The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1905-10-13
How the Accident Hap
pened - Struck on
Fort Point---List of
Passengers and In
voice Of Cargo.

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 1.-The Ex-
aminer says: Suddenly enshrouded in
a binding smother of fog, that swept
upon her almost at the harbor mouth,
the Oceanic steamship Alameda, bound
for Honolulu, with 200 persons aboard
. her, crashed bows on into the reef at
Fort Point about 11:30 yesterday
morning, surged into cradle between
two jagged Lodges, and hung there
helplessly. Fortunately no lives were
lost, and it IS expected that the cargo
will all be saved, but in the face of
the terrible disaster which might
easily have occurred under the same
conditions every mariner, ship-owner
and sea -goer on the coast will insist
upon knowing why neither of the gov
ernment foghorns at Fort Point and
Lime Point sounded any warning, and
how the Alameda IS pilot, c. B. John
son, happened to be two points off his
course without knowing it.
When the Alameda left her berth at
the Pacifc-street wharf, at IL o'clock
yesterday. the skies were blue and the
face of the waters in the bay lay
smooth as any floor. The tide was
nearly at the flood, and there was no
appreciable current to be reckoned
with, and the great vessel backed into
the channel and pointed her prov to-
ward the Golden Gate with never
hint of danger anywhere.
NO THOUGHT OF DANGER.
Her pilot and her master, Captain
Dowdell, lounged against the railing
on her bridge, as they had done many
times before. Her chief officer, Mate
Anderson, paced the topgallant fore
castle with the man on the lookout.
Her passengers crowded the port gang
way of the promenade deck to bid fare
well to each familiar landmark of the
city's rim as it slipped slowly past
them.
All went well until the Alameda ar
rived at point midway between Alca-
traz island and Meiggs wharf. In that
location, the attention of her officers
having been attracted by the wild
whistlings of a small launch racing
after her. far astern, the liner lay to
for nearly twenty minutes. From the
launch, once it came alongside, she took
aboard few pieces of baggage which
had been left behind by clergyman
in her first cabin. And it was as the
swirl of her screw began again after
the accomplishment of this small task
that the thick and heavy bank of fog
swept in upon her and wrapped her
round
The first thing that Captain Dowdell
and Pilot Johnson did in this emer-
gency was to listen for the foghorn at |
Lime Point. They could not hear 1T, |
nor could anybody else aboard. Yet |
it is that horn which is better known ,
= for its sonorous voice than any other on
the Pacific Coast, and on many bad |
day its below has been heard in the |
city as far from the water front as
Third and Market streets. Bereft of
this guidance, master and pilot turned
their ears toward the horn at Fort
Point. signal usually only less effec
tive than it's fellow on the opposite
shore. But IN that direction, too, there
was no sound save possibly the gentle
lapping of the waters round the Ala
media 3 bows. So, with barely enough
speed to give her headway, the good
ship was set in course southwest by
west half west and steered for the open
sea.
Captain Dowdell and Pilot johnson
knew of the ragged reef that stretches
into the channel off Fort Point 1t
was there that the Rio de Janelro
struck and went down on a black night
in February, 1901, sheering off into
deep water and carrying to the bottom
more than a hundred of her passengers.
They knew of reef and wreck and so
speeulated anxiously about the silent
foghorns on either hand. But for some
reason which has not yet been ex-
planned they seem to have decided to
take chance, and it is asserted that
instead of creeping on as cautiously as
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