Tom Stieghorst
Emergencies never go as planned.
The latest example comes from the report by the National Transportation Safety Board on an engine room fire aboard the Carnival Liberty, which was docked in St. Thomas when the blaze occurred.
Fortunately, no one was injured. Damage to the ship came to about $1.7 million, according to the report.
But the fact that the ship was docked led to a truly confusing situation trying to account for everyone when it had to be evacuated.
The fire broke out at 11:33 a.m. when most of the passengers were ashore. But 541 passengers had remained on the ship. When the captain became concerned about smoke spreading through the vessel, they were evacuated on two gangways, but many did not have their key cards to be scanned by security. Bottlenecks formed, and security couldn't determine how many people had gone off the ship.
When the evacuees were mustered onshore for a head count, some of the passengers who were off the ship had by that time returned and began mingling. Other passengers wilted in the 86-degree heat and began leaving the area without being counted.
It took until nearly midnight for the crew to be sure that all passengers were accounted for, the report said.
As it turns out, there was no written procedure for counting passengers during an emergency evacuation while in port. "Cruise ship crew training and drills commonly focus on a known number of passengers aboard because the assumption is that the ship is at sea," the report said.
It said the ship's command and crew had to adapt to an unfamiliar situation.
The NTSB said a procedure should be developed or improved for accounting for evacuated passengers at port. But no book of procedures can account for every potential complication during an emergency.
Just as important as training in procedures, is training in adapting to unfamiliar situations. The only common element in every emergency at sea is that something somewhere isn't going to go as planned.