Tourism bankruptcies

Tourism firms file for bankruptcy:

New Orleans Paddlewheels Inc., which operates the Creole Queen and the Cajun Queen day-cruise steamboats, filed for voluntary reorganization May 3 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Eastern District of Louisiana. A sister company, the New Orleans Tours Inc. bus company, also has filed for Chapter 11 reorganization at the Magazine Street court. Both companies continue to operate.

The American Queen steamboat (pictured in the PGR photo above) is operated by The Delta Queen Steamboat Company, which has cruises longer than a day up and down the Mississippi. The Delta Queen Steamboat Co. hasn't filed for bankruptcy to my knowledge, but it was having financial difficulties due to Hurricane Katrina, and moved out of New Orleans for an undetermined period of time.

As for the New Orleans Tour bus company -- does anyone recall that haze hanging over New Orleans on Wednesday? I saw it too, while parked at an intersection. I couldn't see ten feet in front of the car. In fact, it was so thick, I could taste diesel on my tongue. Carl Arredondo said it was smoke from fires on the Yucatan Peninsula, but I know better. It was exhaust from a New Orleans Tour bus I was next to.

Seriously, can we get some traffic enforcement to handle the black smoke pouring out of buses and trucks? Don't we have emissions controls in Louisiana?

It's unpleasant, hazardous to the health of people downwind of the fumes, and adds to a sense of disorder, contributing to the unease about living in New Orleans post-Katrina.