Why not send cruise ships to New Orleans?

Cruises
It's not quite as simple as just giving up your spot on the cruise. These ships often come into port in the evening and are back out with new people the next day. If the ships are enroute with people already on them, then they have to be displaced somehow. In other words, they either need to continue to where they are heading or turn around and go back to where they left from. Then they would need to be cleaned and resupplied and finally sent out to NOLA. That could take quite a bit of time depending on where they are at the moment.

You also have to remember that there are some 50,000 or so still in New Orleans. This is based on the actual population of almost 485,000 less the roughly 80 percent believed to have evacuated early on and another roughly 50,000 evacuated from the Superdome, convention center and elsewhere. Even large cruise ships hold what.... 3000? That's a lot of ships!

They have to move these people all over the place. I like the idea of bringing them up the cost and spreading them out but I think they need something faster than cruise ships. They need helicopters and transport planes. Then they would be able to move large amounts of people at a time and in a hurry. The problem is they need troops to control the violence because everyone wants to be saved at once. Obviously that would be impossible.

Unfortunately, I think we will end up seeing troops going in for the purpose of organizing these peoples' escapes and quelling violence but there will end up being casualties as a result. I know it's a very desperate situation and that everyone wants help a lot faster than it's been coming but if people are going continue shooting at the rescuers, they will never get out, no matter how many accommodations are made.

what you say logistically makes sense.

and I'm afraid you're right about the casualites......

Re: Why not send cruise ships to New Orleans?

Gus, this is a terrific idea! I hope someone else is thinking along these lines, too!

Anyone know offhand what the population of New Orleans is? Well, where are they going to house these thousands of people while homes are built, or rebuilt? Surely, Houston can't take all these folks in?

I imagine that different areas in different states will have to be found to accomodate the homeless.

Campbell from BC has offered help, too.

Also, the Canadian gov't will be going down to help take out the known 103 Canadians in trouble in the area.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3338616


You know what they say about great minds!

I watched that story last night Phenoix; Isn't it great?

My wife says ships are en route. Thanks Gus, brilliant.

I found the latest (2000) New Orleans population figures. It's

484674

So, how are they going to house that many people until the city is rebuilt?

Houston is taking a lot of people. Where will everybody else go?

I read this morning that as of press time last night refugees had been sent to 19 different states.

Just the paperwork will be horrendous.

I know of families way up here in Washington state that want to take familes in from disaster area to help or resettle.

Seeing that it will take quite some time to rebuild New Orleans, I can't imagine the city will look the same.

What incentive will there be for former residents to move back, especially if you did not own land there?

There are around one million people displaced, according to reports today, across the whole region.
Most of those will have homes damaged or destroyed.

It's one heck of a problem.

Right, so the problem is even worse than I posted. I was mainly focusing on the worst hit region.

If one did not own land there, why would someone move back once the area is rebuilt?

And, if one does own land there, will they be compensated for it if one didn't want to rebuild?

Housing
I saw on the news this morning that temporary housing is being set up on military bases as far away as Massachusetts.

FEMA representatives are also working on getting people emergency debit cards so they can begin buying personal items and get to their families.

There is finally help getting to the people that need it.

I read yesterday the number is a million and a half.

I was thinking- people who got in their cars and drove away, thinking they could maybe check into motel for a few days, maybe a week- this problem is going to compound as people run out of money.

Mess, mess, muddle and mess.

I ache for all those people who had no choice about leaving the flooded city and who can make no plans about returning.

why not cruiseships ?
a/c to news reports there is little likehood of a straight "re-building" of NO.
watched ABC-NEWS news morning where the results of a water test were shown. the water standing in the streets and soaking into the soil has a contamination level several thousands of times that allowed by federal standards . the sampling showed several highly contagious pathogens. the scientist explaining the contamination said that people who have walked through the stew might get sick even months from now.
in some respects the NO flooding might be worse than the chernobyl disaster. it seems to me that parts of NO may not be fit for habitation for a long time to come . there is , of course. also the question if NO can really be protected from strength 4 and 5 hurricanes. hbg


...CONTAMINATION...

I don't get why various sites talk about cholera. You have to have cholera in the population (don't you?) to get it (vibreo comma, I think) in the water. It doesn't just appear in waste contaminated water out of the ether.

Vibrio cholera, they call it -
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/cholera_g.htm#What%20is%20cholera

I don't mean to belittle worrying about the water, but I had seen another site a few days ago that discounted fear of this and some other bacterial diseases.

Rebuilding
There have been some very large rebuilding projects throughout history. I believe that New Orleans and the surrounding areas can be rebuilt. The question would be is it worth rebuilding into what it once was? It will undoubtedly never be the same regardless of the answer.

Some sort of rebuilding will certainly take place since it is one of the largest ports in the world in terms of volumes of cargo passing through it and how critical it has become to our nation's fuel supplies. However, rebuilding a practical cargo port area or a fully functioning, heavily populated, tourist city are completely different things.

To rebuild New Orleans to withstand a category 4-5 hurricane would take incredible feats of engineering, extraordinary funding and a lot of time. If I remember correctly, New Orleans is about eleven feet below sea level and the levees are somewhere around twenty feet. Didn't Katrina cause swells 25' high?

I also read that the pump system still in place today was engineered and installed in the 1910's. I'm pretty sure there may have been some technological advances since then.

I think we will never get to see the New Orleans that once was. Whatever rebuild efforts the area receives, it will never be the same.