About 75 years before the Titanic set sail from England for the first time and sank in the North Atlantic Ocean, something frighteningly similar happened in the Atlantic Ocean, much closer to home.
At 11:04 pm on the night of June 14, 1838, the steamboat Pulaski had an explosion in the boiler room.
It sank 45 minutes later, while passengers, including some of the elite from Charleston and Savannah headed north in the summer, struggled for safety, hampered by the lack of lifeboats operating on the ship. About 200 people were on board and more than half of them died.
The tragedy provides the basis for Patti Callahan’s new book, “Surviving Savannah”, which will be released on Tuesday. Callahan is participating in a series of virtual events to start publishing the book about a shipwreck that is largely forgotten.