Casualties and Survivors
The Superior City sank rapidly with the loss of lives of 28 men and one woman, the worst loss of life in the history of the Pittsburg Steamship Company. Of the four survivors, Captain Sawyer, second mate G.G. Lehnt, and watchman Peter Jacobsen were forward and jumped for their lives. Captain Sawyer was found clinging to a life preserver that he never had time to put on. Second mate Lehnt was found clinging to the bottom of a capsized lifeboat. Watchman Jacobson fought his way back to the surface after being dragged down with the ship and swam for about 20 minutes until the King’s lifeboat picked him up. Boatswain Walter Richter was sleeping in his bunk wearing only long underwear when alarm bells sounded. When he raced to the deck, the explosion blew him overboard, blowing off his underwear. The steamer J.J. Turner picked him up clinging to a hatch cover that he rode as a raft.Crewmembers on the Turner reported that wooden ports in the interior of the ship had been blown through her steel sides. Most of the crewmembers were likely were blown to pieces by the boiler explosion or were trapped in the suction of the powerful whirlpool when the Superior City sank. No bodies were ever recovered.
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Famous quotes containing the word survivors:
“I want to celebrate these elms which have been spared by the plague, these survivors of a once flourishing tribe commemorated by all the Elm Streets in America. But to celebrate them is to be silent about the people who sit and sleep underneath them, the homeless poor who are hauled away by the city like trash, except it has no place to dump them. To speak of one thing is to suppress another.”
—Lisel Mueller (b. 1924)