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Fair Former East Rockaway resident reflects on El Faro tragedy as hearings set to conclude
Before he left his brother Howard’s Florida home to board a flight back to New York in July 2015, Steve Schoenly hugged him and told him to be safe during his next run on the SS El Faro. He had no idea it would be the last time he would see him.
Howard worked for TOTE Maritime as a ship engineer, and was preparing to embark on his usual week-long, round-trip run between Jacksonville, Fla., and Puerto Rico, transporting household goods.
“It was supposed to be an easy run,” Steve recalled in his Oceanside home, fighting tears and wearing one of his late brother’s jackets. He added that he had difficulty discussing the tragedy publicly until now.
With a crew of 33, the El Faro left Jacksonville on Sept. 29, 2015, and headed straight into Hurricane Joaquin, a Category 4 storm that stalled over the Crooked Islands in the Bahamas. After the 790-foot boat was battered by heavy winds and waves up to 40 feet high, communications with the crew were lost on Oct. 1. The ship was found on the bottom of the Caribbean on Oct. 31.
Though it has been more than a year since the tragedy, many questions remain unanswered. The National Transportation Safety Board and the Coast Guard began their third and final hearing on the incident on Monday in Jacksonville. It was scheduled to last two weeks. Officials from TOTE, former El Faro ship personnel, Coast Guard representatives and others were among those expected to testify.
The hearing may determine whether someone was liable for the ship getting lost at sea, while the NTSB is using the investigation to prevent future tragedies.
On April 26, 2016, a U.S. Navy salvage ship, the USNS Apache, located the El Faro’s voyage data recorder, which functions like an aircraft’s black box, recording the captain’s radio transmissions.
The 510-page transcript of Capt. Michael Davidson’s conversations was released to the public on Dec. 13.
In the recordings, Davidson was asked about changing course, but he said he thought that he could avoid the hurricane by sticking to his route. Eventually, he was forced to sound the alarm to abandon ship before communications cut off.
“I had this image in my head that a wave knocked them over and they got knocked out and died instantly,” Schoenly said. “Then, when we read ... the transcripts, even the last half hour, they knew something was going down.”
Days in the dark
After learning of the ship’s disappearance, Steve flew to his brother’s home in Cape Coral, Fla.., where he waited with Howard’s wife, Karen, for updates as the search dragged on for days.
“Those couple of days were the worst of my life,” Steve said. “Not knowing. Waking up every day and saying, ‘All right, today’s the day they’re gonna find him,’ and it just … it never happened.”
Steve said that conference calls among families of the missing crewmembers, the Coast Guard and TOTE representatives began on Oct. 2, 2015. For days, the Coast Guard had difficulty getting to the area where the ship was last heard from because of the storm. One body was eventually found, but it could not be identified.
On Oct. 7, a mile-long debris field was discovered in the Caribbean Sea. The Coast Guard determined that the ship sank in 15,000 feet of water on Oct. 1 and that every crewmember on board died.
Steve described his brother as being tough and loyal. He added that Howard and Karen “truly were soul mates.” Steve’s last memories of Howard are from that stay in Florida, where they bonded over games of golf and go out together at night.
“Me and my brother were as tight as you could be,” he said. “He was not only my brother, he was my best friend. He was the one I would call, the first call you make, no matter what happens. Everyone’s got that person that they call. And he was it.”
Tragedy would strike again for Steve and his family. His stepfather, who had raised him since he was 4, died of complications of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease 32 days after Howard. “If you ever feel like your world can come crashing down on you, it’s that moment,” Steve said. “To lose two of the people that were closest to me in my life.”
A community rallies to remember
Howard and Steve grew up on John Street in East Rockaway with their late mother, Peggy, their late stepfather, Howard Steele, and their brothers Robert and Sean. Howard eventually bought a house in Tennessee before moving to Florida.
After Howard was lost at sea, the community where he grew up honored him. On Oct. 8, 2015, the Reel restaurant in East Rockway held a candlelight vigil on what would have been Howard’s 51st birthday. More than 100 people gathered that night, including several elected officials. The flags at East Rockaway Village Hall and the East Rockaway American Legion were lowered to half-mast.
Steve said he was still in Florida at the time, but he was touched by the gesture.
“I wanted the community to know how grateful my family is and how thankful,” he said. “Because I don’t think we would have made it through it without that support. We loved East Rockaway. It’s just an amazing place to grow up.”
Dan Kearney, a friend of Howard’s for many years who still lives in East Rockaway, described his friend as a fun-loving person who “wouldn’t back down from Godzilla.”
“He was like Popeye,” Kearney recalled. “He was a blast. He really was. When you went out with Howie, you were guaranteed a good time. He was a good friend.”
Howard started sailing when he was 19 years old. Over the course of his experience in shipping, he dealt with the threat of pirates off Somalia and sailed around the horn of Africa in some of the world’s most turbulent waters. “He loved it,” Steve said.
A memorial service was held for Howard at Bethany Congregational Church in East Rockaway on Thanksgiving weekend in 2015, followed by a party at the Commuters Club.
“We raised a few glasses to Howie, and it was a good time,” Steve said. “It was exactly what he would have wanted.”
Steve said that the experience has made him more spiritual and that he has encountered many signs since his brother’s death. Right after the search for the El Faro was called off, he recounted he and Karen sat on her patio and saw a double rainbow. After Howard's death, Steve said he was looking for a sign that his brother was all right one night, when Howard’s favorite song, “Running to Stand Still” by U2, came on the radio.
“I always feel like he’s watching me,” Steve said. “Even now. I’m pretty spiritual, and I think that he’s watching out for me and saying, ‘Keep up the good work. I’ve got your back still.’”
