How many passengers in the Grand Staircase during rapid flooding?

[Ricky B]

Hi,

During the rapid flooding of the Grand Staircase, how many passengers were in this area during this time?

Cameron's film shows (obviously for dramatic affect) many passengers in this area fleeing from other nearby areas (such as the Forward A deck cabins), you wouldnt really stay or be in...leading up to the dome implosion. However, on the assumption of being human, I don't think many would have been there. Surely you would have been on deck trying to access any means of survival?

If I place myself on a flooding ship and water is ascending a staircase, I wouldn't really want to be inside. Therefore, I wouldn't witness or be engulfed by a rapid flow of water. People do not tend to hang around when things are on fire in a building, and I am assuming that this was the case for the poor souls who saw the interior flooding.

Any thoughts?

Many thanks

 

[Kyle Naber]

I highly doubt anyone was in there at the time the dome imploded (if it even did). Everyone inside would have had plenty of time to get on deck before water reached the boat deck.

 

[Aaron_2016]

Hi,

During the rapid flooding of the Grand Staircase, how many passengers were in this area during this time?

Cameron's film shows (obviously for dramatic affect) many passengers in this area fleeing from other nearby areas (such as the Forward A deck cabins), you wouldnt really stay or be in...leading up to the dome implosion. However, on the assumption of being human, I don't think many would have been there. Surely you would have been on deck trying to access any means of survival?

If I place myself on a flooding ship and water is ascending a staircase, I wouldn't really want to be inside. Therefore, I wouldn't witness or be engulfed by a rapid flow of water. People do not tend to hang around when things are on fire in a building, and I am assuming that this was the case for the poor souls who saw the interior flooding.

Any thoughts?

Many thanks

Survivor Colonel Gracie was standing near the bridge. He described what happened just moments before the water reached the boat deck.

"My friend Clinch Smith made the proposition that we should leave and go toward the stern, but there arose before us from the decks below a mass of humanity several lines deep converging on the boat, deck facing us and completely blocking our passage to the stern. There were women in the crowd as well as men and these seemed to be steerage passengers who had just come up from the decks below. Even among these people there was no hysterical cry, no evidence of panic. Oh the agony of it......Then the wave came and struck us."

He believed that "mass of humanity" had just come up from the decks below in the final seconds before the boat deck went under. They either came from the Grand staircase (and were possibly still climbing it when the boat deck went under) or they had come from the aft boat deck and were rushing forwards and owing to the darkness and the dimming of the Titanic's lights the Colonel did not realize they had come from the aft decks, and he assumed they had "just come up from the decks below".

There were orders to open the gangway doors and 4th officer Boxhall saw a large crowd of people standing at one of the aft gangway doors in the final moments of the evacuation. He was afraid they were going to jump out and swamp his boat and he decided it was safer to row away. Perhaps that crowd of passengers had realized there was not futher point in staying at the gangway door and they immediately rushed forward and up to the boat deck, just in time to see the water rush onto the deck. There were also a number of passengers who refused to leave their luggage and the stewards would not allow them on the boat deck with their luggage, and they were seen waiting in the 3rd class corridors just waiting patiently holding and sitting on their luggage with no knowledge of the seriousness of the situation. They might have been part of the crowd that rushed to the boat deck in the final moments before the ship went down.


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