New Orleans Cruise Ship Parking (flood)

Does anyone have any information on the condition of the parking lot at Tchoupitoulas and Melpomene? I was wondering if I should worry about trying to get down to N.O. at some time to see if my vehicle was intact. Thanks, Jack My email jbbrenemen@netscape.net

Don't think you could retrieve it now if you wanted to.

Have you tried the port hotline?

All in-coming access into New Orleans and the Port is now closed due to the condition of the city. Guests that parked at the pier in New Orleans will not be able to access their cars for an undetermined period and there is a complete assessment of the area. The Port of New Orleans hotline (1-866-476-7866) will provide updated information about access to the port area as it becomes available.

There was a post on the Carnival cruise board that Carnival had told people that it might be weeks before people could get back into New Orleans and pick up cars that were left in the port before their cruise. As the above poster mentioned the city is supposed to be sealed off (although if you have press credentials you can sure get in) and I doubt the police and national guard on the bridges and highways would allow you to go in to retrieve a car.

I have a silly question. I wonder if your insurance would cover a rental car until your car could be recovered. It might be worth a call to your insurance agent to see what he or she would say.

Have a great next cruise (hopefully better than one that left you without a car).

Just wondering how everyone got home since they were re-routed to another port?

We rented a car in Houston and drove back to Jackson, MS. Some passengers stayed an extra night on the ship, others got their flights changed, and I'm afraid some passengers may have had some problems with lack of funds, lack of credit cards, etc. (I overheard these conversations while in the two hour long customs line. three hours for some.:)

I was on my honeymoon and had plans and reservations in biloxi for that Sunday night and from there we were going to Daulphin Island. Well, that didnt happen. We instead caught a bus that Carnival provided to Houston and flew back into Birmingham and had someone pick us up there (Our final destination was Montgomery, Alabama).

I have a silly question. I wonder if your insurance would cover a rental car until your car could be recovered. It might be worth a call to your insurance agent to see what he or she would say.

I suspect the answer might be "uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I dunno"

However, I see little difference between you being denied usage because the car was stolen and not yet recovered and/or denied usage because the city won't let you reclaim? Perhaps it was stolen? Especially if they find it in the Mississippi River?

I assume it is your automobile insurance, of which you speak? Do you have full coverage or minimum liability?

No, I am not a liar, er laywer and/or insurance type person.

Not a silly question at all.

I have a car parked since Aug 21 at the garage that we were directed to use for the Conquest cruise. Since the phone there rings and doesn't answer, or at the NO Police Dept:confused: I found the e-mail address of the La Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Preparedness. I got a reply in about 4 hours:o. My answer was, "Its not possible now to access the area and it stands a good chance of being vandalized by the people who took up residence in the convention center". My insurance man said that since we don't know the condition that we can't make any kind of claim now. So we are on our own.:eek:

I have a car parked since Aug 21 at the garage that we were directed to use for the Conquest cruise. Since the phone there rings and doesn't answer, or at the NO Police Dept:confused: I found the e-mail address of the La Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Preparedness. I got a reply in about 4 hours:o. My answer was, "Its not possible now to access the area and it stands a good chance of being vandalized by the people who took up residence in the convention center". My insurance man said that since we don't know the condition that we can't make any kind of claim now. So we are on our own.:eek:

Sorry to hear that. :(

Has anyone seen any pictures from the helicoper of the port that would know if that area flooded?

Here is a link to a map which shows the elevations. Since I am not familiar with the port I don't know where it is in relation to the levees.

http://www.gnocdc.org/

This image shows the parking area. If you enlarge it you might be able to pick out your car.

http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24441128.jpg

In general the areas of New Orleans closest to the Mississippi River are also the highest. New Orleans does NOT drain into the Mississippi River. It drains into Lake Pontchartrain (or vice versa in the case of Hurricane Katrina). I do not remember seeing any pictures or video of the cruise ship area, but it is very close to the Convention Center, which has been shown numerous times on TV. It doesn't mean that your car did or didn't get flooded, but I think your car had a good chance of surviving the storm.

Here's a link to another "flood map" of New Orleans. I haven't tried it, but every source gives you a little more info.... http://mapper.cctechnol.com/

Good luck!!!

Note: We just returned home yesterday afternoon (we live 7 miles west of New Orleans airport) and we only had minor damage to the house, no water, etc.

Regards,

Dave

I think threats to the cars in that area are mostly from vandals, which could be substantial.

The Convention Center was one of the dry areas where people were evacuated to.

There is no ground floor parking in Fulton Street garage so no flooding affecting cars there, but I imaging refugees found it preferable to some of the other shelters.

My van is also still in NO after our Aug 27-Sept 1 cruise. I was told by a member of the Port Management that Fulton did not flood but not sure about the looters. My insurance isn't sure what to do yet. They thought it could be handled as a stolen vehicle but I question what happens if in 6 weeks we can retrieve it. The answer "I just don't know yet". We'll have to wait it out a little longer.

Next cruise most likely won't be hurricane season. :)

" We saw workers stealing trucks, buses, moving vans, semi-trucks and any car that could be hotwired. All were packed with people trying to escape the misery New Orleans had become."

http://www.emsnetwork.org/artman/publish/article_18427.shtml

When I read this story it brought to mind that the local authority probably caused a lot of their own problems by their actions.

We rented 2 vehicles out of Galveston, TX to get home. We originally had heard that all the rental cars were taken and when I called about flights they only had 1 left. With 11 of us trying to get home we decided to take the greyhound home. When we got to the bus station the doors were locked. I decided to call to see about renting a bus or a large van. They told us they had a mini van and and SUV just come back so we decided to do that. We fit 11 people in 2 vehicles. It was a cramped 14 hour drive back to Jackson,TN. We contacted the insurance company about the situation and the first day they gave us the run around. Which I will give them the benifit of the doubt that they had never been in this situation before. But that following Tuesday the verdict was that they would not pay for a rental car. They said we didn't have a claim. We don't know if there is any damage or not. Who knows how long it will be before we'll be able to go back to NO to even see if we have any damage.

Has anyone checked to see if Travel Insurance will cover the vehicles?

Deb

We rented 2 vehicles out of Galveston, TX to get home. We originally had heard that all the rental cars were taken and when I called about flights they only had 1 left. With 11 of us trying to get home we decided to take the greyhound home. When we got to the bus station the doors were locked. I decided to call to see about renting a bus or a large van. They told us they had a mini van and and SUV just come back so we decided to do that. We fit 11 people in 2 vehicles. It was a cramped 14 hour drive back to Jackson,TN. We contacted the insurance company about the situation and the first day they gave us the run around. Which I will give them the benifit of the doubt that they had never been in this situation before. But that following Tuesday the verdict was that they would not pay for a rental car. They said we didn't have a claim. We don't know if there is any damage or not. Who knows how long it will be before we'll be able to go back to NO to even see if we have any damage.

Melissa,

I have some info to share with you. Please email me at mom2megz@yahoo.com

Melissa,

I have some info to share with you. Please email me at mom2megz@yahoo.com

I just did!!!!

This site may allow you to contact someone in New Orleans that may be able to let you know when you can gain access to your vehicles...

http://www.ucno.org/govt.html

good luck

Did any one get their car from the parking garage yet?

I just got a letter from a Louisiana police officer who also had his car parked at the terminal parking garage; apparently he was on a cruise also. According to the letter, nearly all of the cars were vandalized. Just to be of assistance, he wrote down the license plate numbers of some 200 cars and sent out the letters from that.

I already made a claim with my ins. co. a few weeks ago, so I guess I'll update them with this new information. I still haven't been able to get any word on when the area will be open for retrieval.

I received a letter also from the Police Officer. What a great guy he is to go to the lengths he went to!

We went last weekend for our car but couldn't get it started no matter what we tried. It was towed on Tuesday to a Ford Service Center in Metarie.

Not sure about the next few days but last week we were able to get a pass from Homeland Security to retrieve our car. There's a post on the New Orleans board on "Get a Pass into NOLA".

Good luck!

The Port of New Orleans has posted the status of remaining vehicles in the Tchoupitoulas surface parking lot, the Fulton St. Garage, the Poydras Street surface lot, and the Delta Queen parking garage:

http://www.portno.com/cruisealert.htm

Just thought some of the people with vehicles in the parking lots in NOLA would find this interesting. Some of our friends that parked at the Poydras St parking lot went to pick up their vehicle Friday evening and to their surprise it wasn't as bad as they had expected. On http://www.portno.com it said that it was broken into and had been attempted to be hot wired. Well, they said it didn't look broken into but just beaten by the storm. There was no damage to the ignition and her purse was still in the vehicle in plain view. Everything was still in her purse. We haven't gone to retrieve ours yet but I can only hope that we have as much luck as they did.