Is it me? Where the hell are the boats.

[Bonhomme Richard]

That area must have a ton of small boats that can be commandeered for rescue purposes. Where are they?
God love the helicopters and their crews but they are very inefficient for this type of operation.
Maybe its me or maybe it's happening away from the camera crews.

[Redneck Socialist]

1. A call went out for boats, but people can't ge to their boats to get them

to the problem areas.

Forget where I heard that, sorry.

[cbear70]

2. heard they can't

due to the amount of powerlines down , debris and the cars floating, they are having a difficult time manuevering boats through without damaging the boats.

anyone here anything different??

[The empressof all]

3. Here's the problem with the boats.

Many boats were damaged in the storm. In addition some are not accessible to the flooded areas. The flood waters are not deep enough in many areas to allow safe boating and power lines are down which just increases the danger in the water. In some areas boats need to be hauled overland to just reach the flooded areas.

[DLnyc]

8. how are powerlines a problem if there is no power?

[VADem11]

11. Many powerlines are live

They still have electricity flowing through them. They don't just shut off. Live powerlines may be severed and that is what causes outages.

[Caution]

12. propellors and heavy wire dont mix together regardless of electricity

[Davis_X_Machina]

4. Many small craft are themselves storm casualties. n/t

[democrank]

5. I remember hearing this morning that

people simply can not get to their boats. Obviously it`s very dangerous going given the downed power lines. It`s a horrible situation.

[wakeme2008]

6. one report I saw this morning had Police and Firemen in THEIR OWN boats

going out to rescue people. :)

[AllyCat]

7. Saw pictures of hundreds of boats, ships, and barges slammed

against bridges and retaining walls. Too dangerous to move them without inspection, even if people could get them unstuck or get to the boats in the first place.

It's all so sad I just can't even fathom it all. Those poor, poor people.

[Bonhomme Richard]

9. I have to surmise that all the power lines..

have been cut off by now and I can't imagine a small boat hitting a car at low speed is any more dangerous that dropping rescue workers from choppers to pick up one person at a time.

It's just hard to believe that there are not some boats available.
I'm sure there is a logical reason.

[Lena inRI]

13. Well. I've been commenting all along, too. . .

simple canoes, kayaks, rafts, strung-together pontoons could get people to the elevated highways for redistribution from there. . .

any imaginative use of flood waters to transport people a lot faster than helicopters.

[rbjensen]

10. I know this one from living on the gulf coast..

the boats are: in the road; on the interstate; in trees; in parking lots; in the aisle in a local church; on roofs. In other words, destroyed or unreachable by folks who couldn't get to the marinas anyway.

All fire divisions and sheriff's depts have rescue boats. But this is overwhelming. They need a lot of support from other agencies asap.

I'd give anything to be there.