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Show J oo SANTA ROSA IS COMPLETE WRECK SURF, Cal., July 7. Twenty or Liore passengers and members of the crew of the wrecked steamer Santa ' Rosa of the Pacific Coast; Steamship company were drowned in the surf at dusk this evening while trying to escape es-cape from that vessel, which stranded near Point Argucllo, six miles south of here, before dawn today. In two frail lifeboats they left the j ship, plunged into the roaring Burf I and in a moment were floundering in J the boiling waters. Tho lives of jj some were pounded out against the 1 1; rocks, while others sank to the bot- I torn. Several bodies were washed 1 ashore. A . Death Roil Will Be Large. A n At 9 o'clock tonight the Santa Rosa J was almost submerged and frantic ? - efforts were being made to save the J rest of the 200 passengers left aboard j I her. At that hour the government gt wireless station at Point Argucllo re-5 re-5 C ported that the vessel had broken amidships and that the breakers were J washing over her. The ship will be a Jm complete wreck and it seems virtual- ly certain that tho number of dead fjB will mount rapidly. M The doom of the steamer was seal- 1 cd shortly after 4 o'clock this after-jCIl after-jCIl noon, when a rising wind stirred up 7M a high sen and forced the abandon-SB abandon-SB ment of efforts to transfer the pas-2 pas-2 tensers of the Santa Rosa to the steam schooner Centralla, which, with P flio schooner Helen P. Drew, had g previously made abortive efforts to B1 ; float her. J Up to that time no apprehensions 5 . f danger wore entertained by the of-m of-m i ficers and crew of the stranded ves-I ves-I : tel It was thought that she could f be easlh floated. In fact, Captnin Faria answered wireless queries with the statement that his ship apparently apparent-ly was lying easily and would be floated at the crest of the tide tonight to-night But as the afternoon wore on, danger rapidly Increased, and by nightfall it became certain that desperate des-perate efforts would be necessary to save any one of the ship's company Early in the day the Centralia and tho Helen P. Drew had passed hawsers haw-sers to the Santa Rosa, but the rising ris-ing wind was too strong for their limited lim-ited horsepower, and at dusk the Santa Rosa swung broadside to the breakers. Immediately she began to break up. The crash or breaking timbers ana overstrained steel coiild be heard by the wireless men at Point Arguello The first lifeboat was launched at dark, after every effort had beeD made to establish boat communication communica-tion with the Centralla. The shon line lay only 300 feet from the broken ship, but the frail little craft wou.'d not makeit. It bobbed like a cork on Uie crest of the mountainous breakers, and the next instant wag submerged. There were 1G persons in this boat, 11 passengers and 5 or the crew. All were dashed to death against the rocks or drowned. Another boat was launched by the frantic people aboard the steamer. It met with the same fate. There wore about 19 persons m this boat fit-teen fit-teen managed to reach shore alive, bijt battered and most of them unconscious. uncon-scious. Scores of persons, ranchers from the vicinity of this place, railroad rail-road laborers and men from the wireless wire-less stations and lighthouses, stood on the shore helpless while the, victims vic-tims were drowned before their eyes. In the offing just outside the breaker break-er line, the Centralla and Drew and the oil ship Argyll lay, their decks lined with their crews, equally helpless help-less to aid. Down the coast, coming as fast as her engines could drive her, came the tug Redondo, evidently dispatched some time today to aid the ship. A special train, according to railroad officials, had been dispatched from the north to tako the survivors soutn-ward. soutn-ward. This is probably the bleakest and most desolate spot on tho coast south of San Francisco, and unless they a:e removed early, the survivors will suffer suf-fer much. The place of landing Is merely a long stretch of bare sand dunes, with no wood and water nearer than this "station. The Shrlner train wreck in May, 1907, occurred within a few hundred yards of the point where the Santa Rosa struck. The entire population of the town of Lompoc, ten miles northeast, Is hurrying hlthor in automobiles and all sorts of other conveyances to aid tho survivors. |
