New Orleans is a port. Why not evacuate it by boat?

September 3, 2005 12:37 PM

New Orleans is a port. Why not evacuate it by boat?
posted by timeistight to Travel & Transportation around New Orleans, LA (15 answers total)

Because the roads were passable and they chose to not evacuate them that way instead?
posted by cillit bang at 12:47 PM on September 3, 2005

Yeah, really, what gives?
posted by phrontist at 12:48 PM on September 3, 2005

I can think of a few reasons off the top of my head -

Because there are a lot more cars and buses than boats.
Because you'd have to evacuate them *to* somewhere that was also a port, and that somewhere would have to not be in the path of the hurricane, as well.

If you're thinking of the pre-storm evacuation, because the hurricane was coming in from the water, and having thousands of people in boats in a storm is worse than having them on land.

If you're thinking of post-storm evacuation, because the port is largely destroyed and unreachable.
posted by jacquilynne at 12:56 PM on September 3, 2005

I think jacquilynne pretty much nailed this one, but it's worth noting that three cruise ships will be used as temporary shelter for refugees. They'll load up in Galveston, Texas.
posted by Zonker at 1:10 PM on September 3, 2005

I have to admit I'm pretty shocked that Carnival is charging for this as a charter. There's been some discussion of Carnival on this thread in the Blue.
posted by Miko at 2:15 PM on September 3, 2005

Aids to navigation were largely destroyed too. Many if not most boats that would have been close enough to arrive quickly may have be damaged...
posted by flummox at 3:04 PM on September 3, 2005

"been damaged"
posted by flummox at 3:05 PM on September 3, 2005

perhaps katrina knocked out many of the docks and/or made them unaccessible.
posted by ruwan at 3:34 PM on September 3, 2005

Shifts in sandbars...navigable passages may have changed...

This article is about barrier islands that no longer exist.

Many similar changes may have occurred underwater, altering the depth and making previously trafficked routs unnavigable. It will take a while to survey that area and figure out if they're still okay, if they need to be dredged, etc.
posted by Brian James at 4:58 PM on September 3, 2005

Helicopter footage I saw this morning showed small boats swept up into a huge pile on dry land.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 9:35 PM on September 3, 2005

You have a hurricane coming in from the south. The most open water ports are to the south. Would you really want to put as many people as you could on boats?
posted by raaka at 3:21 AM on September 4, 2005

From I-10, I saw a floating drydock with a barge in it up on land. I guess the rest is pretty bad off, too. Plus, the city streets aren't so navigable, mostly. Getting people to the port would be a problem. Like Jacquilynne said.
posted by atchafalaya at 5:03 AM on September 4, 2005

Re pre-storm evacuations: People can cram their cars full of anything they can fit in there. Obviously if they have a few days' warning they're probably going to try to save their photo albums, heirlooms, etc. Going on a boat, they would probably have to severely limit how much luggage they could take, according to how much they could carry plus how many people they expected to be on the boats.
posted by IndigoRain at 10:04 AM on September 4, 2005

I don't mind Carnival charging. 7500 people * 1000 a week = 7.5M a week * 26 weeks = $195M.

That's a fairly small hit for the government but a mind boggling huge one for any company but MS.
posted by effugas at 12:20 PM on September 4, 2005

My problem is with them hemming and hawing. They certainly deserve recompense, but I would be more approving if they had cast the lines off and gotten moving first, and THEN went to the government to have their palms crossed with silver.
posted by Miko at 12:50 PM on September 4, 2005