Carnival Cruise Line announced Tuesday that one of its ships would dock in New Orleans to house crews working on Hurricane Ida response.
In an agreement with the city and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Carnival Glory will be docked at the Port of New of Orleans before it resumes scheduled cruises Sept. 19.
Carnival said that the Glory will “serve as emergency housing for frontline workers directly involved in the city’s infrastructure recovery and healthcare needs” and that it can house up to 2,600 hospital workers, emergency responders and city, utility and emergency workers.
“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,” Christine Duffy, president of Carnival Cruise Line, said in a news release.
Hurricane Ida came ashore in southern Louisiana as a powerful Category 4 last week. Over a million customers in metro New Orleans were without power.
Ida also forced Carnival Cruise Line to cancel departures, another blow to the industry after nearly two years of difficulties caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
The cruise industry is slowly restarting but with several notable changes, including social distancing.
Despite the new protocols, the ships have not been fully free of Covid-19. Last month, Carnival announced that a former passenger died after having contracted the coronavirus and fallen ill aboard a ship sailing near Belize in July. A week before the passenger’s death, Carnival mandated masks aboard all of its ships.
