The Museum’s staff and volunteers are hard at work on the new exhibit “Freshwater Fury” which will tell the amazing tale of the greatest storm ever recorded on the Great Lakes, which took place in November 1913.   Many of us living in the Great Lakes region are all too familiar with the powerful weather we see in fall and winter. While this occurs with some regularity, there are probably a dozen storms noted for their severity, causing extensive losses of life and property. It is argued as to which is the more powerful or destructive, but is generally agreed the November 7-10th storm of 1913 was one of the worst on record – with a death toll of 235 or more, and upwards of 40 shipwrecks, 11 sinking with all hands. Freezing water, 35-foot waves, 75 mph winds, a lack of sophisticated communication and weather forecasting all played a part in the disaster. And in the wake of the storm were the dead, the stricken vessels, and the survivors. By presenting historic photographs, newspaper articles, and the personal accounts of lake masters and their crew, we will look at the ships and ask why they sank or how they survived. We invite visitors to step onto the deck of a ship about to sink; watch the storm’s fury from a virtual pilothouse; or don a life-vest and telegraph a call in distress in hopes of a returning assurance of help.

Weather forecasters of the time did not have enough data or understanding of atmospheric dynamics to predict the storm’s growth – data collected was already hours behind the actual weather event. With the help of WLUK meteorologist Tara Hastings, we will present a weather model recreating the storm’s development and path as it happened in 1913.  We will show images along the shore and in Cleveland where blizzards paralyzed the region under snow and ice, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage (1913 dollars). Power was out for days across Michigan, northern Ohio, and Ontario, cutting off telephone and telegraph communications.

From the aftermath we have stories of those sailors who weathered the storm, photographs, newspaper accounts, and personal mementos.  We will show the taped interview of wheelsman Ed Kanaby of the stranded freighter H.A. Hawgood, and actual footage a life-saving team’s drill of 1914. There were also several long-tem consequences of the storm resulting in more accurate weather forecasting and better communication of proper storm warnings. Criticism of the shipping companies and shipbuilders led to safer designs for vessels with greater stability and strength. Even today, as improved as technology has become, storms act with an unpredictable violence on the Lakes – and we have the stories and footage of those freighters still fighting the freshwater fury of November’s Great Lakes.

 “No lake master can recall in all his experience a storm of such unprecedented violence with such rapid changes in direction of the wind and its gusts of such fearful speed . . . It was unusual and unprecedented and it may be centuries before such a combination of forces may be experienced again.” – excerpt from Lake Carriers’ Association report, 1913.

Freshwater Fury opens to the public on Saturday, May 24, 2008 and will run through Tuesday, January 20, 2009.