Noronic (ship)
 The Noronic launched after him in 1913
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The Noronic was a 1913 passenger ship of the Canadian shipping company Canada Steamship Lines (CSL) , which was used for 36 years for passenger and cargo traffic on the Great Lakes between Canada and the United States . She was one of the largest, most luxurious and most popular ships on the Great Lakes at that time and was commonly called Queen of the Great Lakes and Queen of the Inland Seas (German: "Queen of the Great Lakes"). On September 14, 1949, a fire destroyed the ship, which was lying overnight in the port of Toronto , killing 122 people and injuring over 200, some seriously. The accident, which the press called the " Holocaust ", was one of the most devastating shipping accidents on the Great Lakes.
period of service
The Noronic was actually commissioned by the Northern Navigation Company, but was taken over by Canada Steamship Lines before construction was completed to complete their fleet of Great Lake steamers. After the contractual takeover, three more decks were added to the ship. This made her the largest passenger steamer on the Great Lakes to date. Other ships that were used on the same route were the Huronic (built in 1902) and the Hamonic (built in 1909). The Hamonic burned down on July 17, 1945 in Point Edward Harbor, Ontario, killing one person.
The Noronic was launched on June 2, 1913 in Port Arthur , Ontario . Since the steamer had to regularly cross the border between Canada and the USA, it received the status of Inland Steamship Class 1 from the Canadian Department of Commerce . On her first voyage in November 1913, the Noronic was damaged by the great Great Lake storm of 1913. In this blizzard with winds of up to twelve Beaufort , 38 ships ran aground, capsized or sank.
The Noronic , which became the flagship of Canada Steamship Lines, usually ran out of Detroit on its regular voyages and began a multi-day cruise over Lake Ontario and Lake Erie with various stops. The usual destinations were Toronto , Montreal and the Saguenay Fjord . One of the highlights of every trip was transferring the passengers by ferry to Canatara Park near Sarnia , where stewards and stewardesses served lunch in the green.
The largest room on the ship was the dining room, with picture windows stretching from floor to ceiling. The observation lounge with leather armchairs was located on the B-deck, which was converted into a ballroom in the evening, in which the on-board orchestra accompanied dance evenings, gala parties and masked balls with live music. Additional facilities included a library, a writing room, a kindergarten and a hair and beauty salon. A daily newspaper printed on board was available to passengers. There were also bingo tournaments, deck games and sporting events.
The public lounges and passenger cabins on the ship were paneled with contemporary oak, cherry and teak wood. In addition, many other easily inflammable materials had been used on the ship. The passenger accommodations extended over decks A, B, C and D. The only exits were on the lowest deck, the E-deck, which was only accessible to crew members. There was no way to go ashore from the passenger decks.
The last ride
On Wednesday, September 14, 1949 at 11.00 which laid ss noronic in Detroit ( Michigan ) to a seven-day pleasure cruise on the Great Lakes from. After stops in Cleveland , Toronto, Thousand Islands and Prescott (Ontario), the steamer was scheduled to return to Detroit on September 21. In addition to 171 crew members, 524 passengers were on board, most of them were US Americans. The ship was under the command of Captain William Taylor. After crossing Lake Erie, the Noronic docked in Toronto Harbor at 6:00 p.m. on Friday, September 16. Her berth was Pier 9 at the foot of Yonge Street , which was reserved for Canada Steamship Lines. The ship , which lay with the starboard side parallel to the dock, was to lie in port overnight and to sail again the next morning in order to reach Lake Erie again through the Welland Canal . Many passengers used the stay to explore the city. Captain Taylor also left the ship and did not return until 2 a.m. on September 17th. Only 16 crew members were on duty that night.
At 2:30 a.m. on September 17, passenger Donald Church of Silver Lake, Ontario, who was a damage assessor for a fire insurance company , noticed smoke in a corridor on C-deck near the lounge. Church followed the smoke that appeared to be coming from a locked room just off the stairs to D-deck. Since the room where the laundry was stored was locked, he looked for a crew member and returned with the page Earnest O'Neil to the starting point of the fire. O'Neil opened the room, which was completely on fire, and tried to fight the fire with a fire extinguisher . In the meantime, other passengers had appeared in the corridor and were trying to help.
A fire hose nearby turned out to be useless as the fire fighting instruments on the ship were in very poor condition due to years of lack of maintenance and care. The water pressure was too low to fight the fire. In addition there was the fact that in the more than 30 years of service the floors, walls and furniture of the steamer had been polished and cleaned with an oily solution. This ensured that the fire spread rapidly across the corridor and adjacent hallways. O'Neil, Church and the others were soon pushed back by the flames and fled. At 02.38 a.m., First Officer Gerry Wood set off the fire alarm and also sounded the ship's horn. At the same time, the fire alarm sounded on the quay because the port night watchman Dan Harper had registered the flames on the ship. Harper immediately reported the fire to the Toronto Fire Department and police.
The first fire engine arrived at Dock 9 at 2:41 a.m., just three minutes after the official alarm . At this point the Noronic was already completely on fire. The passengers had not been woken up by the crew; most woke to the screams and noise of the fleeing people. In a matter of seconds, panic broke out and the people, most of whom only wore pajamas and dressing gowns, started jostling and pushing each other. Many women and children were thrown to the ground and overrun in the crowd. The smoke was very thick and blocked most of the passengers' vision, making it difficult to orient oneself. Most of the stairwells were on fire within a very short time and were impassable and only a few managed to get to the E-deck, where one could escape via the gangways .
Some passengers climbed down ropes that hung on the outer wall of the Noronic , others jumped from the decks onto the pier, which was often fatal. On the port side, numerous people jumped into the harbor basin, where they were rescued by smaller boats. Many passengers, often already unconscious , were dragged out of their cabins by crew members or firefighters who kicked doors and smashed windows. The first rescue ladder that could be attached broke apart under the onslaught of fleeing people. About 100 passengers saved themselves by jumping onto the ship Cayuga , anchored next door , which also belonged to Canada Steamship Lines. However, the flames spread to the Cayuga and the ship had to be pulled away from the Noronic .
Eyewitnesses later reported that the death and cries for help from the passengers on board drowned out all sirens and alarm signals. As far as the death toll is concerned, the Noronic accident is one of the worst after the sinking of the Lady Elgin on September 8, 1860 (approx. 400 deaths) and the fire on the paddle steamer Phoenix on November 22, 1847 (approx. 250 deaths) Ship disasters on the Great Lakes.
Extinguishing and recovery
Only 20 minutes after the fire was discovered on board, the ship was completely burned out. The red decks began to collapse. After an hour, the ship was so full of extinguishing water that it sank deep into the water and began to lean against the dock. Only after the Noronic had stabilized again, the emergency services could continue their work. About 6,400 tons of water were pumped into the burning hull from 37 hoses .
At 4:30 a.m. the ship was evacuated and half an hour later the fire was extinguished. After the wreck had cooled down for two hours, the recovery of the victims began. The rescue workers found numerous bodies in the corridors; many passengers had died in their beds. The glass had melted in almost every window and every staircase was destroyed except for one in the bow. 57 people were accommodated in different hospitals in Toronto, another 189 injured were accommodated in the hospital wards of two hotels.
122 people were killed in the tragedy, with various sources reporting up to 139 dead. Most died from burns or asphyxiation, and a smaller number died jumping on the dock. Only one person drowned. All of the dead were passengers, which aroused great resentment among those affected and in the media. All 171 crew members had survived. Since there were so many dead and the pier was soon overcrowded, the Horticultural Building, an exhibition hall on the grounds of Exhibition Place , had to be used as an improvised morgue. Because of the extreme heat of the fire, so little was left of many victims that for the first time in a shipwreck, dentures had to be used to identify the human remains. Nevertheless, 14 people could no longer be identified.
Investigation and consequences
The Canadian House of Commons formed a committee of inquiry chaired by Judge RL Kelloch to investigate the cause of the accident. It was agreed that the fire broke out in the room on C-deck that was used as a laundry store. However, the specific cause of the accident could not be determined. One of the suspicions was that the fire was started by a discarded cigarette of an employee of the on-board laundry.
The high number of fatalities was mainly attributed to the behavior of the crew. On the night of the accident, too few crew members were at their posts. Most of them had fled at the first alarm without waking the passengers and not a single crew member had informed the fire department . There had been no emergency drills and no advice had been given to passengers on how to get to safety in the event of an accident. The construction and equipment of the Noronic was also criticized: almost all the materials used were easily flammable, there were only exits on one of the five decks, there were no fireproof doors and the fire hoses were not ready for use.
Captain Taylor was hailed as a hero as he helped passengers escape and rescued many from their cabins. He left the ship as the last member of the crew. Nevertheless, he was suspended from service as captain by Canada Steamship Lines for a year. Even after the suspension expired, Taylor never ran a ship again. The wreck of the Noronic ¸ that had sunk to the bottom of the harbor basin was towed to Hamilton (Ontario) in November 1949 and scrapped. The claims for damages from survivors and bereaved against the shipping company amounted to 18 million US dollars. The shipping company ultimately paid $ 2.15 million. Those responsible at the shipping company suspected arson as the cause of the accident. After a fire broke out in a linen cupboard on the Canada Steamship Lines passenger ship Quebec in August 1950, and in this case arson was actually proven, the shipping company decommissioned all of its passenger ships. Since then, CSL has limited itself to transporting goods with a fleet of bulk carriers and container ships .
Stricter fire regulations for passenger ships on the Great Lakes came into force. Most of the steamers, like the Noronic, were getting on in years and many shipping companies saw it as uneconomical to convert these ships and adapt them to the new standards. In the following years, numerous of the old Great Lake steamers were taken out of service, and there was a steady decline in bookings for cruises on the Great Lakes. To this day, a memorial commemorates the Noronic dead in Toronto's Mount Pleasant Cemetery .
