A closed gate restricts access to Delta Queen riverboat hotel Monday as it is docked at the shore near Coolidge Park on the Tennessee River.The Delta Queen is dead in the water, its bar closed, its decks manned by plumbers and carpenters who are working against time as the clock ticks down toward the boat’s last month in Chattanooga.
The bitter winter cold, which played havoc with plumbing all over the Scenic City in January and February, took a gruesome toll on the floating hotel. Single-digit temperatures split pipes and ruined historic wood trim on all decks of the 87-year-old landmark, which was named a National Treasure by the National Trust in September 2013.
“The boat was never built to sustain cold weather for that long of a period of time,” said Leah Ann Ingram, general manager of the Delta Queen, which since 1927 has logged more than two million miles and carried half a million passengers.
With the 2008 expiration of the Delta Queen’s Congressional exemption to a Coast Guard rule that forbids boats with wooden structures from carrying more than 50 passengers on overnight trips, the floating hotel has remained moored in front of Coolidge Park in Chattanooga in what have become unfriendly waters.
Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke sought to boot the boat shortly after he took office in 2013 for nonpayment of rent and to clean up the shoreline, according to a spokesman, but the city has periodically extended the lease in response to requests from Delta Queen owner Xanterra Parks and Resorts.