Ferry service between Nova Scotia and P.E.I. is expected to resume Tuesday with a different vessel.
Northumberland Ferries says the move is due to the ongoing recovery efforts and customer care surrounding the MV Holiday Island incident.
The ship caught fire Friday and forced the evacuation of 182 passengers and 18 staff.
The ship was successfully berthed yesterday morning.
Update: Due to the ongoing recovery efforts and customer care surrounding the MV Holiday Island situation, there will be no service on Monday, July 25. Our intent will be to resume service with MV Confederation on the morning of Tuesday, July 26, with a further update on Monday.
— Northumberland Ferries (@PEIFerries) July 24, 2022
The exact cause of the fire is still being determined.
“At this point, what we do know is that the fire was in the engine room, and we believe it was from the forward main engine. It will take some time before we actually are able to actually enter that space. We want to make sure that there’s no chance of reignition of the fire. So we will not be entering that space for some time, it’ll likely be Monday or the day after,” Northumberland Ferries Limited Vice-President Don Cormier said Sunday. “So anything with regards to the root cause is purely speculative. But we will be cooperating with all of the agencies particularly to gain a good understanding of what the root cause was, and what lessons can be learned from that investigation.”
As for the vehicles onboard the ferry, they were recovered on Sunday, and Cormier says there was no obvious damage.
He adds it could take some time to return the vehicles to some of the passengers, “The timeline is really a function of their location and logistics to get them (the passengers) to the terminal. We also will likely have to deliver some vehicles to people that have left the province. ”
Many of the passengers were in need of a place to stay after the fire, and Islanders stepped up to offer their support. Cormier says texts and messages were received with offers of a place to stay.
“We had a lot of offers for people to house passengers in their actual homes. The reality is the company was able to primarily house customers in commercial accommodations, but in one circumstance, our president actually took in a few families to accommodate them on Friday. Other Islanders, pledged their support, and showed up on-site to assist, fishers were instrumental in the recovery, and the SAR(Search and Rescue) operations in transporting passengers from our lifeboats to shore. Other volunteers, former employees and retirees, showed up on site. I can’t say enough about local fire stations, Island EMO, and Red Cross, everybody executed their emergency plans expediently, and we did not experience serious injuries to anyone. That is obviously a huge accomplishment and great work from all of these agencies,” Cormier says.
As to the extent of the damage to the ferry itself, Cormier says it will require a much more thorough investigation, “We have not entered the engine room space, and will not until a more thorough assessment is done on the stability of the ship.”
Northumberland Ferries says the service is cancelled once again today, but the MV Confederation is expected to begin crossings on Tuesday.
With files from Kevin Northup.
