Tragic Facts About The Perfect Storm, The Shipwreck Story No One Lived To Tell

From October 26 through November 1, 1991, a massive storm pummeled the East Coast as it traveled from Nova Scotia to Florida. The storm claimed a total of 13 lives, including those of the six crew members aboard the fishing boat Andrea Gail. The Andrea Gail crew members who lost their lives were Michael "Bugsby" Moran and Dale R. "Murph" Murphy, both from Bradenton Beach, FL; Alfred Pierre from New York City, NY; and Frank William "Billy" Tyne Jr., Robert F. "Bobby" Shatford, and David "Sully" Sullivan, all from Gloucester, MA.

Linda Greenlaw, a fishing boat captain from Maine, was the last person to speak to any of the crew on board the Andrea Gail. She said her last conversation with Captain Billy Tyne was "typical." Greenlaw told the Gloucester Daily Times, "I wanted a weather report, and Billy wanted a fishing report. I recall him saying, 'The weather sucks. You probably won’t be fishing tomorrow night.'"

It's still unclear exactly what became of the Andrea Gail and its crew. While it does seem the crew perished, the details are a matter of speculation. No distress signal was ever sent, very little wreckage was ever found, and there were no survivors to interview or remains to examine. The lack of closure made the grieving process even more difficult for the crew's loved ones.

While it seemed impossible for the Andrea Gail to have survived the storm, the Coast Guard still led a massive search covering 186,000 square miles over the course of 10 days. The only hint regarding the crew's fate was a small amount of wreckage, including an emergency beacon, an empty life raft, fuel drums, and a propane tank. After 10 days, the search was called off due to the low probability of the crew's survival.

In addition to the human cost, the storm also racked up nearly $500 million in damage. Hundreds of houses and businesses were lost in its wake. Roads and airports were closed, and 38,000 people lost power. While this was substantial, the damages were actually less severe in many areas than those caused by other large storms. The lighter toll was said to be attributed to the decreased amount of rainfall and a lack of foliage due to the winter season.

Many people are aware of the Andrea Gail tragedy thanks to The Perfect Storm, the 2000 film starring George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg. Unfortunately, some of the families members of the departed crew were so unhappy with the movie that they filed a lawsuit. Filed by the family of Captain Billy Tyne, the lawsuit charged Warner Bros. with "unauthorized commercial misappropriation and invasion of privacy." They claimed they had not given permission to use Tyne's likeness, and that the film had unfairly depicted him as incompetent. According to Warner Bros., the law did not require them to obtain permission to depict a historically important event. Ultimately, the Florida Supreme Court threw out the case. In contrast, Sebastian Junger's novel of the same name was considered to be quite fair and well researched. Maryanne Shatford, sister of crew member Bobby Shatford, told Boston.com she's glad to have both versions: "They were all like the characters in the book. It was the movie that was too Hollywood. They wanted it to be a story more than it was between the characters... but even though they didn’t get [them] all right, the people were unbelievably nice, all the actors and the producers."

In Gloucester, an official memorial is dedicated to the approximately 3,000 local fishermen who were lost at sea between 1623 and 1923. The bronze statue of a sailor at the wheel of his ship is called the Gloucester Fisherman’s Memorial. Services are held at the memorial every August, and they often leave the audience in tears. Gloucester also has less official ways of commemorating sailors who have passed. According to Maryanne Shatford, the best memorial to her brother and the rest of the crew is the family business, a local bar called the Crow’s Nest. The bar is decorated with photographs of the crew and includes a plaque that reads, "They will always be remembered by family and friends." These physical reminders help Shatford keep her brother alive in her heart. She told Boston.com: His memory is never going to [fade] for me, but there are so many concrete things for me too. I can open the book, I can turn on the TV, people always want to talk to me about him, especially at the Crow’s Nest. His memory is here every single day.

The Perfect Storm may not have been a popular film with the crew's families, but one eatery was able to salvage something from the production. Boston restaurant Legal Seafood bought the ship used in the movie and turned it into a memorial for the Andrea Gail crew. The memorial stayed up until the ship was damaged in a fire.

"Perfect" may not seem like the most appropriate word to describe a storm that took the lives of 13 people, but nevertheless, the "Perfect Storm" moniker stuck. Bob Case, a meteorologist at the Boston branch of the National Weather Service, coined the name when he noticed three separate storms set to converge off the coast of New England in October 1991. "Perfect" in this case means perfectly terrible - it couldn't have been worse.