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You need to look long and hard if you are attempting to find any information about the use of tugboats, towboats or barges in the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. In fact, the only reference to these watercraft noted was in a September 1, 2005 Reuters pool release. It stated "A tugboat pushes barges past an oil refinery in southern Louisiana. Rotting bodies littered New Orleans' streets on Thursday and troops headed in to control looting and violence, as thousands of desperate survivors of Hurricane Katrina pleaded to be evacuated from the flooded city, or even just fed."

All too often the media is charged with slanting its coverage or placing emphasis on the wrong elements of a story. The media is even guiltier of failing to follow up on news elements, or examining them in any depth. One could say those who report for both the print and electronic media are often guilty of the sin of omission.

Reuters was at the very edge of a significant story when it noted a tugboat working its way down the Mississippi River. In the same paragraph it wrote about survivors pleading for evacuation. What it did not do was examine what was happening with all those towboats and tugboats moving past the hurricane damage.

"Like most of the world I watched the unfolding of the hurricane tragedy", says Terry T. Brady of Alaska. He continues, saying "As a former licensed tugboat captain on the Yukon River, I kept watching for the arrival from upriver, of a fleet of towboats and barges bringing supplies into New Orleans and taking people out. I never saw anything moving on the water."

This so concerned Brady that he contacted Michael Titone, President of the Mississippi River Maritime Association who was on the scene in the disaster area. What he learned was neither FEMA nor Homeland Security had ever included in their contingency plans any national emergency provision to utilize the huge tugboat, towboat and barge fleet that operates on our inland waterways.

Those waterways contain a fleet of more than 4,000 tugboats and towboats. In addition, there are more than 27,000 barges and combine they move nearly 800 million tons of raw materials and finished goods each year.

Our largest waterway system and the one with the most boats is the Mighty Mississippi. The barges, which are either towed or pushed, each have a capacity 15 times greater than one railroad car and 60 times greater than one semi truck trailer. That huge capacity could have been utilized to move everyone in New Orleans out of harms way. This is an important story the media missed.

Says Mr. Titone, "Contingency planning was deficient in my opinion, then the massive loss of power, and almost all phone contact within the 504 and 985 area codes made after the fact coordination with private entities almost impossible."

He further adds, "If a good table top exercise would have been conducted that took this possibility seriously, private companies upriver could have had standing orders to start provisioning and moving south when weather permitted."

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