"The situation is under control..."

I just read an article about the Costa Concordia cruise ship, which slammed into rocks off Italy’s Tuscan coast near the tiny island of Giglio on Friday, January 13, with 3,200 passengers and 1,000 crew members aboard, tearing a huge hole in its hull and capsizing.

As of January 23, the bodies of 14 passengers and one crew member have been recovered from the ship – which is owned and operated by a subsidiary of Carnival Cruise Lines – and at least 17 people are still missing.

One account had the gash in the ship’s hull at 160 feet long; another claimed it was 230 feet. I read at one website that 17 people are missing; another source claims it’s 19. I’ve heard that the captain, 52-year-old Francesco Schettino – a husband and father – was flirting on the bridge with a young, blond Moldovan dancer named Domnica Cemortan (with whom he had earlier had dinner and drinks) and was distracted; another account had him steering manually while drunk in order to get close enough to the island to “salute” a retired ship captain who lived there.

One thing is clear: the guy’s a piece of sh*t.

He’s currently under house arrest in Naples as investigators determine whether or not he should be charged with manslaughter, abandoning ship and causing a shipwreck. He says he “tripped into a lifeboat” and then coordinated the rescue operation from aboard the lifeboat and then from the shore. Witnesses say he panicked and deserted the capsizing vessel while hundreds of passengers were still desperately trying to get off.

There are a few things I don’t understand about this:

• Why, if 4,200 human beings were all floating on the same big vessel, there were no drills, no procedures in place in case the need for evacuation arose? In amateur video footage taken by a passenger, it’s clear that no one knew what the situation was in spite of someone on the intercom insisting that “the situation is under control" and everybody should remain calm and move to their muster stations. (I had to look “muster” up; turns out it means, perhaps fittingly, “to round up livestock.”)

• If a ship is so large, expensive – the Costa Concordia is worth an estimated $570 million – and computerized that it boasts 13 decks, 1,500 cabins, a spa, fitness center and gym, four swimming pools, five restaurants, 13 bars, a three-level casino, theater and disco and an Internet café, why is a lone individual even able to turn off automatic systems and manually bring the vessel so close to the shore than it runs aground? Shouldn’t alarms sound and software programs override manual efforts and GPS systems warn of impending doom?

• In this day and age, when there are more public relations experts, legal advisors and image counselors per square mile than there are cornstalks in a cornfield, why would a major corporation contact accident survivors to quiz them about nightmares and insomnia and offer a 30 percent discount on their next cruise, as representatives of the cruise operator allegedly did?

• Why was a 952-feet-long ship with 17 double-lined fuel tanks carrying half a million gallons of fuel allowed to veer off course in a protected, seven-island marine park? I’m glad that oil barriers have been laid to protect marine life and the pristine waters – which are prime fishing grounds and a protected area for dolphins and whales – but officials acknowledge that some environmental contamination has already occurred (besides the fuel, there are tons of diesel and lubricants on board as well as chlorine and cleaning chemicals) and it’s doubtful that the fuel-removal operation won’t result in additional pollution.

So much loss – all because of one irresponsible jackass.

Friends and family members have gone on cruises but I never have. I always think of poor Leslie Nielsen, Roddy McDowall, Stella Stevens, Shelley Winters and the others fighting to get up to the bottom of their capsized cruise ship in The Poseidon Adventure (the 1972 original, not the crappy 2005 made-for-TV remake). And I still haven’t gotten over Jack Dawson losing Rose Bukater, the love of his life, and life itself – along with 1,517 others – when the Titanic went down back in April of 1912.

It’s even worse when I realize the Titanic tragedy was real. And now they’re pulling bodies from the Costa Concordia.

Since roughly 12 million Americans take cruises each year, I’m pretty sure no one will notice if I do the landlubber thing.

According to Wikipedia, the name Concordia was intended to express the wish for "continuing harmony, unity, and peace between European nations.” Since the missing include French passengers, an elderly American couple, a Peruvian crew member, an Indian crewman and an Italian father and his five-year-old daughter, there’s definitely international unity going on here in the sense that diverse countries are being united by loss and grief.

The lawyers are going to be pretty busy.


Photos courtesy Getty Images.

Sources: Newsday.com, Daily Mail, BBC World News, ABCNews.com.