By David Williams, CNN
The Carnival Glory cruise ship will house hospital staff, first responders and other emergency workers in New Orleans to help with recovery efforts after Hurricane Ida.
The cruise line announced Monday that it had made an agreement with the city and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide the ship through September 18.
Glory arrived at the Port of New Orleans on Friday, underwent the required US Coast Guard inspection and began bringing aboard the food, water and other supplies needed for up to 2,600 people, Carnival said in a news release.
The ship will remain in the port to provide emergency housing for Ida response workers in the city.
Ida made landfall as an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane on Sunday, August 29, near Port Fourchon, Louisiana, about 100 miles south of New Orleans. It had maximum sustained winds of 150 mph, the National Hurricane Center said.
The deadly storm caused widespread devastation along the Gulf Coast before it swept into the Northeast causing tornadoes and deadly flash flooding. More than 322,000 customers in Louisiana still did not have power as of Wednesday morning, according to PowerOutage.us.
Carnival canceled Glory’s upcoming cruise, which was scheduled to depart from New Orleans on September 12, the company said. It had already canceled the ship’s September 5 departure.
“While we want to provide the city of New Orleans with an economic boost by restarting guest operations, we want to first provide this critical housing support to address emergency needs and to get power restored to the region,” Carnival Cruise Line President Christine Duffy in the statement.
Carnival Glory plans to resume its guest operations with a cruise to the Eastern Caribbean scheduled to depart New Orleans on September 19.
The-CNN-Wire
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