Family members of El Faro’s missing crew have gathered since the weekend at the Seafarers International Union hall in an office park in Jacksonville, Fla., hoping for some positive news amid the deepening gloom about the ship’s fate.

Several sailors there offered hope that crew members could have survived, and questioned the ship’s path and why it had sailed toward the storm.

“They should never have went through that, period,” said Terrence Meadows, a sailor. “You can’t control nature, but if you know the circumstances are detrimental, they should not have did it. That could have been me. That could have been anybody in that union hall.”

Roland Johnson, who said he often worked standby with the same crew as the El Faro, said the sailors received exhaustive training to prepare for such a disaster. As he drove to the office to fill out paperwork for upcoming jobs, he expressed hope that all those practiced lifeboat launches saved lives.

“I want to believe that is what happened,” Mr. Johnson said. “You got a lot of good brothers out there.”

He, too, wondered why the ship’s captain had chosen to sail at all.

“My question is: Why did it go out?” he said. “The storm was there. Why go? Why?”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3009405&forum_id=2#28905311)