By ALEX DONIACH, The Commercial Appeal January 21, 2007
MEMPHIS - The Mississippi River was shut down to commercial traffic much of Saturday after southbound barges broke loose from their towboat and rammed the Union Pacific Railroad Bridge just below downtown Memphis.
About 10 barges drifted free from the Motor Vessel Inez Andreas in the 5:42 a.m. incident, but all were reined by about 3 p.m. and the river was reopened shortly thereafter, said Coast Guard Lt. Gerald Thornton.
No one was injured.
The towboat was pushing 32 barges - most of them loaded with salt, fertilizer and potash - down the river when the chain links connecting them broke loose, Thornton said.
A few of the barges drifted and struck one of two rail spans near the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge carrying Interstate 55 traffic across the river.
Though the bridge did not sustain any damage, Thornton said the drifting barges presented a danger to businesses and other boats along the river.
Thornton said he didn’t know what caused the barges to separate from the towboat, but treacherous currents related to high-water conditions on the Mississippi could have been a factor.
This certainly brings back memories of that devastating wreck of Amtrak’s Sunset Limited. A tug operator pushing a pack of barges hit a CSX bridge at low speed and moved it several feet out of position horizontally. A while later the Limited blasts through at 70mph and the wreck that followed captured world wide attention.
UP will probably check this bridge out thorougly to be safe (hopefully).
The article stated that the bridge didn’t sustain any damage. I’m sure it was inspected for them to come to that conclusion.
Those bridges at Memphis are pretty massive structures, and the piers could probably take a hit like that without incurring any damage. I wouldn’t have wanted to be on the bridge at the time, though.
Don’t worry about it. That bridge is built like Mount Rushmore and has been drilled many times in the past. UP will check it out, to be sure, but it won’t be a problem. I run that stretch of river (I’m the engineer on an 8,000 hp boat; two 16-710’s) and have seen that bridge hit before; the barges sustain all the damage. In the case of the Sunset Ltd., that boat was way out of the navigation channel, not the case here. Years ago, I saw the remains of a bad hit on the Vicksburg, MS bridge. The barge had been beaten by the ones following it until it was formed around the bridge pier. They removed it by suspending three guys from the underside of the bridge to cut peices away with torches; at the end of the day a crane on a deck barge with an electromagnet fished the cut-away pieces out of the river. If memory serves (this was 1979), it took six weeks or so to completely remove the remains. No worries, mates!
Tommy Towboater
BTW, that can be a really treacherous spot in high water. One of the captains that I worked with years back had a similar hit; the USCG report simply stated at the end that, “In the end, sometimes Old Man River has his way.”
Bridges being struck by run-away barges is a semi-frequent occurence on most all navigable waterways. Normal procedures are that the Coast Guard once they are notified of the hazard to navigation (the barge on the loose) will notify all the bridge owners in the route that the barge is traveling until such time as the barge is corraled. Bridge inspection personnel are notified immediately.
Absolutely Right! All the piers on that bridge have been hit at one time or another, The channel runs closer to the East Banks [Memphis side]. The bottom around the bridges is littered with sunken carcasses of barges that struck the piers of that Bridge [Formerly the MoP/ SP/RI entrys to Memphis]. The River there has a strong current that scoures the channel directed by stone dikes upriver, dredging under the bridge are is not dome because of the sunken junk.
Here is a link to an incident some time back when the MV Cahaba tied into a bridge on the Tombigbee… One of the better documented incidents, certainly scary for the crew!
Absolutely Right! All the piers on that bridge have been hit at one time or another, The channel runs closer to the East Banks [Memphis side]. The bottom around the bridges is littered with sunken carcasses of barges that struck the piers of that Bridge [Formerly the MoP/ SP/RI entrys to Memphis]. The River there has a strong current that scoures the channel directed by stone dikes upriver, dredging under the bridge are is not dome because of the sunken junk.
Here is a link to an incident some time back when the MV Cahaba tied into a bridge on the Tombigbee… One of the better documented incidents, certainly scary for the crew!
For those of you not familiar with the Mississippi, I’d recommend reading chapter 28 of Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi. Those of you who operate the towboats don’t need to do any reading.