Cruise Ship Incident

[JWBear]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

Which supports what that message board post said, that they didn't call muster (the only way to get a head count). That does seem a tad irresponsible. What with crew giving out hugs, and no call for emergency procedures, it seems that someone thought "avoiding panic" was more important than taking safety precautions. When, in fact, taking safety precautions and relying on the kinds of emergency procedures that we're all programmed to follow from school age is exactly what prevents panic.

It seems to me that the officers on the bridge where probably preoccupied with figuring out what happened, and making sure the ship was still seaworthy - their primary responsibilities.

As far as emergency procedures… they were followed, and avoiding a panic is one of the things the crew is trained to do. No one wants a ship full of panicked passengers. Things would have gotten real ugly. From all accounts, the crew performed admirably.

I also want to throw a little reality check in to all of this. The ship only listed 15 degrees. I’m sorry, but that’s not really very much. In the days before stabilizers, passenger liners would routinely roll that much or more. In heavy weather, the Queen Mary could roll as much as 30 degrees to either side – back and forth – for hours! Very few people were injured because the interiors were designed for this. Things were bolted down. There were handrails. Shop displays were glued down. Etc.

I blame the injuries on the failure of modern cruise ship interior to realize that these are ships, first and foremost, not hotels. Nothing that floats remains rock steady – ever.