Costa Concordia Runs Aground / Deaths Reported

[MCourtney]

Almost 24 hours after the accident they have found a young couple alive in their cabin. They were on their honeymoon. Good news amongst tragedy.

That is great news ! What a terrible honeymoon. Though, I am wondering if they are going to get a special delivery 9 months from now? (hey it's what I would do)

 

[Silverfox97]

Do not judge people who made choices they felt were right for them at that moment until you have lived through a tragedy of your own.

And if you don't think it was that bad of a situtation (because the boat didn't fully sink):
"We were crawling up a hallway, in the dark, with only the light from the life vest strobe flashing," her mother, Georgia Ananias, 61 said. "We could hear plates and dishes crashing, people slamming against walls."

She choked up as she recounted the moment when an Argentine couple handed her their 3-year-old daughter, unable to keep their balance as the ship lurched to the side and the family found themselves standing on a wall. "He said 'take my baby,'" Mrs. Ananias said, covering her mouth with her hand as she teared up. "I grabbed the baby. But then I was being pushed down. I didn't want the baby to fall down the stairs. I gave the baby back. I couldn't hold her.

"I thought that was the end and I thought they should be with their baby," she said.

"I wonder where they are," daughter Valerie whispered.

Oh. My. Goodness. I cannot even imagine the sheer terror I would feel. The thing my DH & I want to do is keep our DD4 safe 100% of the time. There is a huge pit in my stomach.

I know. I keep thinking about how I'd handle this with my 4 year old son. Just terrifying.

Yep, terrifying. I agree.

 

[insureman]

Does anyone know if the safes work if the power goes out? My thoughts would be to get to the cabin asap, grab passport and meds (which would be in safe), life jacket and then get out. Looking at the pics of the Costa ship, the lights went out in the cabins midship pretty early on (before it went sideways).

Hence my power/safe question.

Although if I'm stuck in the Bahamas for an extra week, it wouldn't be terrible...

Please do not worry about getting things out of your stateroom except life preservers. This is an emergency situation and whatever stuff you need to get is only stuff and stuff can be replaced but you and your family cannot. I have been at one too many fires as a Red Cross volunteer where someone goes back in the house to get their "stuff" and they don't come out.

 

[extechie rbd/wdt]

You rock! Thanks!!!

Should have added that info about the safe and Stateroom door lock is for the Magic Class. I do not know about the Dream class, but I would suspect it is the same regarding the Safe.

Ex Techie

 

[mellers]

Obviously right now is too soon but I wish DCL would make some type of announcement or maybe add a web page that explained their safety measures. Not necessarily as a knock aimed at Costa but just something to make us feel safter. Yes, we like to assume DCL has higher standards but you know what happens when you assume.

This page is quoted out page 83 of the Birnbaum Guide's 2012 Disney Cruise Line:

"FYI: The Disney Cruise Line safety drill has been rated number one by the United States Power Squadrons, a nonprofit organization dedicated to making boating as safe as possible. Good to know!"

In light of the Costas disaster, yes it is. Very.

However, I agree with Ex Techie--they need to return to the life jackets on the drill. There are too many people who won't know how to put them on in an emergency.

 

[lbgraves]

My thoughts would be to get to the cabin asap, grab passport and meds (which would be in safe), life jacket and then get out.

The last thing I am going to worry about in this situation will be our passports or anything else in the room for that matter. There are life jackets at the muster stations. In this case the stairwells were dangerous, and having to go through them twice would be unnecessary -- as well as could result in confusion. If you are in a safe place [i.e. your muster station] stay there.

Please do not worry about getting things out of your stateroom except life preservers. This is an emergency situation and whatever stuff you need to get is only stuff and stuff can be replaced but you and your family cannot. .

Unfortunately, you don't appreciate the feeling behind this until you go through a life or death situation. Before that you do worry about the things. I used to do the same thing until Irene. Now I know that all I really need are my kids & husband to continue. It's a different kind of inner peace.

 

[MCourtney]

The article I just read said that because the Costa ship has passengers embark & disembark at each port, they do the lifeboat drill every 15 days so some passengers may not have had it. The article further says that this was a week long cruise. Hmmm... There is a 8 day difference there.

Article:
http://www2.tbo.com/news/2012/jan/14/12/cruise-ship-runs-aground-italy-3-dead-69-missing-ar-347371/

 

[Miz Diz]

I was afraid I would hear a story like this, I'm not aware of this cruise line and after hearing about the tragedy I was hoping it would be an adults only cruise. (I'm actually crying and choking up myself reading this to my husband)

This cruiseline is owned by Carnival.

So sad. I am in tears reading about all this.

 

[Octoberbride03]

The article I just read said that because the Costa ship has passengers embark & disembark at each port, they do the lifeboat drill every 15 days so some passengers may not have had it.

Link please. I've been wondering about that all day form the stories I've been reading but none of them ever touched on it.

ETA: found the link. missed it the first time i guess.

 

[MCourtney]

The last thing I am going to worry about in this situation will be our passports or anything else in the room for that matter. There are life jackets at the muster stations. In this case the stairwells were dangerous, and having to go through them twice would be unnecessary -- as well as could result in confusion. If you are in a safe place [i.e. your muster station] stay there.



Unfortunately, you don't appreciate the feeling behind this until you go through a life or death situation. Before that you do worry about the things. I used to do the same thing until Irene. Now I know that all I really need are my kids & husband to continue. It's a different kind of inner peace.

Lived through Andrew - with my passport intact - which respectfully was a Cat 5.

 

[truck1]

They were also being held from being able to evacuate the ship, this is absolutly unthinkable that in this day and age we would learn from history and learn it is better to be safe than sorry:

crew members for a good 45 minutes told passengers there was a simple "technical problem" that had caused the lights to go off.

crew members delayed lowering the lifeboats even thought the ship was listing badly, they said.

"We had to scream at the controllers to release the boats from the side," said Mike van Dijk, a 54-year-old from Pretoria, South Africa. "We were standing in the corridors and they weren't allowing us to get onto the boats. It was a scramble, an absolute scramble."

Apparently some of there crew members were trained properly and remembered there training.
There may have been a reason for not launching. Lifeboats can only be lowered in a specific profile. If he ship is still moving for example, then lifeboats have a bad habit of being dragged along the side of the ship, and turning over creating more problems. Without knowing when this issue occured, I am only speculating as to reason.(I am not denfending Costa or their crews just pointing out reasons) But there are legit reasons for lifeboats not to be launched even thought passengers think they should.

 

[Yokelridesagain]

Lived through Andrew - with my passport intact - which respectfully was a Cat 5.

If indeed there were Category 5 winds associated with Andrew (none were reliably measured; the storm was 'uprgraded' to a Category 5 more than a decade after it happened), they occurred only on a small section of the coast. Most of the Miami area experienced Category 3 or 4 winds with Andrew...not to say those winds weren't bad.

 

[Bear3412]

Re Evacuation

With aircraft they do use real people, fill the plane, or mock up, and try to evac. within a certain amount of time. Albeit in perfect conditions for humans, and often indoors.
Anyone know whether they do this with cruise ships? A real test with a full load? Ever?

And the time slot for the required muster drill can vary depending on length of cruise? First time I heard that one. True?

 

[MCourtney]

If indeed there were Category 5 winds associated with Andrew (none were reliably measured; the storm was 'uprgraded' to a Category 5 more than a decade after it happened), they occurred only on a small section of the coast. Most of the Miami area experienced Category 3 or 4 winds with Andrew...not to say those winds weren't bad.

Hurricane Andrew of 1992 caused unprecedented economic devastation along its path through the Bahamas, southeastern Florida, and Louisiana. Damage in the United States was estimated to be about $26 billion, making Andrew the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history. This hurricane struck southern Dade County, Florida, with an intensity assessed back in 1992 as a Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, based upon estimated maximum sustained surface winds of 145 mph. Because of a better scientific understanding of the structure of the windfield in the violent eyewall of strong hurricanes, the intensity of Andrew has now been revised upward for five days during its track across the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. Hurricane Andrew of 1992 is now assessed to be a Category 5 - the highest intensity scale possible - at its landfall in southeastern Florida with peak sustained winds of 165 mph. This makes Hurricane Andrew only the third Saffir-Simpson Scale Category 5 hurricane to impact the United States since at least 1900.

Chris Landsea
NOAA Hurricane Research Division
October 2002

 

[lbgraves]

Lived through Andrew - with my passport intact - which respectfully was a Cat 5.

Granted, but you have days to prepare for a hurricane - not minutes or hours -- and the passports do go in the bag that is put in our safe room until the storm passes so that we can grab it quickly if we have to leave, and I have been through many since moving here in 1994. We prepared even though it was supposed to be "just" a Cat 1/2. However, the eye of Irene made landfall here and we had 50-90+ mph winds for over 24 hours, 12 of which I spent in my home with my family after a large tree crashed through half of our home, including both kid's bedrooms, that fell as a result of a tornado that spouted from the wall as it passed very close to our neighborhood, which thank God I heard coming. A Cat 1 with sustained winds for 24 hours equals the damage of a Cat 4. We were not able to leave due to the storm continuing for so long, and would have had to have walked over a mile to get to the main highway, climbing over dozens of trees that blocked the roads along the way, in addition to the downed powerlines and poles. Standing in the doorway of your chidrens' rooms looking at the ceiling, 12 inches of insulation, shingles, 15 inches of rainfall and various other items covering the floor and everything else in the room with a view of the sky that wasn't there the day before, will make you reevaluate how you look at the "stuff" in your life. I used to think that I believed as long as we all survived that's all we needed -- now I know how it feels to really believe that and I thank God every day that my kids were not sleeping in their rooms at the time [8:08 a.m.]. I trust my intuition more than I used to, and so do they. We moved back home days just before Christmas. We are one of the lucky ones in this area. This is the reason I would not tempt fate and return to the stateroom to get our passports.

 

[truck1]

I read elsewhere, and hope that it's a true fact, that the lifeboats on just ONE side of the ship are enough to hold the capacity of all on board.

Looking through earlier pictures though, it does appear that the lifeboats on the side that listed were successfully launched before she rolled.

Here are many more pictures by what appears to be a resident in the town where this happened.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3022776696787.155454.1483816924&type=3

So tragic, my prayers are definitely with those families. What a scary and horrible ordeal to have gone through.

Yes. By maritime law, every ship must carry 100% of its total occupancy on each side. The actual number maybe closer to 150%. I dont remembe off hand, but I do know its at least 100% on each side.

 

[rosermama]

If you are traveling to a foregin county I suggest you practice good habits of copying your passport and leaving it with a family member while you are gone.

This way if you are stuck out of the country and have either lost your passport or worse been through a terrible ordeal where you had to leave your passport, your family can fax this to the state dept which can get you a temp to get you back stateside.

It is just an item which can be replaced.

 

[MCourtney]

Granted, but you have days to prepare for a hurricane - not minutes or hours -- and the passports do go in the bag that is put in our safe room until the storm passes so that we can grab it quickly if we have to leave, and I have been through many since moving here in 1994. We prepared even though it was supposed to be "just" a Cat 1/2. However, the eye of Irene made landfall here and we had 50-90+ mph winds for over 24 hours, 12 of which I spent in my home with my family after a large tree crashed through half of our home, including both kid's bedrooms, that fell as a result of a tornado that spouted from the wall as it passed very close to our neighborhood, which thank God I heard coming. A Cat 1 with sustained winds for 24 hours equals the damage of a Cat 4. We were not able to leave due to the storm continuing for so long, and would have had to have walked over a mile to get to the main highway, climbing over dozens of trees that blocked the roads along the way, in addition to the downed powerlines and poles. Standing in the doorway of your chidrens' rooms looking at the ceiling, 12 inches of insulation, shingles, 15 inches of rainfall and various other items covering the floor and everything else in the room with a view of the sky that wasn't there the day before, will make you reevaluate how you look at the "stuff" in your life. I used to think that I believed as long as we all survived that's all we needed -- now I know how it feels to really believe that and I thank God every day that my kids were not sleeping in their rooms at the time [8:08 a.m.]. I trust my intuition more than I used to, and so do they. We moved back home days just before Christmas. We are one of the lucky ones in this area. This is the reason I would not tempt fate and return to the stateroom to get our passports.

I get your point and maybe I will just carry my passport everywhere I guess I should also waterproof it. Getting out of the Bahamas, probably easy. Getting out of other countries, probably not. Getting out of any issue with Disney behind you, very easy. Other companies? Not.
And yes, most hurricanes you get lots of notice. Andrew however they mistracked it, and Miami only had about 24 hours notice (some less) that a storm was even headed its way. I remember because I was at the Dolphins night time preseason game the night before, and they came across the bigscreen at half time which was the first time any of us knew there was even a storm close by.

You are exactly right about the intuition. Like in this case - go with your gut. Apparently some of the crew said everything is fine.

 

[SoCaOC-Mom]

This cruiseline is owned by Carnival.

So sad. I am in tears reading about all this.

Just so sad for all concerned but as you know being a parent, there isn't a deep fear than our children being in peril and us being helpless to protect them.

 

[TLSnell1981]

It's always good to have a photocopy of your passport. This can easily be carried with you at all times. FWIW, I wouldn't worry about any "thing" in an emergency. The safety of my family would be my ONLY concern.