The Sinking of the SS Noronic
The Queen of the Great Lakes Burns and Sinks in Toronto Harbour
The SS Noronic, known as the Queen of the Great Lakes, suffered an un-queenly demise on the night of September 17,1949 when she burned and sank while docked in Toronto Harbour. One hundred and twenty-two people lost their lives in the disaster.
Launched at Port Arthur, Ontario, in 1913, the Noronic was owned by Canadian Steamship Lines and sailed the Great Lakes as a cruise ship. She was 362 feet long, had seven decks and could carry 600 passengers and 200 crew. The Noronic's sister ships were the Huronic and the Harmonic. Ironically, the Harmonic burned while docked in Point Edward, Ontario, in 1945. However, there was only one fatality on the Harmonic.
On September 14th, 1949 the Noronic set sail from Detroit for a seven-day cruise to the Thousand Islands and Prescott with a layover in Toronto before returning to Detroit. There were 522 passengers and 171 crew members. On September 16, the Noronic docked in Toronto where the passengers and most of the crew, including Captain Taylor, disembarked to enjoy a visit to Toronto.
By 2:30 am most of the passengers and crew had returned to the ship when a passenger noticed smoke coming from a linen closet. Finding the door locked he quickly found a crew member, who went to find a key. The passenger then gathered his family and left the ship without waking any other passengers.
The Noronic, like many ships of its' era, had hallways made of cherry and oak and the wood was polished regularly with lemon oil. All highly combustible and excellent fuel for the fire once the closet door was finally opened.
At 2:38 am the first alarm was called in from the ship. The crew had difficulty putting the fire out because the fire-fighting equipment was not properly maintained. The hoses that did work were low pressure and did little to hinder the fast-moving flames.
Adding to the difficulties were a laundry list of deficiencies; there were no fire bulkheads that could have been used to contain the blaze: there was no centralized fire protection, no way to inform the passengers of the danger and no fire drills had been prepared. Not only was the ship highly combustible, but the crew was unprepared to handle the situation.
As if these problems were not enough, when the ship had been purchased in 1913 it had only four decks. Three additional decks had been added later leaving Deck E, the original top deck, as the only access to the new upper decks and therefore the only escape route for the majority of the passengers.
At 2:41 am a passerby called in a second alarm.
By 4:30 am the ship had been evacuated and began to sink.
In the aftermath of the fire there were so many bodies that the Horticultural Building at the Canadian National Exhibition had to be used as a makeshift morgue. The fire's extreme heat left so few remains that for the first time dental records had to be used for identification. Even with the dental records 14 bodies remained unidentified.
Many people were upset by the fact that no crew had been killed in the blaze. A federal inquiry, completed in November 1949, concluded that the loss of the Noronic and her passengers was due to the 'wrongful default' of the owners and Captain Taylor.
Canadian Steamship Lines were ordered to pay almost three million in damages to the families of the victims. Captain Taylor had his certificate suspended for one year but never captained a ship again. He ended his days as a night clerk at a hotel in Sarnia, Ontario.
The cause of the fire was never determined.
Sources
archives.cbc.ca"CBC Archives
lostliners.com/Peril/noronic.html"Lostliners
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