[skyman]

I just saw an hour long special on the tragedy this weekend on the History or Discovery channel. They reenacted
much of it.

It makes it a lot more personal when you see so many little children and women burning, drowning, etc. Even though you know it's a reenactment, it makes it much more
real.

Sky

[Billthedrill]

I caught a bit of that one too - History Channel - and two things impressed me - first, that the life preservers had never been checked and instead of buoyant cork, they were powdered cork-dust. And who's the first people you're going to put a life preserver on? Right, the kids. The adults thought they were risking their own lives by giving the preservers to the children and ended up watching them sinking like stones.

The second thing that impressed me was how close the shore was, and how little good it did. The East River is pretty nasty in that location and as it was a church outing, everyone was dressed in their heavy, woollen Sunday best. You'd have to be a very strong swimmer to save only yourself, even. And most of them couldn't swim anyway.

I truly do not understand people who won't learn to swim but who will get on a boat anyway.

[mc5cents]

It makes it a lot more personal when you see so many little children and women burning, drowning, etc. Even though you know it's a reenactment, it makes it much more real.

Indeed it does. It was some bad guy, maybe Hitler or was it Stalin, can't remember, that said "When one person dies it is a tragedy. When 10,000 die it is a statistic."

[Tanniker Smith]

I saw the same special a day or two after reading about the 100th anniversary. The interviews with the two survivors were really something.

For those that missed the special, as of two years ago, there were two survivors, one woman who had been an infant of six months, and another who had been a young girl of 12. The latter passed away at 109, the other passed on earlier this year at 100.

TS