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Captain Humphreys' first-hand look at Hurricane Katrina

Images captured from a video that was filmed during Hurricane Katrina.

     Linea Peninsular made its first voyage between Port Bienville (45 miles east of New Orleans) and Progreso, Mexico on February 14, 1984.  Port Bienville remained Linea Peninsular’s  home port for the next twenty-one years, during which time our ships made more than two thousand roundtrips to Progreso, Mexico  without incident, until Monday, August 29, 2005, when Hurricane Katrina destroyed the port and its infrastructure in less than six hours; we were out of business.
      
     I was onboard one of our ships in Port Bienville when Hurricane Katrina came ashore, the eye passed over the port, 30 minutes later, a 20 foot surge rolled several hundred containers, flooded four warehouses, destroyed our equipment, and dumped 1,000 tons of swamp trash.  Fortunately, the three Linea Peninsular ships that were berthed in Port Bienville survived and were undamaged- the result of remarkable seamanship by our three captains, that I was privileged to witness.    

     A day later, I managed to pass a message through one of our ships at sea to my son, who had evacuated to Dallas. The following afternoon David Jr. landed (together with my wife and two dogs) in a small charter plane at an abandoned runway 20 miles from Port Bienville. The ship’s officers and  crew helped wrap our salvaged computer servers in blankets, put them on a   pickup truck and then to the plane. Two hours later we landed in Panama City, Florida.

     Next day M.V. Campeche Bay and M. V. Kopersand, the two ships coming from Progreso that had been following a couple hundred miles behind  Hurricane Katrina, berthed at the Port of Panama City – three days behind schedule; we were back in business.

To request a DVD of the video shot by Captain Humphreys during Hurricane Katrina, please e-mail us at usoffice@lineaships.com with your name, address, company, and contact information.