Violent winds swept the ocean, and waves thundered to shore, shaking the lookout tower at Pea Island Rescue Station. Surfman Theodore Meekins was on watch that evening of 11 October 1896. A hurricane had struck the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and the tide was so strong that beach patrols had been canceled. Still, Meekins paid close attention to the horizon. This was the type of weather that could blow ships hundreds of miles off course. Offshore, the ship E.S. Newman was caught in the storm. The captain, whose wife and child were on the ship, feared the Newman would soon break up. He made the decision to beach his ship, then fired a signal, praying that someone onshore would see it. Meekins, whose eyes were trained to cut through rain and surf mists, thought he saw the signal, but so much spray   covered the lookout windows that he could hardly make sure. Still, he took no chances. After summoning   the station keeper, Captain Richard Etheridge, Meekins set off a coston signal, a signal made by using lamps of different colors. Together, the two men searched the darkness for a reply. A few moments later, they saw a flash of light to the south and knew a shop was in distress  . Even before the return signal burned out, Etheridge had summoned his men and begun rescue operations. For the lifesavers, the rescue of the Newman was nothing unusual. Over the years, so many ships had off the Outer Banks that sailors called the region the Graveyard of the Atlantic. Noting the dangerous surf and wind conditions, Captain Etheridge quickly decided the surf boats would be impossible to control. Instead, he decided to use another way to help the survivors. The crew set off on the long journey down the beach to the scene of the wreck  . Captain Etheridge hoped to fire a line from a gun to the ship's mast  . After the ship's crew dragged the line onboard, the surfmen would fire a second line and carry survivors safely to shore. The surfmen crossed three miles of sand to reach the ship Newman. The water was freezing, and the men often sank up to their knees in sand. Captain Etheridge noted in his diary that "the voice of gladdened hearts greeted the arrival of the station crew," but that "it seemed impossible for them to do anything under such circumstances. The work was often stopped by the sweeping current." Even when the rescue equipment proved useless, Etheridge refused to give up. Choosing two of his strongest surfmen, he tied rope lines around their waists and sent them into the water. The two men, holding a line from shore, walked with huge effort as far as they could before diving through the waves. Nearly worn out while swimming against the tide, they finally made it to the shore. The first to be rescued were the captain's wife and child. With the two passengers tied to their backs, the surfmen fought their way back to shore. Taking turns, Etheridge and his crew made ten trips to the Newman, saving every person onboard. It was 1:00 a.m. when the crew and survivors finally made it back to the station. That night, as the exhausted survivors lay sleeping and his lifesaving crew rested, Captain Etheridge picked up his pen, and in the light of an oil lantern, wrote with satisfaction that all the people onboard had been saved and were "sheltered in this station"--words he would remember for many years to come. What was the author's main purpose in writing the passage?
To warn sailors of the dangers of hurricanes. To create a story describing a rescue at sea. To inform people about Richard Etheridge. To record the details about the Newman.