Political Quotes

“Mr. President, on September 29, an almost 800-foot cargo container vessel, the El Faro, a cargo ship carrying 33 men and women from Florida, left port in Jacksonville, FL, bound for Puerto Rico. There is a regular trade route between San Juan and Jacksonville, and a lot of the goods the Puerto Rican Commonwealth receives are shipped by cargo container from the Port of Jacksonville. Three hours before it left port, the tropical storm that had been brewing had changed its status from a tropical storm to a hurricane, and over the course of the next 2 days, with communications from the ship, that hurricane started to intensify, starting out as a category 1, category 2, and later a category 3. On the morning of the third day, October 1, at 7 a.m., there was a communication from the captain of the ship, first left on a voice mail and then he immediately called back the person in the communications department of the shipping company who talked to the captain. The captain, in a very calm voice on both the telephone message voice mail and his communication with the person, said they had taken a position where the ship was leaning 15 degrees. They were in rough seas, and they had lost power. Apparently in that communication, his voice was very calm and had some degree of confidence that he was going to be able to get the ship back underway, under power.…”