November's Fury by November's Fury- The Deadly Great Lakes Hurricane of 1913 (pdf)

Author:November's Fury- The Deadly Great Lakes Hurricane of 1913 (pdf) [1913, November's Fury- The Deadly Great Lakes Hurricane of]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-10-30T22:30:41+00:00

98

“ S o V IoL e n T A STor m ”

feet wide, and for a distance of one thousand feet from the shore-

line. Water near the St. clair river, rolling down lake huron and

piling up at the foot of the lake, rose more than four feet above nor-

mal level and flooded docks and waterfront shops.

Lightship 26, anchored near the St. clair river, was ripped from

her moorings and tossed into seas that batted her around without

reprieve. The small lightship dropped anchor in a desperate attempt

to avoid being thrown onto the canadian shore. The anchor even-

tually caught, sparing the vessel the tragic fate that awaited a simi-

lar lightship in Buffalo.

lightships were unique essentials to the shipping industry.

They tended to be short and stocky, steel-hulled with wooden decks

and superstructures, with engines rarely used for propulsion. in-

stead, they were fixed in one spot, chained to enormous mush-

room-shaped anchors designed to hold them in place.

a short distance away, the husband and wife team caretaking the

Fort Gratiot lighthouse watched the Lightship 26 drama play out.

The Kimballs had remained in the lighthouse throughout the storm.

From their vantage point they could see the Hawgood grounded on

the beach; they looked on helplessly as other vessels tried to find

The 434-foot H. B. Hawgood, built in 1903 and owned by the Acme Transit Company (which also owned the H. B. Smith and the stranded J. M. Jenks), was grounded on Weis Beach, near the Fort Gratiot Lighthouse. The boat was released without loss of life or injury to her crew.

“ S o V IoL e n T A STor m ”

99

shelter. The storm, which they later agreed was the worst they had

ever witnessed on the lake, pummeled the lighthouse, depositing

driftwood and other debris at its foot. The erosion from the watery

onslaught took away four feet of beach at the tower’s base, expos-

ing its foundation.

Sailors depended on the lighthouse and lightship for guidance

into the St. clair river, which, under much less trying conditions,

required a cautious approach. The lake bottom rose near the chan-

nel connecting lake huron and the St. clair; the corsica Shoal

awaited the careless or the lost. The lightship was crucial in fog

and heavy snow, and shipmasters counted on its light signal and

foghorn—so much so that the displaced lightship, still sounding its

foghorn and running its light, enticed a vessel onto the rocks.

This episode was discussed long after the storm moved on. The

lightship’s commander, stubbornly adhering to regulations, contin-

ued to operate even after the lightship had been displaced to an-

other part of the lake. in addition, he refused to pay a towing fee

when the reid Wrecking company braved the stormy waters and

offered to tow the lightship back to its designated post. The light-

ship’s captain insisted that he needed authorization from his supe-

riors in chicago before he would commit money to the tow. With

all communication lines out, such authorization would have taken

days. in the meantime, one misguided boat, the Matthew Andrews,

wound up stranded.

The Andrews, a 532-foot straight-decker carrying a load of iron

ore, had sustained considerable damage as she made her way down

lake huron on Sunday.

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