Bomford turned his wireless to search the river and gulf, and he hurled the news of the Empress’ fate for 500 miles oceanward. Many steamships picked up the call, but they were hours away. They started for the position given, but long before they had made any progress the Empress and two-thirds of her ship’s company were under fifteen fathoms of water. Fourteen minutes is too brief a time for much rescue work.
HUNDREDS DROWN IN CABINS
Had there been time, hundreds who went down with the ship would have survived. A thousand men and women who had been asleep awoke too late to scramble to the decks. They were crushed or mangled by the bow of the Storstad, injured by splintered timbers or overwhelmed in the terrific rush of water.
It is probable that scores who were asleep were killed instantly, but hundreds perished while feebly struggling for doorways, or while trying for a footing on sloping decks. The terror and confusion of the few minutes, while the Empress staggered, listed and sank, can hardly be put in words. The survivors themselves could not describe those minutes adequately.
In the brief space of time between the shock of the collision and the sinking of the liner there was little chance for systematic marshaling of the passengers. Indeed, everything indicates that hundreds of those on the steamer probably never reached the decks.
NO TIME TO ROUSE PASSENGERS
The stewards did not have time to rouse the people from their berths. Those who heard the frenzied calls of the officers for the passengers to hurry on deck lost no time in obeying them, rushing up from their cabins in scanty attire. They piled into the boats, which were rapidly lowered, and were rowed away. Many who waited to dress were drowned.
The horror of the interval during which the Empress of Ireland was rapidly filling and the frightened throngs on board her were hurrying every effort to escape before she sank was added to by what seemed like an explosion, which quickly followed the ripping and tearing given the liner by the Storstad’s bow. As Captain Kendall afterwards explained, this supposed explosion was in reality the pressure of air caused by the in-rushing water. The ship’s heavy list as the water pouring in weighted her on the side she was struck, made the work of launching boats increasingly difficult from moment to moment, and when she finally took her plunge to the bottom scores still left on her decks were carried down in the vortex, only a few being able to clear her sides and find support on pieces of wreckage.