The "Empress"s safety features included ten watertight bulkheads which divided the hull into eleven compartments which could be sealed off through the means of closing twenty-four watertight doors. All eleven bulkheads extended from the double bottom up to directly beneath the Shelter Deck, equivalent to three decks above the waterline. By design theory, the vessels could remain afloat with up to two adjacent compartments open to the sea. However, what would prove to be the fatal flaw in her design in 1914 was that, unlike aboard where the watertight doors could be closed by the means of a switch on the ship's bridge, the watertight doors aboard "Empress of Ireland" were required to be closed manually. Also, in the wake of the "Titanic" disaster, "Empress of Ireland", like many other liners, had her lifesaving equipment updated. When she first entered service in 1906, she had been equipped with standard wooden lifeboats, which in 1912 were replaced with sixteen steel lifeboats mounted in traditional radial davits, under which were stored another twenty-six wooden collapsible lifeboats, all of which combined had a capacity of 1,686 persons, 280 more than the ship was licensed to carry.