Can Large Cruise Ships be Safely Evacuated in Case of Emergency?

It’s a nagging question with no reassuring answers. Our cruise ship injury attorneys note that the Costa Concordia disaster shows us that cruise ship passengers could be just as vulnerable today in the event of a major emergency as they were 100 years ago when the Titanic went down in the Atlantic Ocean.

• Some of the issues affecting passenger safety in case of a cruise ship emergency include:
• The sheer size of some of the biggest cruise ships that hold upwards of 4,000 passengers, crew, and staff.
• The inability to conduct actual emergency and evacuation drills. Safety precautions might be limited to watching a video, much as one does upon a passenger jet flight.
• The difficulty of safely and rapidly evacuating elderly or disabled passengers from a cruise ship coping with an emergency.
• The challenge of training crewmembers and other staff to safely and rapidly respond to emergencies and conduct a safe and thorough evacuation.
• The danger when lifeboats are submerged, before they can be lowered and filled, because of a rapidly listing ship.
• The challenge of developing clearly marked exits and evacuation plans on the immense, multi-deck floating cities.
• The dangerous tendency to regard large ships as unsinkable floating hotels.
• The dangers of fire and asphyxiation due to oxygen loss in the enclosed cruise ship environment.

Even the largest cruise ship is but a speck in an ocean. Our cruise ship injury attorneys point out that these ships, despite their awesome immensity, have shown themselves vulnerable to storms, fire, and collision damage just like other ships throughout man’s sea-going history. Designers, engineers, and safety experts use computer modeling and the latest technologies to continually improve cruise ship safety.

The list of challenges above illustrates that it’s not just the presence of advanced safety features that is critical. It’s the ability of passengers and crews to be able to safely and rapidly access and utilize these features in the event of an emergency. Our cruise ship injury attorneys caution that a full complement of the best lifeboats is of no help if the lifeboats are underwater before passengers and crew can reach them.

The cruise industry is currently seeing a downturn in passenger bookings as people reevaluate the safety of cruise ships in light of the Costa Concordia disaster. Lingering questions about whether large cruise ships can be safely evacuated in case of emergency are keeping potential passengers ashore.

The thorny problem of how to quickly and safely evacuate large and diverse groups of people from a sinking ship remains. Our cruise ship injury attorneys suspect that after the shocking example of the Costa Concordia disaster, the cruise industry might not be able to easily calm nagging doubts regarding crewmembers abilities to guide an evacuation or help vulnerable passengers.