As the Port of New Orleans continues to make strides toward its recovery, five commercial cargo vessels were in port creating jobs and economic activity along the Mississippi River on Sept. 21. That represented a record number of ships in port since Hurricane Katrina disrupted the port's business.

"We continue to make steady progress," said Port President and CEO Gary LaGrange. "It's a great sign of confidence from the shipping community when we see ships lined up at our Uptown river facilities just three weeks after Katrina struck."

At the Napoleon Avenue Container Terminal, P&O Ports was working two container vessels and a ship loaded with steel. Mediterranean Shipping Lines' Sarah arrived at the dock around 6:00 p.m. on Sept. 21. P&O Ports worked the MSC Sarah's cargo, loading about 500 containers onto the ship. Two of the Port of New Orleans' gantry cranes worked the ship overnight and she set sail the next morning.

Earlier, the SeaTrader, a short sea shipping service operated by Osprey Lines that calls several Gulf Ports, arrived at the Napoleon Avenue Container Terminal. P&O Ports loaded the Osprey vessel with 51 containers and it sailed late on the 21st.

The Fortune Express arrived Sept. 20 with 4,915 tons of Japanese steel, which was also worked by P&O Ports. The cargo, which comes from the Daiichi Steel company will take several days to work.

At the First Street Wharf, Empire Stevedores unloaded about 500 tons of granite blocks on Sept. 19 from a ship named the Nurten Ana. On Sept. 22, Empire expected a barge with export steel to arrive at Port. Empire also worked a ship with 15,000 tons of imported steel last week.

At Louisiana Avenue, Coastal Cargo Co. continued to unload 21,000 tons of steel from the Talhouca for ThyssenKrupp.