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A review by morningtide
Into the Raging Sea: Thirty-Three Mariners, One Megastorm, and the Sinking of El Faro by Rachel Slade
dark
informative
medium-paced
5.0
Despite the book telling us off the bat that El Faro sinks in the title and in the introduction, I still found this book to be more thrilling and harrowing than I expected. What will happen next?? There were moments where I had to remind myself this was a nonfiction book, especially in sections where the crew were stated to be thinking or feeling something that would just be impossible to know and I knew had to be contrived from the black box recordings. But even in those moments I would have the thought, "How could we possibly know how they felt? This is real, not a novel" and be reminded by myself that these were real people who lost their lives due to the cutting of corners for profit and bad decisions by the people in power, not just a story I was reading and think again about just how tragic it truly was.
The author did a great job setting up the dominos that would all fall into place to cause this horrible occurrence - I knew that the blame would be heaped on the captain which becomes even easier to do to a man that died in the sinking. But Slade makes it obvious that this is the culmination of the hubris of many men, not just one. It is easy to blame the captain's choices when they are clearly the straw that broke the camel's back - but if just one precaution had actually been properly followed before that, would 33 people still be alive?
The book mentions multiple times the sinking of The Fitzgerald and the Marine Electric as turning points for maritime safety requirements (both of which I have found books about to add to my TBR after this). With the El Faro it was obvious that we were once again flying too close to the sun. It's strange to know that after over 100 years, we can still think "This is impossible!" when the Titanic sinks to, "This is impossible!" when the El Faro sinks. The cynic in me knows that while we learn from these events, they never seem to be the last of them.
The author did a great job setting up the dominos that would all fall into place to cause this horrible occurrence - I knew that the blame would be heaped on the captain which becomes even easier to do to a man that died in the sinking. But Slade makes it obvious that this is the culmination of the hubris of many men, not just one. It is easy to blame the captain's choices when they are clearly the straw that broke the camel's back - but if just one precaution had actually been properly followed before that, would 33 people still be alive?
The book mentions multiple times the sinking of The Fitzgerald and the Marine Electric as turning points for maritime safety requirements (both of which I have found books about to add to my TBR after this). With the El Faro it was obvious that we were once again flying too close to the sun. It's strange to know that after over 100 years, we can still think "This is impossible!" when the Titanic sinks to, "This is impossible!" when the El Faro sinks. The cynic in me knows that while we learn from these events, they never seem to be the last of them.