Stories From Main Street: Remembering The Morro Castle & New Era Maritime Disasters
ASBURY PARK, N.J. (CBSNewYork) -- The Asbury Park Historical Society is holding a ceremony Monday in recognition of the 80th anniversary of the Morro Castle maritime disaster, but this year's event is taking on a more significant meaning.
At the foot of Sixth Avenue, Asbury Park Historical Society President Don Stine points just offshore to the spot where on Sept. 8, 1934, the luxury ocean liner Morro Castle met its doom as it was on its way from Havana to New York.
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"Capt. Willmott mysteriously died. People believed Capt. Willmott was possibly murdered," Stine told WCBS 880's Sean Adams. "Then fire mysteriously broke out in the reading room of the ship."
The heavily varnished wood paneling interior of the ship helped fuel the fire.
"The floors of the ship, the decks, were just bubbling with fire," Stine said.
Some crew abandoned ship, lifeboats were deployed with empty seats, people jumped and in all, 137 people died.
Following the disaster, there were reforms in how ships were built and lifeboat safety.
"The reason that all ships built in the United States now are built out of non-flammable materials and have all of these fire-safety measures is because of the Morro Castle," Stine said. "The reason why you go on a cruise now and you have mandatory lifeboat drills is because of the Morro Castle."
In the same spot 80 years before the Morro Castle disaster, the sailing ship New Era ran aground in a ferocious storm in 1854.
"The people who had remained on the ship, some of them had latched themselves to the rigging," said Stine.
By some accounts, 234 people perished. This spurred the expansion of the United States Lifesaving Service which was the predecessor of the U.S. Coast Guard.
"Both of these shipwrecks, the New Era in 1854 and the Morro Castle in 1934, changed American maritime history forever," Stine said.
Both the Morro Castle and New Era shipwrecks will be recognized in Monday's commemoration ceremony by the Asbury Park Historical Society at 10 a.m. at the Morro Castle monument just south of Convention Hall.
For more information www.aphistoricalsociety.org.
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