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OceanGrafix Charts Play Key Role in Hurricane Relief
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It’s been about three weeks now since Hurricane Katrina came ashore along the Gulf Coast, and nobody has been able to escape the horrific images and haunting words on the TV and radio. They’ve been burned into our minds: people standing on the roofs of their houses, neighbors burying their neighbors, water in places where there shouldn’t be water.

In Ft. Lauderdale, FL, Katrina found her way into Bluewater Books & Charts. Besides the minimal water damage and power outages that are to be expected, things changed around here in a more subtle way. Many Gulf Coast charts became instantly obsolete.

On Friday, September 2, we received a phone call from a Royal Netherlands Navy Ship, which was stationed in San Juan. Russell Kirby, professional captain and Bluewater chart department crew member, took the call. The ship was scheduled to leave for the New Orleans area the next day, and they required up-to-date charts. To make matters more complicated, they needed the charts shipped to them overnight, to arrive in San Juan before they left in the morning.

Russell got to work on the order, and stayed at the store until 7:00 to print the charts. The only option was to provide them with Ocean Grafix charts, which are updated constantly with data from the Notice to Mariners, NGA Notices, and NOAA critical safety information. Russell operates the OceanGrafix printer at Bluewater on a daily basis, so an order like this was nothing new to him. What was new was the sense of urgency—a lot of people were depending on this chart order. Knowing that it was for hurricane relief, Russell had no qualms about working several hours late that day.

He thought his day was over when the last chart slid through the OceanGrafix printer. All he would have to do before going home was drive to the FedEx office and send the four chart tubes off to Puerto Rico.

But he met a roadblock at FedEx when he was told that it was too late to get a package out for Saturday delivery to San Juan. He got on the phone with John and Vivien, Bluewater’s owners. The only thing left to do was for someone to drive to the Ft. Lauderdale International Airport first thing in the morning and try to get the packages on a flight to San Juan.

Vivien discovered that Spirit Airlines had a flight that would work, so John was at the airport first thing in the morning, packages in hand, to try to catch the plane. But he met with another roadblock: airport security. Spirit Airlines wasn’t about to let four oddly shaped unattended packages onto the plane.

John had to haul the packages from one end of the airport to the other several times and speak with two of Spirit’s managers before the packages were allowed on the plane. They arrived in Puerto Rico without a moment to spare.

I emailed the lieutenant of the Royal Netherlands Navy vessel about a week later, to find out what had happened. Here’s his response:

"We appreciated your effort in getting the order together on such short notice. A few days after we left San Juan we got word that the US government accepted the offer to help out from the Dutch government. In the morning of the 7th we arrived south of Biloxi where we dropped our anchor. From Wednesday till Monday the 12th my ship was involved in providing aid to the people of Biloxi. Also, our two helicopters provided aid in flying sorties that were organized from Biloxi airport.

Most days we were able to send about 60 crew members ashore to help out with various tasks. We mainly helped the Red Cross and the local Baptist Church at a distribution center and the local government with cleaning schools. The rest of the crew (120) stayed on board. Most of the time we were at anchor. On Sunday the ship set sail (with only 120 people) to check out some of the oil rigs that were out in the Gulf of Mexico.

Being able to help out the people of Biloxi was a very rewarding experience and has left a deep impression with most crew members. A lot of volunteers have come from all over the states to help out. I am a bit sad to leave the people of Biloxi behind, but it is our time to go home. We were about to go home when the hurricane hit US soil but stayed to prepare for providing humanitarian aid."

The Bluewater Crew is honored to have been part of this, even if our part was rather small. It’s nice to know that our charts were used to help the people of Biloxi, and we want to extend our thanks to the Royal Netherlands Navy for sending this ship and these dedicated people here to help our country.