CASTINE, Maine — Students and faculty at Maine Maritime Academy held a solemn meeting late this afternoon as Coast Guard crews continued searching for survivors from the cargo ship El Faro.
The vessel is believed to have sunk during Hurricane Joaquin in the waters northeast of the Bahamas.
Four Mainers, all graduates of MMA, are among 33 missing crew members.
The meeting came at the end of an anxious day on the Maine Maritime campus in Castine. It began with students, faculty and college officials closely monitoring the U.S. Coast Guard's morning news conference from Florida and expressing hope that members of the El Faro's crew would still be found alive.
"Now, I want to talk to you as members of a shared community," says MMA President William Brennan. Little had changed by the time he stepped to a lectern inside the Harold Alfond Student Center at 4 p.m.
"This is a family," he says. "We are one community. We are all mariners. And I know we are distressed by what we heard today."
MMA students, appearing shaken, listened intently as Brennan recapped what officials had learned from the earlier Coast Guard briefing.
The ship is assumed to have sunk. Search and rescue teams have found a damaged life boat with no one in it and a survival suit with an unidentified body inside.
An official crew list has yet to be released, but Brennan confirmed what has been widely reported by various media outlets.
"Four Mainers have been identified in the media as possible members of the crew and all four are graduates of Maine Maritime Academy," he says.
They are Mike Davidson, El Faro's captain, who graduated in 1988; Danielle Randolph, a 2005 MMA graduate; Mike Holland from the class of 2012; and Dylan Meklin, who completed his studies this past spring.
"We are reaching out to the students we believe to have family connections to the crew to offer support to the families," Brennan says.
He encouraged students to visit with counselors on campus, who have cleared their schedules, to talk about what they're feeling.
In interviews earlier in the day, students expressed confidence in the training and skills their fellow MMA sailors were likely forced to use, as conditions on the El Faro grew worse.
"From Day One, when we enter Maine Maritime, we do survival," says Gabrielle Wells, a senior from Cape Elizabeth. "So basically, we put immersion suits on. We have a pool. We actually have a life raft we practice getting into."
As the meeting ended, several students embraced each other in tears.
Maine Maritime Academy will hold a vigil for the missing sailors tomorrow night. In the meantime, Brennan asked students to lean on each other, open up to teachers and not give up hope.