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For the Quitasol family, the scuba diving weekend in the Channel Islands was supposed to be a sea party.
Three sisters – Angela, Nicole and Evan Quitasol – left on Saturday with their father, Michael Quitasol, and his mother-in-law, Fernisa Sison. They were celebrating Michael's birthday with a luxurious three-day trip that included diving in the middle of the kelp forests, nature lectures and gourmet meals.
But now, the five family members would be among the 34 presumed dead when a fire broke out on the ship before sunrise on Monday, said sisters' father-in-law Chris Rosas.
Evan was a nurse in the emergency department of a Stockton area hospital, Rosas said. Nicole was a barmaid who worked in a living room in Coronado, which allowed her to live near her beloved ocean. Angela was a science teacher at the Lincoln Unified School District in Stockton.
"They were the kindest and most loving people I have ever met, and I'm not saying that simply because they are family members," said Rosas. "The way they interacted with the people they met was a marvel."
Most of the victims are believed to be from northern California, the authorities said Tuesday. Much remains unknown to passengers, but Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said he believed that a teenager as young as 17 and adults in his 60s were on board.
On Tuesday, the authorities confirmed what relatives of the missing had suspected but feared: there was little hope of finding anyone alive after one of California's worst maritime disasters in recent history. .
At a news conference in the afternoon at the sheriff's headquarters in Santa Barbara County, a journalist asked the authorities, "At this point, do you suppose that the 34 passengers failed to surrender?" ?
"It would be a correct assumption," said US Coast Guard captain Monica Rochester, with a grim face.
The "Design," a 25-meter-long vessel once described by California Diving News as "the jewel of California: living aboard dive boats" caught fire about 20 meters from the north coast of the US. Santa Cruz Island and is now upside down on the ocean floor about 62 feet of water, said the authorities.
The cause of the fire remains in the study.
Five crew members who were at the highest level of the boat survived the fire. A sixth crew member who slept in the same area as the passengers is feared to be among the dead.
The remains of 20 people – 11 women and nine men – were found. Fourteen people are still missing.
The sheriff said the authorities had a list of passengers who were supposed to be on the boat and were working to confirm their presence on board. The authorities did not disclose the names of the victims as of Tuesday. Brown said most of the passengers appeared to be from Santa Cruz and San Jose.
In the hours following the fall of the ship, relatives of the victims were informed of the fate of their loved ones.
Chris Rosas and his wife, Susana, learned of the existence of the fire on Monday noon and rushed from their homes in Stockton, Santa Barbara, where they waited in an assistance center. for families at the Earl Warren Showgrounds.
Evan Quitasol, his father and mother-in-law had worked in the Kaiser Permanente medical facility in the Stockton area.
"On behalf of Kaiser Permanente, we are deeply saddened by the tragic deaths of our colleagues, Fernisa Sison, Michael Quitasol and Evan Quitasol, as well as all those on board the Conception", Corwin Harper, Vice President and Regional Director of Kaiser Permanente Central. Valley, said in a statement. "Our sympathies go to their family and friends right now."
On Tuesday, flowers were affixed to a fence near Santa Barbara Harbor, from where Conception departed. Candles burned nearby.
On the fence, someone had suspended a red and white flag which meant that a diver was in the water, on which were inscribed the words: "Clear winds and following sea; We will remember you every dive. "A message written on a pair of blue diving fins said," We love you Design. "
Jenny Stafford of Santa Barbara, who has been watching the memorial all night, said several relatives of the victims had visited the site.
"A man fell to his knees and sobbed uncontrollably," said Stafford, referring to the father and sister of a victim, from Chicago.
A young woman who gave her only her name, Olivia, visited the memorial on Tuesday morning. She stated that her 26 year old older sister, whom she did not want to name, was the sixth crewmember aboard the Conception.
Her family had frantically called Monday, she said, only to learn late in the day that her sister was under the bridge when the fire broke out and did not survive.
"It does not make sense," Olivia said, her voice broken. "It's not fair – not fair at all."
She hugged a woman who had placed a bouquet of flowers against the fence and walked away, followed by a gang of TV crews.
Family members told WKRC-TV in Cincinnati that Allie Kurtz, 26, a member of the Design team, had grown up in Chicago, had moved to Los Angeles to work in the city. film industry, before becoming a diving instructor, reported the TV channel. .
Culver City Councilor Alex Fisch adjourned Tuesday night a council meeting in memory of his close friend, Charles "Chuck" McIlvain, who was aboard the Conception. Mr. McIlvain, whom he described as "a radiant light in the lives of many," worked for 15 years at Sony Pictures Imageworks in Culver City, he said.
Fisch learned the news of the fire Monday morning. Later in the day, he checked on Facebook and saw a message written by someone mentioning that McIlvain was going to dive this weekend in the Channel Islands.
"My jaw dropped," said Fisch. "I watched the comments under the Facebook message, and people were panicked and wondering if they were on this chart."
Fisch sent a text message to Jasmine, the wife of McIlvain and McIlvain, asking them if they were okay. Jasmine replied with a text message. Her husband was on the boat.
"It was a total punch," said Fisch. McIlvain, who loved scuba diving, mountain biking and snowboarding and who had recently celebrated his 44th birthday, was "someone whom people loved every moment".
"I can not emphasize enough the unique combination of creativity, intelligence and wonderful presence that he had," Fisch said.
Among the missing are also two students from the Pacific Collegiate School, a public charter school in Santa Cruz, according to the parents of the school's students.
"Our hearts and prayers go to the families of the victims and those who are missing, especially those of our students," the school wrote in a statement.
"At the present time, our priority as a school is to support our students, our staff and our families."
Kristy Finstad, a 41-year-old marine biologist, was also on board and led the weekend expedition of her family's diving company, Worldwide Diving Adventures. She has plunged into the area near the island of Santa Cruz hundreds of times, said her brother, Brett Harmeling.
"She has an extraordinary depth of knowledge," said Harmeling. "Every time I go on a dive trip with her, she goes beyond expectations. She will go underwater and point out something, then after the dive she will explain exactly what it was and why it is important. "
Sheriff Brown said officials had received more than 100 calls from relatives or friends who thought their loved ones were onboard the Conception.
The investigators compare the appellants' information with the list of passengers on the boat.
Family members were asked for DNA samples, collected using cheek swabs, to compare with the bodies.
Suzanne Grimmesey, a spokeswoman for the Santa Barbara County Department of Behavioral Wellness, said more than 20 state and east-coast families have visited a support center. in place by the county for relatives of the victims.
"They are in shock," she said. "For families, hearing that there were no survivors was incredibly difficult."
Authors Colleen Shalby, Leila Miller and Hannah Fry, Mark Puente, Soumya Karlamangla and Laura J. Nelson contributed to this report.
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