Read Online The Finest Hours by Michael J. Tougias - Free Book Online

after the storm, police were using long poles to poke through snowbanks, hoping to find a car that had been seen skidding off the road. While probing a particularly deep drift by the side of Route 3, police chief Howard MacFarland thought he heard a muffled yell from the snowy depths. MacFarland started clawing and digging the hard-packed snow away until he saw a car below him. He continued digging until he reached the driver-side door. Then, according to the Boston Herald , out stepped 20-year-old George Delaney, “stiff-jointed and blinking but otherwise apparently in good shape.” Delaney had been entombed for more than two full days.
    For Bernie and his crew, the storm’s challenge wasn’t snow but wind-driven waves as big as two-story houses. This blizzard was dangerous on land—but absolutely deadly at sea.

 
    10
    ALL BUT ONE: THE RESCUE OF THE PENDLETON STERN
    On board Bernie Webber’s lifeboat, the engine was dead, and the crew would be too if they couldn’t get it restarted soon. The sturdy vessel had one flaw: the engine stalled if the boat rolled too much while it was under way. Andy Fitzgerald began carefully making his way from the bow to the engine compartment. The CG 36500 continued to pitch and rear violently as Fitzgerald tried to keep a firm grip on the rails.
    He got to the engine room and crawled into the small space, made even smaller by the wet, heavy clothes he had on. Once inside the compartment, another heavy wave slammed into the lifeboat, bouncing Fitzgerald around the engine room. Andy cried out as he was thrown like a rag doll against the hot engine. Despite suffering burns, bruises, and scrapes, he somehow managed to control the pain as he held down the priming lever and waited for the gasoline to begin flowing to the engine again. Andy restarted the 90-horsepower motor.
    As the motor kicked back to life, Bernie Webber noticed a change in the seas. The waves were more monstrous now, but they were also spread farther apart. This told him that he and his crew had defied the odds. They had made it over Chatham Bar.
    In many ways, however, their nightmare had only just begun. They were outside the bar, but Bernie had no idea of their exact location. He pushed the throttle down and headed deeper into the teeth of the storm. If only I can make it to the Pollock Rip Lightship, I think we’ll be okay , he told himself. He had no compass, and the radio was so tied up with traffic that it was utterly useless to him now.
    It was a dance of giants as the 60- to 70-foot waves rose and fell. The men’s senses were heightened; they were assaulted by roaring wind when their boat rode up to the top of waves, then enveloped in an eerie quiet as they plunged down into the valleys. All were soaked from the bone-chilling ocean, but so much adrenaline was coursing through them that they hardly noticed. Each time the boat plunged into a trough, icy spray and foam slapped them in the face, and Webber fought the wheel to prevent the boat from broaching. They kept their knees bent, trying to anticipate the impact of each oncoming wave. While Webber clung to the wheel, Livesey, Fitz, and Maske kept a vise-like grip on the rails, believing if they were hurled out of the boat, they would likely never be found.
    The storm grew stronger as they ventured farther out to sea, where the cauldron of wind and snow intensified even more. Webber’s only option was to ride the waves like a thunderous roller coaster. He let the CG 36500 ’s engine idle as they climbed slowly and steadily up toward the wave’s curled, frothing peak. Bernie gunned the engine to get them over the top of the wave, and they all held on as the lifeboat raced down the other side.
    Like the men aboard the stern section of the Pendleton , the crew of the CG 36500 also prayed this would not be their last night on earth. Although Webber wouldn’t admit it to his men, his hope was fading. Again, he thought of