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Ecstasy wants to go cruising.
Cruise ship drifts away from its mooring down Mississippi
05:29 PM CST on Saturday, February 11, 2006
WWLTV.com
The cruise ship that many New Orleans police officers have called home since hurricane Katrina drifted from its mooring and into the Mississippi River early Saturday morning.
Many of the passengers living on the Carnival Ecstasy said the experience was like something out of a movie.
One passenger, Trayton Williams, said he got a Saturday morning wake up call that he wasn't expecting.
"About 5:30, 5:45 this morning I hear a siren or a horn through the speakers and I open the door and see people running," said Williams.
The Carnival Ecstasy houses mostly police officers and their families.
Williams said that after the siren stopped, someone came over the cruise ship's loud speaker.
"The next minute I heard on the speaker to grab your life vest and report to the safety level. Honestly, the movie Titanic, that ran through my mind," Williams said.
At the time the ship's passengers woke to sirens, the Ecstasy had somehow left the dock at the Poland Avenue Warf near the 9th Ward, and was drifting down the Mississippi River.
Coast guard officials said a port pilot was the first to notice.
"The vessel only traveled less than a mile as it crossed the river," said Petty Officer Kyle Niemi.
No one was hurt in the incident, but some of the ship's crew feared that the ship could take the same course of action as the ship that slammed into the river walk in 1996.
Other passengers said they feared that the ship could hit another vessel, but fortunately that didn't happen either.
"Thankfully there wasn't a whole lot of traffic on the river at that time. Crews on board were able to get it to anchor about 300 feet off of the west bank," said Officer Niemi.
Civilian tug boats helped steer the ship safely back into place at the Warf.
The incident was unsettling for some of the passengers who have been living on the boat since October.
"This is the second incident and we're ready to get off, but a lot of people don't have anywhere to go," Williams said.
Coast guard investigators are still working to find the reason the ship got loose.
The ship did not sustain any damage.
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