Jena McGregor on the FC Now blog asks an interesting question: Where are the cruise ships in the Gulf Coast disaster? She says:

Maybe they’ve offered and I’ve missed it. Maybe it’s geographically or physically impossible to make it happen. But an offer from a cruise ship company to take the folks in the Superdome out into the Gulf of Mexico for a few days sounds like both a way to get thousands of people out of the misery of that area and — while I don’t mean this opportunistically in any way — a PR gold mine.

I’m guessing that it was a physical impossibility, what with a Category 5 storm in the area, to position ships nearby before or during the storm. And, as one commenter pointed out, they probably don’t have “spare” ships hanging around. Then again, if they can be brought in to house Superbowl overflow, now that the storm has cleared, they might be able to do something to help. But it would cost them a fortune to take the ships out of general circulation and feed everyone for free.

Then again, I hear the Astrodome is taking in refugees, and my guess is that now we’re just starting to see the waves of help arrive for those in hard-hit areas. I just hope that it lasts as long as people are going to need it—I’m hearing it could be anywhere from a month to a year before New Orleans is fully operational again, and the lack of info about Biloxi and other areas outside of NOLA is a worrisome.

Go read Patti Digh’s latest 37 Days. She so beautifully sums up what I’m feeling right now, and I suspect many of you are, too, about the horror show that used to be one of the more beautiful places in the U.S.: The Gulf Coast.

Then make a cash donation to the Red Cross. They need blood, too.

Starwood is listing updates on its hotels in Katrina-affected areas.

The Ritz-Carlton, New Orleans, where I spent a wonderful couple of days at an ICPA educational conference a few years back, has this posted on its Web site:

The Ritz-Carlton, New Orleans has been temporarily closed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. No decision can be made on a reopening date until the city of New Orleans is able to restore essential services to its residents, and permitting the assessment and repairs to the hotel – which were not major – to begin. Guests holding reservations will be contacted as soon as possible to assist with other arrangements or for future rebooking. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.

And the one I’m working on now is one of them—contacting meeting organizers to find out what they’re doing with their close-in events in the Gulf Coast. With so much death and destruction, with floodwaters still rising in New Orleans, it almost seems obscene to talk about cancellation insurance, force majeure clauses, and all that. But, since our magazine goes out next week, I’m doing it.

What I’m hearing so far is a big wait and see, though I heard through the grapevine that the Hilton Riverwalk is working to move all its September meetings to other places and/or dates. Most planners can’t even contact their headquarters hotel, while others say their local contacts are fine, but they’ve been evacuated as far away as Texas and Indiana and don’t know much more than the rest of us are getting from the usual news sources.

Contrary to a report in USA Today, which said “the American Society of Anesthesiologists expects to go ahead with its convention scheduled Oct. 22 to 26,” an ASA spokeswoman said that no decision had been made as of yet about its 16,000-attendee meeting because the situation was still “tenuous and unsettled” at its New Orleans locale.

The Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, organized by the American Society for Microbiology and expected to draw 12,000 attendees to the Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, is one of the few close-in meetings that plans to make the call now about whether or not they’re going to cancel their Sept. 21-24 meeting. The PR guy said he’d call to let me know this afternoon, but the smart money has to be on a cancellation or move. I’ll let you know when I hear.

My sister, who had been really looking forward to attending the Association of Pet Dog Trainers 12th Annual Educational Conference and Expo in New Orleans (she runs a most excellent doggy daycare, the The DogPlayce), is making new plans on the assumption that the program is cancelled—which it probably will be, but there’s nothing on their site that mentions anything at this point.

My colleague Mike Bassett has been working overtime on the Katrina damage updates. Here’s one good thing that is coming from so much bad, according to this article he wrote for today’s MeetingsNet Extra e-newsletter:

At 5 p.m. central time yesterday, the Dallas Convention and Visitor Bureau announced that 23 of its city’s hotel were offering reduced room rates for evacuees of the storm, and would extend those rates “as long as it will take for some communities to get utilities and other services in operation,” said Dallas CVB president/CEO Phillip Jones.

In addition, “the bureau is in constant contact with the Hotel Association of Greater Dallas and our member hotels, and we will continue to add their special rates throughout the week,” Jones said. “Our hotels are providing us with their week-by-week availability of room blocks and the Dallas Convention Center and Dallas Market Center are keeping us informed about their availability. We contacted American Airlines, which agreed to not assess destination change fees for group business relocating to Dallas due to Hurricane Katrina.

“In addition, we are actively responding to customer requests about availability and have contacted the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau to let our colleagues know that, where we share clients for meetings scheduled now through future years, we will accommodate them by switching our dates with theirs, based on availability, to enable the city to have adequate ramp-up time for their facilities to be fully functional,” Jones said in the statement. “All of us have friends or family throughout the affected states, and we want to offer our support. The hospitality industry is close–in good times and bad–and it is our intention to assist in whatever way we can.”