mylordshesacactus:

Carpathia received Titanic’s distress signal at 12:20am, April 15th, 1912. She was 58 miles away, a distance that absolutely could not be covered in less than four hours.

(Californian’s exact position at the time is…controversial. She was close enough to have helped. By all accounts she was close enough to see Titanic’s distress rockets. It’s uncertain to this day why her crew did not respond, or how many might not have been lost if she had been there. This is not the place for what-ifs. This is about what was done.)

Carpathia’s Captain Rostron had, yes, rolled out of bed instantly when woken by his radio operator, ordered his ship to Titanic’s aid and confirmed the signal before he was fully dressed. The man had never in his life responded to an emergency call. His goal tonight was to make sure nobody who heard that fact would ever believe it.

All of Carpathia’s lifeboats were swung out ready for deployment. Oil was set up to be poured off the side of the ship in case the sea turned choppy; oil would coat and calm the water near Carpathia if that happened, making it safer for lifeboats to draw up alongside her. He ordered lights to be rigged along the side of the ship so survivors could see it better, and had nets and ladders rigged along her sides ready to be dropped when they arrived, in order to let as many survivors as possible climb aboard at once.

I don’t know if his making provisions for there still being survivors in the water was optimism or not. I think he knew they were never going to get there in time for that. I think he did it anyway because, god, you have to hope.

Carpathia had three dining rooms, which were immediately converted into triage and first aid stations. Each had a doctor assigned to it. Hot soup, coffee, and tea were prepared in bulk in each dining room, and blankets and warm clothes were collected to be ready to hand out. By this time, many of the passengers were awake–prepping a ship for disaster relief isn’t quiet–and all of them stepped up to help, many donating their own clothes and blankets.

And then he did something I tend to refer to as diverting all power from life support.

Here’s the thing about steamships: They run on steam. Shocking, I know; but that steam powers everything on the ship, and right now, Carpathia needed power. So Rostron turned off hot water and central heating, which bled valuable steam power, to everywhere but the dining rooms–which, of course, were being used to make hot drinks and receive survivors. He woke up all the engineers, all the stokers and firemen, diverted all that steam back into the engines, and asked his ship to go as fast as she possibly could. And when she’d done that, he asked her to go faster.

I need you to understand that you simply can’t push a ship very far past its top speed. Pushing that much sheer tonnage through the water becomes harder with each extra knot past the speed it was designed for. Pushing a ship past its rated speed is not only reckless–it’s difficult to maneuver–but it puts an incredible amount of strain on the engines. Ships are not designed to exceed their top speed by even one knot. They can’t do it. It can’t be done.

Carpathia’s absolute do-or-die, the-engines-can’t-take-this-forever top speed was fourteen knots. Dodging icebergs, in the dark and the cold, surrounded by mist, she sustained a speed of almost seventeen and a half.

No one would have asked this of them. It wasn’t expected. They were almost sixty miles away, with icebergs in their path. They had a respondibility to respond; they did not have a responsibility to do the impossible and do it well. No one would have faulted them for taking more time to confirm the severity of the issue. No one would have blamed them for a slow and cautious approach. No one but themselves.

They damn near broke the laws of physics, galloping north headlong into the dark in the desperate hope that if they could shave an hour, half an hour, five minutes off their arrival time, maybe for one more person those five minutes would make the difference. I say: three people had died by the time they were lifted from the lifeboats. For all we know, in another hour it might have been more. I say they made all the difference in the world.

This ship and her crew received a message from a location they could not hope to reach in under four hours. Just barely over three hours later, they arrived at Titanic’s last known coordinates. Half an hour after that, at 4am, they would finally find the first of the lifeboats. it would take until 8:30 in the morning for the last survivor to be brought onboard. Passengers from Carpathia universally gave up their berths, staterooms, and clothing to the survivors, assisting the crew at every turn and sitting with the sobbing rescuees to offer whatever comfort they could.

In total, 705 people of Titanic’s original 2208 were brought onto Carpathia alive. No other ship would find survivors.

At 12:20am April 15th, 1912, there was a miracle on the North Atlantic. And it happened because a group of humans, some of them strangers, many of them only passengers on a small and unimpressive steam liner, looked at each other and decided: I cannot live with myself if I do anything less.

I think the least we can do is remember them for it.

kramergate:

laflenkenway:

kramergate:

creepsandcrawlers:

kramergate:

i randomly wandered into an art gallery with live music and a full cheese spread and im going ape

if u eat it the fey own u tho

that’s the fey’s problem

If you are saying that, you’ve clearly got more bravado than sense.

i don’t have either actually i just have an empty stomach and the ability to make my presence everyone’s problem

mittiesue:

theparadoxmachine:

theparadoxmachine:

I’m legit about to lose a tooth. Am I being melodramatic by calling that a dental emergency?

Well I’m fucked.

My options are pull this tooth out myself and have a gap in my mouth and be mocked by my coworkers for missing teeth or wait until January, risk being in pain and unable to chew properly for that long until I can get to a dentist to get braces I can’t afford even with insurance and be mocked by my coworkers for having braces at 29.

Now seems like a good time to start drinking again.

It’s going to be alright, my dude. ❤️❤️❤️

1. The tooth that wants to come out is deciduous, right? Its whole purpose is to come out. If it has finally decided that now, after nearly 30 years of existence, it is ready to say goodbye to the gummed life, then I say let it be so!

1a. If it is literally loose enough that you think normal chewing could knock it out, then let that happen dude, you’re going to cause yourself so much more pain by trying to avoid it coming out if that’s what it wants to do.

2. Fuck your coworkers opinions, man.

2a. Are they really that shitty that you think this will be a prolonged problem? If so, dude, GTFO. Now that you have payroll experience getting another job won’t be nearly as bad.

2b. If it’s more that they might initially tease you for it, telling them the truth would be a good way to get them to shut up. I mean, it’s a deciduous tooth, it do how it be.

3. Adult braces aren’t that weird or bad. My mom got braces at 40 because her family couldn’t afford them when she was a child.

3a. Dude, you could get rainbow rubber bands for the braces, how rad would that be???!!

4. I can only imagine how uncomfortable it must be to have to deal with loosing a tooth as an adult, even if said tooth is a late bloomer and should have come out about twenty years ago. But man, it’s going to be okay. Child you handled this back then. You’ll be okay. ❤️❤️❤️

Yeah it’s deciduous. My main worry is that the permanent tooth is too impacted to descend on its own so I’ll have a visible gap until I can get it dealt with. And dealing with it will require surgery and braces.

My coworkers gossip a lot. My work “friend” seems to actually encourage it and then tells me what people say about me. Though tbh one guy told Dennis to fuck off to his face and faced no consequences so I could probably get away with telling someone to go to hell if I have to. I’m almost more afraid of people acting like it’s cute. I…do not want that….

Child Me most certainly did not deal with it. I’m sort of surprised this never came up but remind me to tell you about Child Me’s Adventures In Dental Crap aka Adults Are Horrible.

My greatest hope now is that if I have to pull this thing myself that I’ll be able to do it at work in front of someone because that’s be disgustingly badass and would probably get people to give me a wide berth went it comes to my teeth.

Tbh I think I’d go with black bands. It’s as -ahem- metal as I could get. Or black and red. That could be cool.