" The idea of needing a ferry is stupid.
The people pushing for the ferry are stupid.
Anyone who agrees to pay for this folly
is stupid.
Anyone who allows this idiocy is stupid.
STUPID st john should learn from a smarter st charles. "

" Church and common sense may not be enough to stop officials from wasting taxpayer money on unnecessary ferry. "

" These stupid jerks won't be satisfied until there is a tragedy on the river involving numerous deaths.
One could only hope the dead would be the knotheads that keep insisting the ferry is restarted at much needless expense to the taxpayers. "

" Run a bus instead;
much safer
much less expensive
much more dependable
available to a wider spectrum of
patrons to a wider variety of locations;
and will benefit the non-driving public "

" My Grandparents Are Buried In Edgard At The Church If I Want To Visit The Gravesite I Should Not Have To Go The Long way Around. As A Kid I Enjoyed Riding The Ferry. Only An Idiot Would Not Want The Ferry around. What About People Who Do Not Have Cars And Need To Get To The Courthouse In Edgard,Do You Want Them To Pay For A Cab To Take Them The Long Way Around. Are You Going To Pay Their Cab Fare......?????????? "

" "ferry to the cemetary":
Who do you think you are?
Why should we have to pay huge amounts of money to operate a ferry so you can enjoy a ferry ride? I enjoy going to the saint's games; are you going to pay for my tickets?
You are just another: gimmee, gimmee;
why do you think we owe you LA purchase cards, food stamps, welfare, and free transportation too?
I buy my own food and pay for my own transportation; because I work for a living instead of waiting for others to gimmee, gimmee, gimmee, gimmee
Get off your "LAZY, IDIOT, A__ AND GET A JOB"; show some self-respect. "

" Those of us with common sense can only hope those idiots will drop the idea of
restoring the unnecessary ferry as being too wasteful and too much trouble. "

" This waste of money needs to be sunk in the middle of the river!!!!! "

" The ferry has been a great access to the westbank and eastbank. People can easy catch the ferry and walk to the courthouse, church and bank. You also have a school in walking distance from the ferry. Don't forget on the eastbank, there is a drugstore, supermarket and doctors offices. clinic on both sides of the river. not everyone has transportation. we need the ferry. "

" Resident: and anybody else who is stupid enough to support restoring the ferry should read what happened to a similar ferry.(from previous article)
"Thirty years ago this week, the ferryboat George Prince, packed with construction and chemical plant workers, pushed off from a Destrehan dock into the Mississippi River and blundered into the path of the Norwegian tanker ship Frosta.
It was just after 6 a.m. on Oct. 20, 1976. Ferry pilot Egidio "Gene" Auletta gunned the ferry's engines into the current. As the 120-foot ferry turned toward the Luling dock, Auletta seemed oblivious to frantic horn blasts and radio calls from the 665-foot-long tanker that towered over the ferry's port side.
A few minutes later, when the ferry was only 800 feet from its destination, the Frosta ran over the George Prince like a bathtub toy, flipping it and spilling cars and people into the water. Of the 95 people who boarded the ferry on that clear, chilly morning, 77 died, including Auletta and the four members of his crew.
Today, less than a mile from the site of the tragedy, the massive Hale Boggs Bridge straddles the river, enabling people to travel between the east and west banks of St. Charles Parish in moments. But there is nothing to mark the spot of the worst ferry disaster in U.S. history.
"People seem to have forgotten about it," said Royd Anderson, a Hahnville High School teacher who wrote and produced a 22-minute documentary about the disaster.
Anderson, 35, produced the film as the final project for his master's degree in communication at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
"When I started working on this two years ago, I had no idea I'd be working in St. Charles Parish," he said.
The only monument to the victims sits 15 miles away near the St. John the Baptist Parish Courthouse in Edgard. It was placed there in 1979 after St. Charles Parish officials refused an offer to place it on the grounds of their courthouse in Hahnville.
Anderson and some of the victims' families said a memorial in St. Charles Parish is long overdue.
One idea is to place it at the public playground built under the bridge, whose foundations were rising out of the river when the accident occurred.
"There should be a memorial here and it should be on the east bank," said Thomas Pritchett, whose brother, Kevin, died in the accident at 16.
Pritchett said he was running late that morning and missed the deadly voyage by a few minutes.
Charles Chatelain was early. The River Ridge man took the ferry every work day in his commute from River Ridge to the small Texaco refinery in Paradis. His 1975 Ford was the second vehicle to drive onto the ferry, a position that let him park just forward of the pilot house on the vessel's starboard side.
As the ferry moved across the river, Chatelain and the other passengers saw the Frosta bearing down on them.
As other passengers scattered, Chatelain dove into his truck, thinking it would be safe.
When the Frosta slammed into the other side of the ferry, Chatelain's truck was among the first to plunge into the dark water.
The collision shoved Chatelain out of his seat and into the truck's dashboard. As the truck sank, Chatelain said he struggled to get out, but could not. Suddenly, the water pressure popped out the truck's windshield, and the air trapped inside the cab propelled him into the water.
"It shot me out of there like a cannon," he said.
As he swam to the surface, he said he had to dodge cars and trucks that were falling on top of him. He was running out of air and began taking small "sips" of the river water made greasy with fuel.
He came up with a bellyful of water and his throat burning with diesel fuel from the ferry's tanks, and too close to the stern of the Frosta, which he feared would suck him into its propeller.
"I swam for what must have been 3 miles until I came upon what I thought was a barge. It turned out to be the hull of the ferry," he said.
He climbed onto the overturned ferry's hull, where he was rescued by another boat, which took him to the hospital.
"I was lying there half out of my mind, when the hospital administrator came in and said, 'Please, I've had to put guards around the hospital, because we've got 100 reporters out there who want to talk with you,' " he said.
He agreed to an interview on the condition that only one reporter would ask questions.
Chatelain, now 64, said he dreamed of the accident every night for two years and the aftermath was a contributing factor to his divorce in 1977.
Chatelain said he avoided talking about the event for decades. He said he broke his silence to help Anderson with his project and to ensure that his children and grandchildren know what happened.
"It's been long enough," he said. "It doesn't hurt much any more."
A dozen St. John residents died in the wreck. Nineteen of the victims, including all of the crew, were from St. Charles Parish and 18 were from Jefferson. Another 17 victims were from Hammond, Tickfaw and Ponchatoula in Tangipahoa Parish.
"When they pulled my truck out of the water it was crushed like a beer can," he said.
As the recovery operation began, the banks of the river were lined with relatives awaiting the fate of their loved ones.
Pritchett said he and his mother, Dolores, scuffled with a sheriff's deputy as they tried to get closer to the river bank. They were booked with public intimidation, but the charges were dropped.
Bodies were stacked in the Knights of Columbus hall in Norco and overflowed into the community's fire station.
"The whole community came out," said Clayton Faucheux, a former St. Charles Parish police juror. "We had as much help as we needed."
While the years have dulled the memory of the disaster for some, questions still remain as to why parish officials didn't want the monument.
News reports at the time attributed St. Charles' refusal to accept the monument to a variety of reasons, ranging from embarrassment by St. Charles officials about the disaster to politics.
However, Faucheux said it was just too painful.
"A lot of people died. It's just not something that we wanted to memorialize," he said. "

" brown and quezzaire and any one else pushing the ferry restoration should be chained to the bow whenever there is fog on the river. If they want the ferry so bad; let them ride in the front
but handcuff them to the rail!!!! "

" Thank you 'ygtbfk' for trying to talk some sense into the forgetful, misguided
and wasteful people who foolishly want to restore the ferry.
Does st charles need a ferry?
Does st james need a ferry?
How st john people be so stupid?
It is really embarrassing.
It gives you an idea of how embarrassed the people of N O must feel every time
'empty noggin nagin' opens his mouth. "

" The church's effect on the situation of the ferry may not only make available the opportunity for people to save their souls; but every minute delaying the ferry restoration is preventing the risk to their lives on the dangerous river crossing. If the ferry loses out, the church may have become partly responsible for saving the lives of potential ferry disaster victims. "

" Sell the ferry to some community that does not have the advantage of a safe
bridge crossing the river.
If st charles and st james accept the bridges; why do the Neanderthals in st john feel they need an antiquated and dangerous drain on the taxpayers to please a hand full of hard heads? "