The following was published in the September 17 2001 edition of Lloyds List

QE2 and Caronia turned away from New York By Sandra Speares

CUNARD'S flag ship the QE2 had trouble landing on the US east coast this weekend due to the ongoing rescue operation in downtown Manhattan and a bomb threat in Boston. The flag ship and its sister ship Caronia were delayed in entering Boston harbour yesterday after the port was closed following bomb threats.

Both ships had been turned away from New York after emergency personnel commandeered the Cunard Lines piers on the west side of Manhattan as rescue and recovery work continued following Tuesday's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

The Cunard liner was finishing its normal transatlantic crossing from Southampton when she found New York Harbour was closed and both ships were re-routed to Boston. The port of Boston was then closed for about an hour yesterday as it was searched for bombs.

US Coast Guard vessels patrolled the harbour while sniffer dogs were deployed by the various law enforcement agencies involved to search the port. "We received two bomb threats earlier this morning. They were very unspecific so the captain of the port ordered the harbour closed," USCG petty officer Zach Zubriki said.

Upon entry into Boston, QE2 and Caronia passengers are mostly expected to return to New York by bus. The two planes which slammed into the World Trade Center on Tuesday killing thousands of people, were both hijacked from Boston. Boston's Logan International Airport remains closed and it is unclear when the airport, which serves 75,000 passengers a day, will reopen.

-- Rich Marsh (marshr@airmail.net), September 18, 2001

Answers

Its amazing how the kooks and goofballs have been coming out of the woodwork since the real bombing. The proliferation of bombthreats is unbelievably disrupting. I don't know whose job it is to track down false bomb threats but it seems to me that would have there hands full doing just that and no time for anything else.

-- Guy Daley (guydaley1@netzero.net), September 18, 2001.