THE TITANIC REMEMBERED

This is the 100 year anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic and networks have had many movies and specials on the Titanic. I pretty much watched them all; fictional and documentary.

There was a documentary on the Discovery Channel that brought together veteran divers of the Titanic to map the entire debris field, and to answer once and for all the question of fault. Was it a fault in the ship design or inferior materials such as the rivets. Unfortunately, my Tivo had other things it was recording during the last hour of the special, so I didn’t get the answer. Did anyone see it?

I couldn’t help but think of the Concordia and how much the two tragedies had in common. Regardless of either ships physical vulnerabilities ultimately the fault lies with the ship Captains. In both cases the ships were just going too fast for their location. On the Titanic the Captain left the bridge and went to bed, and the Concordia’s Captain, if memory serves me, was socializing out and about on the ship. In both incidents the Captain’s were not honest with the passengers and minimized the damage and danger, while delaying evacuation. Had both Captains evacuated passengers earlier more lives would have been saved. Human error is always more tragic than machine flaws, because human errors are almost always preventable had the person paid attention, gotten more rest, not given in to some ego based choice and so on.

One of the many documentaries had actual footage shot by passengers on the Concordia and it was frightening. Am I going to stop cruising? No. Do you stop driving if you’ve been in a fender bender? No, life goes on and hopefully we learn. What I learned from watching the footage of the Concordia passengers was to always carry a small flashlight or on your smart phone there is a light app… when the lights shut down on a ship you need light because there are no windows for the most part for any light to seep in those halls. Also, on Carnival your MUSTER STATION is printed on your Sail & Sign card which should be on your person at all times: one of the first things you should do when you board the ship is to locate your muster station, walk the route to your nearest life boats and know which decks have access to life boats. The law has now changed to require they do the drill before they leave port, but don’t wait check it out as soon as possible.

There is a debate about the salvage of Titanic items that currently rest on the ocean floor: should we bring them up and put them in museums or leave them as they are? Personally, I feel they should save what they can and put them in museums since there continues to be a conscious interest and connection to the Titanic. Remembering and honoring the past teaches us how to live better futures. I send my prayers to all the souls who died on the Titanic and Concordia…