ST. MARY’S TODAY

POINT LOOKOUT ---  Ten years have passed since the sinking of the El Toro II, on December 5, 1993 and the tragic loss of three lives.

On Sunday morning, December 5, 1993, the El Toro II set out from St. Jerome’s Creek at Capt. Joe Lore’s fishing center where even today unsuspecting fishermen still board other vessels owned and operated by Capt. Lore.

Three people died after being left to float in the frigid waters of the Potomac River as a result of a bone-headed decision of the U. S. Coast Guard boat commander involved in the rescue.

The three dead from the El Toro II included 2 men from St. Mary’s County.

The Coast Guard also bore responsibility for allowing the El Toro II to operate, even though it was a poorly designed and built boat, had long outlived its useful life and even though it was in horrible condition, was passed by incompetent Coast Guard inspectors as being safe.

The planks of the craft were in miserable condition, were secured with fasteners which had become deteriorated for a variety of reasons and a fuel tank was banging on one plank as a bracket holding it off the bottom had broken. Eventually, it was these planks which sprung and allowed water to flood the engine compartment that sank the vessel.

But in spite of the rotten condition of the El Toro II, one of four charter and head boats owned by Lore which his insurance company inspector had put at "port risk" due to being in lousy shape, Capt. Joe Lore boarded their passengers for the December day in the Potomac River and Chesapeake in search of Rockfish.

The El Toro II, with it’s owner Capt. Joe Lore on board, and his son Clayton at the wheel, ignored repeated gale warnings and despite operating a creaky old vessel in need of serious repairs, the Lores headed out just at 8 am with 20 passengers in search of the prize Rockfish.

Lore had bought the El Toro II and his other 4 boats in 1987. The El Toro II was 32 years old.

The much sought after Rockfish, which were, after being banned for several years from being caught in order to boost depleted stocks, once again filling the Chesapeake Bay.

While Maryland’s Rockfish season was over, the Virginia season was getting underway and this unusual December cold-weather excitement had just about filled Capt. Lore’s boat with eager fishermen, mostly from the Washington area.

At about noon, with seas at about 6 feet and a strong wind coming down the Potomac from the west at about 40 knots, the heaving seas took their toll on the El Toro II and it began to take on water.

First the mate lifted the engine hatch and passengers could see water in the hold. A few minutes later, Capt. Joe Lore himself opened the hatch to find that water had consumed the engine compartment and the engine had cut off.

Soon water began sweeping the decks as passengers joined the mate in attempting to bail the boat, to no avail.

Passengers were told to put on the old cork lifevests and they soon began to ask Lore about when he planned to deploy the "lifeboat" which was stored on the roof of the vessel. A "mayday" was declared and Lore radioed the Coast Guard for help.

The "lifeboat", which was not a boat at all, but simply kept it’s cargo of cold bodies from floating away due to the net in the center of the large ring, soon was thrown over into the waves and the passengers began to jump into it, finding themselves in 50 degree water.

The mate, Eddie Phillips, gave his place to a passenger.

One man from Wicomico Shores left behind a grieving widow and two children, while 19-year-old Phillips, of St. George’s Island, a young fellow just out of high school who had been working as a mate on the headboat, died and left behind his brother and parents, Edgar and Betty Phillips, who were devastated at losing their son.

The third man who died was from Washington, D. C.

In addition to the initial faulty decision of the Coast Guard commander, the disaster revealed serious weaknesses in the St. Mary’s County disaster response plan.

After being left in the frigid water of the Potomac for the Coast Guard boat to arrive through high seas instead of being plucked from the water by helicopters equipped with rescue swimmers, the land triage area determined that the three men assessed to be in critical condition were to be taken to the hospital in the back of lumbering ambulances while the five helicopters on the scene flew away empty.

All three of the critically assessed patients later died.

St. Mary’s Hospital had no hypothermia care equipment even though the county has 400 miles of shoreline and boating and fishing is one of the county’s chief pastimes and industries.

The police, fire, rescue, Coast Guard and U. S. Navy couldn’t talk to each other on the same radio frequencies and the agencies never conducted any joint emergency drills. When they finally did arrange a drill, the government bureaucrats in charge set up the drill on the Patuxent River on a weekday, at convenient location and convenient time for bureaucrats but not for volunteers who work during the day.

In order for a drill to be authentic, it should have been held at the same point where the charterboat had sunk. Most boating disasters have not taken place within minutes of the dock but that’s where the drill was held.

The U. S. Coast Guard operates a station at St. Inigoes and it was from there that a cutter was dispatched to aid the El Toro II.

A barge and tugboat which was close to the sinking charterboat when the first calls for distress were radioed, offered to render assistance but was waved away by the Coast Guard cutter commander.

Maryland State Police Med-Evac helicopters flying over the people bobbing in the water around a life ring were told by the Coast Guard boat captain to wait until he got there.

Even Navy and Coast Guard helicopters which arrived on the scene, piloted by experienced pilots who were rehearsed and experienced in saving the lives of people struggling for life in the water, heeded the instructions of the Coast Guard boat captain.

The Maryland State Police helicopter pilots sat on the ground at Point Lookout State Park, while county ambulances begin to line up in a row ready to receive icy and wet patients.

The State Police helicopter pilots sipped coffee and chatted and while they questioned the wisdom of the decision to leave them stranded on land, never tried to buck the decision of a junior grade boat commander.

The St. Mary’s Sheriff’s dive team, dressed in wet suits, were the most upset at being left on land rather than taken out in choppers and dropped into the water to assist the passengers of the stricken vessel.

Finally, the Coast Guard boat arrived on the scene and then allowed the helicopters to bring people to shore while others were brought in on the Coast Guard vessel.

When the Coast Guard and Navy search and rescue helicopters loaded the limp and lifeless patients, they could have easily have transferred them to the Maryland State Police Med-Evac helicopters on the ground at Point Lookout which could have then flown the dying men to shock trauma units.

But the Ridge Volunteer Fire Department, which likely responds to fewer calls than any fire department in the region, was in charge and a decision was made, to ship out the dying people in the back of the ambulances.

Despite the fact that there are dozens of doctors who have practices in the county and live within a few minutes driving time of Point Lookout, none were summoned to scene to made intelligent decisions about the medical conditions of the passengers who had spent two hours in the freezing waters.

Television crews from the Washington area arrived at Point Lookout to cover the tumultuous event, but no doctors were called from Leonardtown.

Finally, the wet and dying were taken to Leonardtown to be treated at a hospital, which had no equipment to treat them for hypothermia. A few years later the hospital announced it had obtained hypothermia equipment.

Not only was St. Mary’s Hospital unprepared but the closest hospital, the one at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station, was even worse. There was hardly any staff on hand and just a few years later, the Navy closed the hospital. Even today, heart attack victims on the 17,000-employee facility have to wait for volunteers in the community to arrive to then carry them out to Leonardtown.

But the Navy had two Search and Rescue helicopters, the Coast Guard had one and the Maryland State Police had two of it’s fleet of Med-Evac helicopters on hand at Point Lookout.

The crews of the choppers did nothing until they were given the okay by a boat captain with virtually no experience, certainly less than any of them had.

Then, after assisting, the chopper pilots again parked millions of dollars worth of rescue aircraft on the ground and drank coffee while the injured were hauled away in ambulances to a small town hospital instead of being flown to shock trauma units equipped to care for those suffering from hypothermia.

Seemingly, the choppers were shunned because the eager volunteers from each of the area’s rescue squads all wanted to play a part in the rescue.

One passenger for each ambulance.

Instead of a wise and experienced disaster coordinator making decisions about how to conduct the rescue, it was up to a boat captain who told the tug captain and helicopters to stay away and he would soon be on the scene and be in charge.

Instead of people being lifted from the water within 30 minutes to an hour at the most, they were left in the water for 120 minutes to die.

Coast Guard proposals to require "hypothermia suits" for charterboats were ridiculed by Capt. Joe Lore not long before the disaster, as he groused that he would have no place to store the suits.

When finally making it to shore, even those judged most serious were given inferior priority evacuation.

Life-saving decisions were made by the leadership of the county’s least experienced fire and rescue companies, instead of by the most experienced.

Finally, the next spring, the Coast Guard flew in an Admiral and invited tv stations from Washington to attend a hero’s ceremony at which it honored it’s personnel for their heroic actions in the El Toro II sinking.

The Maryland State Police helicopter pilots who drank coffee while sitting on the parking lot of the boating ramp at Point Lookout while the El Toro II passengers floated in 50 degree water a couple miles away were commended for their heroism.

The Navy and Coast Guard rescue chopper pilots (SAR) were given medals even though they left the scene empty.

The Coast Guard boat commander who ordered all rescue operations to wait for him to arrive was treated as a hero by the Coast Guard hierarchy. He was given a medal.

The only true heroes among the Coast Guard crew were the rescue swimmers and crewmen.

The boat commander and the Navy and Coast Guard rescue helicopter pilots should have been held responsible for their incompetence and the Coast Guard officers who had been conducting inspections of the old wooden vessel El Toro II and failed to flunk it, should also have been held responsible. But they weren’t.

The sinking of the El Toro II was responsible for changes in the way the Coast Guard inspects vessels taking passengers for hire and as a result there are virtually no wooden vessels left on the Chesapeake Bay which are used as headboats, but simply take six passengers or less.

Headboats such as the Tom Hooker in Chesapeake Beach and the custom built Bay Lady headboat at Scheibles are steel or aluminum hulled vessels and much safer.

While the likelihood of another El Toro II disaster may have diminished with increased safefty standards, many other boating collisions and accidents take place which could challenge local emergency first responders. What have local EMA providers learned about the El Toro II? Is it a conflict of interest for the Coast Guard to conduct a review of incidents in which it has also played the role of the inspector, which inspections allowed the faulty vessels to remain in the passenger hauling trade? Can Coast Guard, Navy and emergency services agencies all talk to each other on the same radio frequencies ten years after the El Toro II sinking?

Where is the El Toro II now, is it still hauling passengers and is Capt. Joe Lore following the Coast Guard safety rules on his current vessels?

Watch for answers to these questions in coming weeks.