"THE 'NORONIC' DISASTER" - Toronto, ON
Posted by: jiggs11
N 43° 38.399 W 079° 22.566
17T E 630980 N 4833168
OHP relating the story of the tragedy of the fire aboard the passenger ship "Noronic" docked in Toronto Harbour in 1949.
Waymark Code: WMM4WP
Location: Ontario, Canada
Date Posted: 07/21/2014
Views: 23
The SS Noronic was an American-registered passenger ship the cruised the waters of the Great Lakes in the 1930's and 40's.
The Noronic berthed at Pier 9 in Toronto while on a week-long Great Lakes voyage. On 17 September, 1949 a fire broke out in a storage compartment. Crew members attempted to extinguish the flames, but to no avail. Passengers and crew abandoned the ship by whatever means possible. By the time the fire was extinguished, 119 had died.
This tragedy led to enforcement of much stricter fire prevention laws on the Great Lakes, and led to a sharp curtailment of passenger activity.
Text on the plaque reads:
THE 'NORONIC' DISASTER
On the evening of September 16, 1949, the "Noronic" a
Great Lakes cruise ship carrying 524 passengers docked
at
Pier 9, 100 metres east of here. At 1:30 the next morning
a passenger noticed smoke seeping from a locked closet.
Crew members fought the fire, but it erupted into a life-
threatening inferno before they could awaken everyone
aboard.
Passengers descended the gangway, climbed down
ropes, leapt
onto the dock, or jumped into the harbour.
Firefighters,
police and passers-by assisted, but 119 perished.
All but
one were American passengers. An inquiry resulted
in stricter
fire safety enforcement which forced older cruise
ships out of service and caused a decline in passenger
shipping on the lakes.