I have a feeling that a lot of these days can be filled with the sinking of ships. Today is one of those days.
Back in 1865, the SS Sultana, a steamboat paddler, sank in the Mississippi river. It was headed from New Orleans to St. Louis. Three of the four boilers blew up. Now this sucks in and of itself, but most of the 1600 (of 2400 passengers) that died right away were Union soldiers headed home after being released from Confederate prison camps. Later, more died as they faced hypothermia, or burning with the ship. In the end, only about 200 actually survived. The shop had a legal capacity of 376, so you can see that it was extremely overcrowded and top heavy.
It kind of hits me that this is like the Katrina survivors that fled to Houston only to be whammied again by Hurricane Rita.
