After the ship sank, the US Coast Guard mandated that Great Lakes freighters (ore boats) carry survival suits.
I was working on a freighter in 1976 and we had a drill to get the survival suit out of it bag and put it on. It took about four minutes. The Fitzgerald sank in seconds.
So the suits will save crew members if just before the ship sinks, the crew is on deck with their suits on.
"From what I've read", though, one of the variables was that EF's main hatches weren't battened down all the way, which made the ship vulnerable to water getting into the hold. Seems that the company didn't want to pay the overtime for that...
Lots of other aspects too... one of them being that Captain McSorley was under pressure to make the delivery on time...
One would hope that those, and other issues have been addressed, after the fact...
Wow...and it took over 2 hours for the Titanic to sink?