As Hurricane Ida pummels the Gulf of Mexico, more than 100 men say they are stranded on a drill ship located around 100 miles from the shores of Louisiana.
“I mean I was watching grown men with life jackets hold on for dear life crying in the hallway. It was bad,” an anonymous member of the Globetrotter II drill ship crew told KLFY News Ten.
Men stranded on the ship said they rode out 80-ft. waves and 150 mph winds as the storm whipped through the gulf. Noble Corporation, an offshore drilling contractor, and Shell, an oil and gas company, were supposed to rescue them, said the crew. The companies co-own the ship.
However, help never arrived.
According to the anonymous crew member, Noble and Shell didn’t attempt evacuating the ship until the day Ida hit.
“Being on the top deck, you can look through the glass and see the bottom of the rig at certain points in time,” he said. “We had 60 to 80-ft.
seas that we were getting hit with, so the boat was sideways, getting pretty much capsized in the water. Someway, somehow we didn’t flip.”
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During the chaos, four crew members were injured. Those men were rescued Tuesday, said KLFY. Still, more than 100 men are aboard the battered craft.
While the remaining crew was able to make it through the tumultuous seas, their vessel is now taking on water and leaning, said KFLY. The still don’t know when rescue teams might be sent to get them.
“We’re still out here. We have no clue when we’re getting off of here,” said the crew member, who said the crew is stuck in their living quarters like prisoners. “We can’t go outside. It’s too dangerous out there.
There’s stuff everywhere- broken cranes, electrical wires, chemicals.”
As of Wednesday, the Noble and Shell were failing to keep in contact with the ship, he added.
“Nobody’s telling us anything. I know we’re taking in water in the back, and we don’t know what’s going on- if helps coming or when it’s coming.”
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Shell teams are looking at where they can land helicopters to get the remaining men in the coming days, KLFY said. The company did not provide the outlet with a specific day. A Noble spokesperson also told KLFY the vessel’s heli-deck is fully operational, and helicopter transportation will resume as charter service from hurricane-affected areas allow.
“We just want people to know that there’s a serious situation out here,” said a crew member.
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