Jena McGregor on the FC Now blog asks an interesting question: Where are the cruise ships in the Gulf Coast disaster? She says:
- Maybe they've offered and I've missed it. Maybe it's geographically or physically impossible to make it happen. But an offer from a cruise ship company to take the folks in the Superdome out into the Gulf of Mexico for a few days sounds like both a way to get thousands of people out of the misery of that area and -- while I don't mean this opportunistically in any way -- a PR gold mine.
I'm guessing that it was a physical impossibility, what with a Category 5 storm in the area, to position ships nearby before or during the storm. And, as one commenter pointed out, they probably don't have "spare" ships hanging around. Then again, if they can be brought in to house Superbowl overflow, now that the storm has cleared, they might be able to do something to help. But it would cost them a fortune to take the ships out of general circulation and feed everyone for free.
Then again, I hear the Astrodome is taking in refugees, and my guess is that now we're just starting to see the waves of help arrive for those in hard-hit areas. I just hope that it lasts as long as people are going to need it—I'm hearing it could be anywhere from a month to a year before New Orleans is fully operational again, and the lack of info about Biloxi and other areas outside of NOLA is a worrisome.