Katrina Waste: At least $33,000 per person in cruise ship housing costs

The waste associated with Katrina disaster relief is starting to become mind boggling. Let's look at the $236 million ($192 million contract plus $44 million for certain expenses) FEMA has with Carnival for 3 cruise ships.

A total of four ships are on a 6 month contract from Carnival:

Carnival Cruise Lines has chartered three of its cruise ships to the Military Sealift Command (MSC) on behalf of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for six months as part of Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

The three cruise ships are the Ecstasy, Sensation and Holiday...

...The Ecstasy entered service in 1991, the Sensation in 1993 and the Elation in 1998. All three are sister ships in Carnival's eight-ship, Fantasy-class series. The vessels measure 70,367 gross tons and have a basis-two passenger capacity of 2,052 and a total passenger capacity of 2,606.

The 46,052-ton Holiday entered service in 1985 and has a basis-two passenger capacity of 1,452 and a total passenger capacity of 1,800.

Adding up the passenger capacity of the Ecstasy, Sensation and Holiday one gets a total capacity of 7,012.

Dividing the $236 million by the total passenger capacity of 7,012, one gets a per person cost of $33,656 for six months!

And as the the New York Times article, Cruise Ships, Spurned by Evacuees, Are Home to Displaced City Workers and Families, notes many evacuees are turning down the offer to temporarily house on the ships. Only 3,700 city workers are being housed on the ships raising the per person cost even higher until full occupancy can be achieved.

Housing vouchers would probably be a cheaper alternative. Heck, at the per person expenditure, some families could event buy a house outright by pooling their per person expenditure!