Crippled cruise ship reaches San Diego

Crippled cruise ship reaches San Diego
Passengers recount three days at sea without hot food, showers, air conditioning, laundry service or any of the pleasures of a luxury cruise after an engine room fire disables the Carnival Splendor.




By Tony Perry, Richard Marosi and Maria L. La Ganga, Los Angeles Times
November 12, 2010
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Karen Blocker, an early riser, was about to head off for an elegant breakfast of eggs Benedict when the walls of her stateroom aboard a cruise ship bound for the Mexican Riviera began to shake. Then the public address system crackled to life, summoning the crew of the Carnival Splendor to the engine room.

She opened her door onto a smoky hallway. The ship slowed, then stopped. At that point, the 50-year-old human resources manager from Phoenix was certain of just one thing: She had to get out of her room — and fast.

What she did not know until later was that a fire had erupted in the Splendor's aft engine room, rendering the 952-foot vessel with nearly 4,500 passengers and crew members aboard powerless and adrift in the ocean about 150 miles southwest of San Diego.


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On to the admiralty board... and fire, shmire, they had an explosion in that engine room.Ok, technically that includes fire... Which explains why the Mexican Navy sent ALL assets from Ensenada and why we sent a Carrier, and two USCG cutters. I want you to read this, and realize that ship was actually in danger of going down... which WAS in the Mexican press. Yes the Navy down there did release that.

Like all situations, people assumed worst case, and a cruise ship that size... nothing but a Nimitz Class Carrier could receive that many passengers...which was nearby. The Mexican Navy has Navy Troop transports... but not close to the scene. I guess somebody in the Admiralty will consider moving at least one to the Third Naval Zone, or hope we don't have another one of these large ships having what seemed like a critical failure in our lifetime... or at least in their area of responsibility...

In other words, kudos to the crew... they kept people calm and... they really have no idea just how bad it was or why they sent all the damn assets that were sent and why the Carrier trailed them all the way to port.

Oh and that crew kept the ship afloat, though a cryptic note from the Mexican Navy makes all the sense in the world. This WAS a golden PR opportunity, and they were going to load a PIO on one of the choppers, but instead they loaded gear... now it makes sense. They were fully on emergency mode... and closest to the scene. And can you imagine being the Officer of the Day... and receiving that SOS? I don't envy the Officer to be honest. In fact, don't envy the OOD on the USCG station either... or the USN OOD who had to tell the Admiral Sir, we have a major emergency... a cruise ship MIGHT go down.

And yes, at times I wish I did not know how to read tea leaves from emergency scenes...