["Wreck of the Koombana", Geraldton Express (WA), Friday 26 April 1912]
In a recent editorial in the Sydney "Daily Telegraph" the following appears:--"The last gleam of hope for the safety of the Koombana having been extinguished, the public have to reconcile themselves to the shock of what appears to have been an identical calamity with that which happened on the same day of last year when the Yongala went down in a hurricane off the North Queensland coast. Both were big, strong sea-going boats, fit to cope with any ordinary storm, but the March cyclone which infests a well-defined track over the neighbouring seas is in a class by itself. When at its worst it appears irresistible by anything afloat. For two consecutive years we have now had it at its worst, and on each occasion a big steamer which happened to be in its track met a sudden end, while numerous smaller craft met the same fate. As traffic in the region of the hurricane belt increases we must look for more and more of these disasters unless some special means of averting them can be devised. In the first place, might not something be done to ensure that during the hurricane season onlhy a class of boat with the miniumum of top hamper and maximum of buoyancy will be employed in the trade passing through the storm zone--a boat specially adapted to cyclonic seas. But whatever may be possible in this way the most effective precaution will be found in an efficient wireless telegram system. The cyclone the wrecked the Koombana blew down the telegraph lines, and thereby cut off communication by which warnings of the coming storm might have been sent all round the coast. A wireless system on shore would have averted this. And if every steamer had a similar installation they might all be advised of what was coming in time to make for some sort of shelter. Wireless would probably have saved the Yongala last year, and there is every reason to suppose that it would have rendered equal service to the Koombana this year. The ship herself was equipped, but there were no land stations that she could call to and, as it happened, no equipped ships near enough to reach. There is a grim object lesson in these disasters, therefore, which it would be criminal for the community to ignore. Could not the Federal Government order a special inquiry?
