The E-Sylum:  Volume 8, Number 39, September 11, 2005, Article 6

NEW ORLEANS SHIPWRECK MUSEUM CLOSED

The St. Petersburg Times published a story on September 5th
about one numismatic casualty of the New Orleans flooding: a
storefront tourist attraction showing how underwater robots collect
coins from ocean-floor shipwreck sites:

"The sign in the French Quarter storefront beckons passers-by
to peek in a tiny window of the steel tank. Inside is an underwater
robot that should be picking up gold coins, and an invitation to
come in and drive the remote-controlled rig.

That's the hook that by now was supposed to be reeling in the
curious to a new shipwreck attraction that represents a Tampa
company's first step into the storefront tourist attraction business.

Instead, Hurricane Katrina abruptly shut the place down two
days after the grand opening hoopla. Nobody's guessing when
the barricaded attraction might reopen.

Winds and floodwaters did minimal damage in the French Quarter,
leaving the new Odyssey Shipwreck & Treasure Adventure with
nothing worse than wet carpet from a roof leak. But looters,
some of them armed, plagued the streets all week. A tense mass
evacuation of tourists and residents is depopulating the city for an
untold number of weeks, leaving indelible images in many travelers'
memories."

"Odyssey, which finds and salvages historic, treasure-laden
ships, envisioned its 90-minute adventure attraction as a vehicle
to turn artifacts, effects and rare coins it exhumes from the
ocean bottom into cash.

Inside are hands-on museum-style exhibits of the high-tech
equipment that shipwreck salvage companies use to meticulously
pluck treasures from the bottom. One-of-a-kind computer games
outline the science behind archeology and how artifacts are used
to reassemble history. The story is set against the backdrop of
real treasures from the deep told in incredibly sharp high-definition
video of the recovery of the SS Republic, which sank 140 years
ago destined for New Orleans."

"As a Confederate and later a Union ship, the Republic claimed
New Orleans as its home port. It went down in a hurricane off
the coast of Georgia, loaded with cash and other goods intended
to resupply the Louisiana city at the start of post-Civil War
Reconstruction.

The French Quarter provided the historical atmosphere while
the city, which drew about 10-million tourists in 2004, was
supposed to provide the traffic. Some of the gold coins on
display were hammered just down the street in a building that
once housed a U.S. Mint and lost some of its roof to Katrina."

To read the full story, see: Full Story

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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