Dealing with toll of Joaquin on land and sea

Locals navigate through floodwaters in Conway, South Carolina, after Hurricane Joaquin weakened. Photo / AP

Shortly before her hulking cargo ship, the El Faro, vanished in 12m waves with a single emergency ping, a young crew member named Danielle Randolph sent her mother one last email: "There is a hurricane out here and we are heading straight into it."

Yesterday, after a four-day hunt for the lost ship amid the whipping winds of Hurricane Joaquin, the Coast Guard said the vessel had probably sunk in a 4570m-deep expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. The few signs of its 33 crew members included a floating body in a survival suit and an empty lifeboat, barely visible in the waves.

On land, the death toll rose to nine after historic floods ravaged South Carolina, closing a 120km stretch of Interstate 95 and leaving tens of thousands of people without power or running water. Joaquin fuelled what experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration called a "fire hose" of tropical moisture that aimed directly at the state. Although floodwaters receded yesterday across the hard-hit central part of the state, officials cautioned that the danger had not passed. Governor Nikki Haley warned flooding could worsen along the coast as swollen rivers such as the Congaree make their way to sea.

The disappearance of the El Faro, in one of America's deadliest cargo-shipping disasters in decades, has devastated the families of its 28 US and five Polish oceangoing workers, who regularly carted cars and groceries between Florida and Puerto Rico aboard a vessel whose name in Spanish means "the lighthouse". Maritime experts have raised questions about whether the growing pressure to run fast, cheap routes could have persuaded ship leaders to ignore safer but slower courses.

The cargo ship El Faro and its crew of 33 are feared lost to the storm. Photo / AP

"These guys went right into it," said Bernie Marciniak, a retired cargo-ship captain. "Had he just gone straight down the coast of Florida against the Gulf Stream, he would have burned a lot more fuel. Had he gone the other way and survived it, his job might have been on the line."

Commercial ships often launch from ports amid forecasts of storms because of the costs and risks of staying anchored, experts said. TOTE Maritime Puerto Rico, the ship's owner, said it authorised the El Faro's sailing "knowing that the crew are more than equipped to handle situations such as changing weather".

Bill Doherty, a retired US Navy captain who said he knew some of the El Faro crew, said the 40-year-old freighter's age could have compounded the dangers faced by tumultuous seas. "That ship has been in extended life support for 20 years. It's the ships that are beyond their safe useful life, it isn't the people that are sailing them. They have got to be the best sailors in the world because of the equipment that they are faced with."

The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate.

- Washington Post, AP