Topic starter
06/10/2009 4:47 pm
Franz notes that on Oct. 6, 2005 the NATCHEZ returned to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. They had gone upriver to Bayou Goula and later Baton Rouge and Port Allen. They had to wait clearance from the Coast Guard to return, and even then I believe they came in a couple of hours before their official permitted arrival. They stayed in town a couple of weeks to assess the damges to the crew homes and then embarked on the Hurricane Relief tour, which brought them up the Ohio for several weeks. (As it turned out, this was a 'dry run' for the following year when she came back to Cincinnati for the 2006 Tall Stacks.) After returning to Toulouse St. in Nov. 2005, she laid up for several more weeks before starting back up on a very restricted schedule. The NATCHEZ was one of the first, if not the first, big tourist attractions to reopen after Katrina.