Colleen Jenkins News

In the small city of Houma, Louisiana, about an hour southwest of New Orleans, volunteer rescue workers with a “Cajun Navy” group struggled in the wee hours of Monday to navigate streets strewn with trees toppled by Hurricane Ida's ferocious winds.The group had sped down from Lafayette after getting reports of people trapped by the fierce storm's floodwaters. Rob Gaudet, a 52-year-old software developer from Baton Rouge, fielded dozens of distress calls about hard-hit communities."If they can get on the roof, that’s better.

U.S. investigators stood in silence for 33 seconds on Friday as they concluded the public phase of a probe into the sinking of the El Faro cargo ship during a 2015 hurricane, recognizing each crew member aboard who died. The Coast Guard's Marine Board of Investigation, convened for the most serious accidents, heard two weeks of testimony in the last of a series of hearings on the worst disaster involving a U.S.-flagged vessel in more than three decades. Captain Jason Neubauer, the panel's chairman, said it had collected sufficient evidence for a forthcoming analysis.

The U.S. investigation into the deadly sinking of a cargo ship during a 2015 hurricane entered its final hearing on Monday, with ship conditions probed at the start of two weeks of testimony set to examine new detail on El Faro's last hours. The Coast Guard's Marine Board of Investigation, convened only for the most serious accidents, is looking for evidence of negligence or misconduct in the worst disaster involving a U.S.-flagged vessel in more than three decades. All 33 crew onboard died when the 790-foot (241-meter) El Faro sank during a hurricane on Oct. 1, 2015, two days after leaving Jacksonville, Florida on a cargo run to Puerto Rico.

President Barack Obama and state governors on Wednesday urged millions of people along the U.S. Southeast coast to evacuate and prepare for Hurricane Matthew as the potentially devastating storm took aim at Florida. Matthew, currently pummeling the Bahamas and the fiercest Caribbean storm in nearly a decade, was forecast to begin lashing Florida with fierce winds, storm surges and heavy rain late on Thursday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. Federal emergency response teams took positions and stockpiled supplies in Florida…

A shipwreck discovered off the coast of North Carolina is likely one of three Confederate blockade runners known to have been lost in the area, archaeologists said on Monday. The remains of the iron-hulled steamer were located on Feb. 27 near Oak Island. It would be the first Civil War-era vessel found in the area in decades, said the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology. Billy Ray Morris, director of the state's underwater archaeology branch, said he expected to be able to positively identify the 225-foot-long (68-metre) vessel when he leads a dive team to examine it on Wednesday. "To turn up a new wreck is a pretty big deal," he said in a telephone interview, adding sonar images showed the vessel to be largely intact.

The widow of one of the 33 crew members killed when the El Faro sank in a hurricane last fall called on Friday for stricter oversight of decisions by shipping companies and their captains to sail in adverse weather. Rochelle Hamm's husband, 49-year-old Frank Hamm of Baltimore, died on Oct. 1 when the El Faro went down off the Bahamas in the worst cargo shipping disaster involving a U.S.-flagged vessel in more than three decades. The U.S. Coast Guard began hearings this week to investigate the sinking.

The captain of the U.S. cargo ship that sank off the Bahamas in a hurricane last fall, killing all 33 people on board, was responsible for decisions that put the vessel in the path of the storm, a shipping company executive testified on Tuesday. Captain Michael Davidson, a veteran mariner from Maine, was at the helm of the 790-foot (241-meter) El Faro for its doomed cargo run between Florida and Puerto Rico. The ship disappeared on Oct. 1 after he reported losing propulsion and taking on water. U.S.

The U.S. Coast Guard on Monday said its crews had found a body and an empty, heavily damaged lifeboat in their search for the cargo ship El Faro, believed to have sunk after going missing off the Bahamas in Hurricane Joaquin. Rescuers are no longer looking for the ship, which sent a distress call four days ago after getting caught in the powerful storm's ferocious winds and 50-foot seas, Coast Guard Captain Mark Fedor said. He said aircrews continued to search for the missing crew - 28 U.S.

The U.S. Coast Guard now believes that the missing cargo ship El Faro sank after sailing into the path of Hurricane Joaquin in the Bahamas, a spokesman said on Monday. Rescuers continue to search for survivors, said Chief Petty Officer Bobby Nash in Miami. "It's still an active search and rescue," he said.   (Reporting by Colleen Jenkins)

The fate of more than 30 crew aboard a cargo ship that ran afoul of Hurricane Joaquin off the Bahamas was unknown on Friday as the powerful storm battered the island chain for a second day. News of the missing vessel came as forecasters shifted the likely track of the powerful storm further away from the U.S. East Coast, but there were still warnings about the potential for severe flooding in the Carolinas from unrelated heavy rains. A potentially catastrophic Category 4 hurricane on a scale of 1 to 5…

A cruise ship with 172 passengers and crew members suffering from a gastrointestinal ailment caused by norovirus was met by public health officials when it docked in California on Sunday, authorities and Carnival Corp said. The outbreak marks the second time in less than a year that the highly contagious virus has spread on the company's Crown Princess ship, which is part of its Princess Cruises fleet. On the latest trip, the ship carried more than 4,100 people on a cruise that departed nearly a month ago from Los Angeles and included stops in Hawaii and Tahiti.

The first hurricane of the Atlantic season gained strength on Thursday is expected to attain Category 2 status as it reaches the North Carolina coast, where thousands of vacationers scrubbed their July Fourth holiday plans amid evacuation orders. Hurricane Arthur was about 110 miles (175 km) south-southwest of Cape Fear, North Carolina, with current maximum sustained winds of 90 miles per hour (145 km per hour), U.S. forecasters said. Moving faster at 10 mph (17 kph), the center…

A cruise ship returning to New York from the Caribbean with 4,500 passengers on board had to be towed into port on Sunday after getting stuck in the Hudson River, the U.S. Coast Guard said. The Norwegian Cruise Line ship was moored in the river for about three hours due to problems with its steering and propulsion systems as it moved toward its dock in Manhattan, a Coast Guard spokesman said. The Coast Guard was able to tug the vessel to port after the tide changed, the spokesman said. The ship, called the Norwegian Breakaway, docked at about 10 a.m.

A deep-ocean exploration company is seeking to recover a lucrative haul of gold aboard the shipwreck of the SS Central America, nearly 160 years after it sank off the coast of South Carolina in a 1857 hurricane. The 280-foot (85 meters) sidewheel steamship carried as much as 21 tons of gold ingots, freshly minted gold coins and raw gold from the California mines, as well as the personal wealth and belongings of its 477 passengers, most of whom were lost when the ship sank in September 1857.