This page contains a few select contents from a booklet that the webmaster completed with his disaster project...the project that originally inspired this website.

Disaster...Defined

     There are many different definitions for the term “disaster,” depending on who you are. According to the dictionary, disaster is defined as (1) Implying great destruction, hardship, or loss of life, and/or (2) an occurrence causing widespread destruction and distress; a catastrophe.

     While doing a school project on disasters, my project partners and I came up with our own definition for what a disaster was. We believe that in order to be a disaster, something must happen which is unexpected, which kills a large percentage of the people involved, which causes a large loss of money/property loss, and anything that basically has long term effects on many people.

     The Edmund Fitzgerald was a ship, a ship that was lost along with 100% of its passengers, it was a disaster...a disaster that has met all of the requirements to be classified as a disaster by my group members and me.

     Although disasters are horrible, disasters are what keep other, bigger disasters from happening—disasters are what help us improve things in such a way that bad things will hopefully not happen again.

Cause and Effect

     There are many theories as to what caused the wreck of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald. When doing this project, our group came up with a theory (cause) which many other books included and supported (we didn’t know this until after the project). The night that the Edmund Fitzgerald sank, there were waves as high as thirty feet. We believe that two waves picked up both ends of the ship, but the middle, (where all the steel was) was not held by a wave, so the overload forced the middle to crack in two and the ship sank.  (I no longer support this theory, but I did at the time of our project.)  It took the crew with it. The bodies have never been found.

     The crash of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald inspired a song, which was a big hit in the 70’s. This wreck also made us think twice about water and ship safety; many believe that if Titanic and Edmund Fitzgerald and others like it (large ships) continue to sink, we shouldn’t build them as big!! Other effects need not to be explained…..for example, all of the family members of the lost crew have been suffering their losses for the past twenty-six years, and, on top of everything, tons of money was lost due to the wreck and the cargo that was lost.

Scientific Principle

     According to Archimedes’s Principle, in order for an object to float, it must first displace an amount of water that is equal to its weight. This is called buoyancy. If a displacement of an object is not exactly equal to the weight of an object, then that object begins to sink.

     When tons of water splashed onto the decks of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald, it caused the displacement to become unbalanced, and it then sank. This is why not all objects float in all circumstances: you must meet certain requirements to have buoyancy. Unfortunately, at no fault of their own, the crew would not have been able to meet this requirement even if the ship had watertight hatches, due to the amount of water forcing the ship down when waves crashed into the ship.

     The S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald began fighting a losing battle the minute that the clouds started rumbling.  No family member that SSEFO has spoken to believes that the shipwreck was caused by human error, nor do 95% of the other people we have spoken to.

Impact on History

     The S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald wreck did not make as large of an impact on history as the Titanic according to many...but let’s ponder upon the situation more.  Though gratitude and condolences are sent to all of those family members of those onboard the Titanic, the Titanic disaster was caused more by what many believe to be human error, not by a storm.  The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald could not have been prevented, and most people agree on that. Still, it did not get the attention it deserved, and family members are still suffering, yet they pull together and unite, to help each other through this catastrophe. It did plenty of noticeable things, not to everyone in general, but it impacted the history of twenty-nine families, and the lives of a countless amount of friends of the families.

     Wives, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, cousins, friends, and neighbors of these twenty nine men have been suffering for over twenty-six years, and this suffering will never end.  This is an everlasting impact on history: one shipwreck affected the lives of thousands of people.  Whether it was twenty-nine men, or twenty-nine thousand men, the death of the men during the sinking of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald affected an uncountable number of people and will never be forgotten.

     One of the other ways that it influenced history was that it changed the way that people look at safety precautions, and the way ships are built...and general procedures, such as the weather conditions it takes in order to delay a transporting day.