"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"

For John, BLUF:  New York Governor Andrew Cuomo would have us believe bad weather has only appeared since the Global Cooling fear of the 1970s dissipated  This would be wrong.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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44 years after sinking, last communications from Edmund Fitzgerald still haunt

Here is the sub-headline:

The Edmund Fitzgerald sank 44 years ago this Sunday.

From The Duluth News Tribune, by Ms Tracy Briggs, 6 November 2019.

Here is the lede plus one:

The [Gordon Lightfoot] song starts with whining chords and an eerie first verse

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
of the big lake they called "Gitche Gumee."
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
when the skies of November turn gloomy.

The S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald was christened on June 8, 1958, and named after Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company's newly elected chairman of the board.  The company had contracted an engineering firm the year before to make the ship the largest ship on the Great Lakes.

Over the next 17 years, the Fitzgerald started breaking records for the largest loads of freight carried on the lakes.  Not without its troubles, the ship suffered damages in the late '60s and early '70s, but remained an important player in Great Lakes transportation.

And then it sank in a very nasty storm.  The Great Lakes can be a nasty place when the weather is bad.

And, we should remember that our economic system is sustained by low cost transportation, which sometimes extracts a high cost in terms of a freak accident.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff