Disasters of the Century is a Canadian docuseries that documents a number of natural disasters and accidents that occurred during the course of the twentieth century.
Disasters of the Century provides examples of the following tropes:
- Creator Provincialism: "Disasters of the Century" is a Canadian show and roughly half of the featured disasters took place in Canada.
- Downer Ending: Although the Princess Sophia sinking resulted in a beacon being installed on the Vanderbilt Reef, everyone on the Sophia except a dog died, and the tragedy was largely forgotten because World War I ended as the dead were starting to be brought back to shore.
- From Bad to Worse: Everything about the final moments of the SS Princess Sophia. The hull was shredded, some part of the boiler blew, which killed some passengers and trapped others below deck, and passengers who did make it off ended up forced into the frigid water. It's speculated that one crew member made it to safety but banged his head on a rock, knocking him unconscious. As for what was on the water...Ken Coates: When the ship tore apart, um, it released a whole bunch of bunker fuel. Bunker fuel was its ballast, and when - the evidence [is that] when these people jumped overboard, trying to save themselves, they jumped not just into the cold water; they jumped into an oil slick. And you can imagine what it's like to jump into freezing cold water; you would gasp, and if, when you gasped, you had a mouth full of bunker fuel, you would suffocate. You would die instantly from that; your lungs would be coated with oil.
- Innocence Lost: This trope is name-dropped in the episode about the Hartford Circus Fire.
- No OSHA Compliance: In many of the episodes, particularly those set earlier in the century.
- Special mention goes to Ocean Ranger, which was nicknamed Ocean Danger long before the sinking. Among other things, the safety culture on the vessel was lackadaisical and arrogant, with inept safety drills leaving the crew poorly prepared for an actual emergencynote ; survival gear was inadequate at best, with no immersion suits and lackluster flotation devices; the lifeboats were difficult to launch in decent conditions, never mind in an Atlantic cyclone; the control room was, in one of the most inexplicable marine vessel design choices in history, on one of the columns rather than on deck and low enough to be vulnerable to rogue waves, with the only way to check the water level being to leave a flimsy porthole open; and, to compound an already baffling design choice, said porthole was right next to the ballast control system, just waiting to drench and short-circuit it the moment the portlight failed.
- The Vanderbilt Reef was a known hazard even before it sank the SS Princess Sophia, as it's barely above water at low tide and completely submerged at high tide, but World War I prevented a proper beacon from being built, meaning the only warning was an unlit buoy. Had there been a proper beacon, Sophia would have been able to adjust her course earlier.
- Sad Clown: The Hartford Circus Fire turned Emmett Kelly into one of these. He was reportedly haunted by the fire for the rest of his life.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: The SS Princess Sophia was almost reachable by other ships, but the sea was choppy. The captain, paranoid about making the same mistake the captain of the steamboat Clallam madenote , ended up declining rescue attempts until the weather improved. While several seafarers later admitted they would have done the same thing, this was a terrible and tragic misjudgment, as the evening following the grounding, tides lifted Sophia enough to move but not enough to clear the rocks, resulting in her hull being shredded. None of the passengers or crew survived the resulting sinking, variously drowning, choking on spilled bunker fuel, or freezing to death.
- Soft Water: Averted in Swissair Flight 111's case due to the insane speeds reached thanks to the unusable flight speed indicators and nonfunctional overspeed alarm. As Stephen Kimber notes, hitting water from any angle at those speeds is like hitting concrete. The nose stopped suddenly the moment it struck the water, and the rest of the structure telescoped forward, causing Vaud to disintegrate. And of course, being on a plane subjected to forces like that most certainly wasn't survivable for the passengers and crew.
- Tragic Mistake: Captain Leonard Locke's decision not to evacuate the SS Princess Sophia until weather conditions had improved, speculated to be a response to SS Clallam captain George Roberts' own mistake in evacuating the Clallam too hastily, ultimately proved to be this, as by the time weather conditions had improved enough, Sophia had sunk due to her hull being torn to shreds, resulting in the deaths of all passengers and crew.
