The mystery sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald

AccuWeather

Nearly half a century after the Edmund Fitzgerald vanished beneath the waves of Lake Superior, the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum continues to honor the 29 lives lost-and remind us of the raw power November storms still hold.

Transcript

00:00along the rocky shores of Lake Superior.

00:03November seems to be the month.

00:05White Fish Point has weathered generations of extremes.

00:08High winds, sideways rain, snow, sleet, ice.

00:11Known as the Shipwreck Coast.

00:13There's over 200 in this vicinity.

00:15One event on November 10, 1975,

00:18still stands out beyond the ferocity

00:20wrought throughout the region that evening.

00:22Fitzgerald is a mystery.

00:24We do not know why it sank.

00:26The Edmund Fitzgerald, a 729-foot ore freighter

00:29with a crew of 29 on board,

00:31lost all contact with another nearby ship,

00:33the Arthur M. Anderson.

00:35Shortly after 7 p.m.

00:36No survivors sank so quickly

00:38that they didn't have a chance to get a distress signal out.

00:41Coming to rest in 535 feet of water,

00:4317 miles northwest from the White Fish Point Lighthouse.

00:47This shipwreck has come to represent Great Lake Shipwrecks, period.

00:50Commemorated every November 10 at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum

00:53in Michigan's Upper Peninsula,

00:55the evening still highlights the unpredictable power of nature.

00:58It can do anything on November 10, and we expect it.

01:02For AccuWeather, I'm meteorologist Tony Laubach.

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