Captain Boulanger got his men together, and as he had steam up, after taking the mails to the Empress, got under way at once, followed shortly by the government boat Lady Evelyn.
EUREKA AND LADY EVELYN ON THE SCENE OF DISASTER
The Eureka and Lady Evelyn found, on reaching the point where the Empress sank, a scene not dissimilar to that which greeted the liners which rushed to the Titanic’s aid. They found the ship sunk, and the surface of the water, fortunately calm, dotted with life-boats and smeared with floating debris from which many poor souls had been forced by exhaustion to loosen their hold.
In the life-boats were huddled the survivors, dazed and moaning, some then dying of injuries sustained in the crash or in the rush of leaving the sinking Empress. Crushed by the collision, injured in their efforts to leap into life-boats, or suffering from immersion in the icy water and exposure in the life-boats in which they escaped, the survivors presented a pitiable condition.
THE SEARCH FOR THE QUICK AND THE DEAD
The government steamships worked rapidly, and took on the survivors from the life-boats and a few persons that were clinging to bits of wreckage. Fifty dead bodies were picked up and the women cried aloud as they were brought aboard, some eagerly scanning the faces of the corpses for lost relatives and friends. Several of them walked around wringing their hands in a wild hysteria, and even the hardened members wept at the terribly pathetic scene.
One woman, whose identity was not established, let go her hold on a broken timber and tried to swim to the Lady Evelyn. She was nearly naked and too far gone from exposure to reach the steamship.
The Eureka picked up thirty-two of the survivors who were injured, and recovered a number of dead bodies. The Lady Evelyn rescued the great majority of the survivors. She also saved Captain Kendall.
The government boats, Lady Grey and Strathcona, on arriving later, found the Eureka and Lady Evelyn lying to in proximity to the Storstad picking up scattered boats and searching among the scraps of floating debris.