Friday night a total of 26 barges, 23 loaded and 3 empty, broke loose from their moorings along the Ohio River near Pittsburgh and floated uncontrolled until they were mostly recovered. There were no reports of injuries, but a marina sustained extensive damage in the incident.
The Pittsburgh Public Safety said in a statement, “At 11:25 p.m., Pittsburgh Fire, EMS, and Police were dispatched for reports of barges breaking loose and floating uncontrolled down the Ohio River.
In total, 26 barges broke loose; 23 were loaded and three were empty. Those that were loaded had dry cargo such as coal, and no hazardous materials on board. There have been no reports of people injured, but Peggy’s Marina sustained extensive damage.
Eleven of the barges have been located and pinned against the river bank by Brunot Island and currently being held by a tugboat. Fourteen continued down the river and six have gone over the Emsworth Dam.
The barges are owned or operated by Campbell Transportation Company located on the left descending bank of the Ohio River, just downstream from the McKees Rocks Bridge.
The West End Bridge was closed in both directions and rail traffic was shut down on the rail bridge to Brunot Island. Both will be reopened when it is determined that it is safe to do so.
The Coast Guard, Pennsylvania State Police, and various law enforcement, EMS agencies, and fire departments in neighboring jurisdictions have been notified.” (LINK)
“Campbell Transportation Company, Inc. is actively responding to a recent development involving a multi-barge breakaway in Pittsburgh. Our immediate priority is ensuring public safety and minimizing any potential environmental impact,” the statement read. “The incident occurred under high water conditions on the rivers resulting in strong currents due to flooding in the area.” (SOURCE)
Suspicious Cat remains, well, suspicious…
We’ve had nothing but rain from west of Cincy through most of WVA, PA all week.
So what?
Why post such a rude remark?
It’s not rude. I used to live in Avalon PA and worked on Neville Island on the Ohio River. Been through lots of rain and floods before and nothing like this cataclysmic event ever happened.
Presumably- if flooding was so bad it could potentially unmoor all these barges- they would have had people on site to make sure they could handle the situation, should it look like it was going to happen.
At least, that’s what smart, responsible people would’ve done.
IOW, that excuse is total BS.
“Break loose” my arse. They are flaunting their destruction of America as we know it and laughing in our faces as they do it.
Maybe someone was disgruntled with Campbell Transportation Co.
Dang unruly barges. Commonsense barge control is what we need.
It’d be great if there were a person who could oversee all the transportation stuff and infrastructure.
Maybe whoever is President could put someone in a job like that.
… preferrably someone who’s not busy nursing
Bootyjudge strikes again. Maybe so.
Butty Gig
ew
No guards, No one on board, no one in the dock yard? What a way to run a business.
It’s not like there is a shortage of people willing to baby-sit barges.
Not true. Trained river people are hard to come by. Again the barges are tied with a steel cable that has only so much strength. A baby sitter or guard would be sitting on a barge full of most likely coal in the rain and dark thirty yards from shore with a raging 10 to 12 mile an hour current and having no way off.
You don’t have people on barges. The barges actually end up floating off where they are tied because what was once dry land is under 15 ft of water. There is no hiding the barges because the length of the river is flooding. They do the best they can but forces of nature are often beyond our control. Believe me it is frightening to be near the rivers while they flood. No guard would be capable doing anything but calling down river for them to be on the lookout.. Heck in 1972 whole houses were swept away and went for miles down river.
Baltimore shipping all over again. Baltimore doesn’t trust international pilots in and out of the harbor. They assign local pilots to steer them in and out.
Looks like the local pilots were either compromised (threatened or bribed) or some of the crew were covert saboteurs, or they need more than trustworthy pilots to maintain full control of a ship….
Bottom line is – too many ship / bridge incidents over the past 2 weeks to be coinkydinks. Domestic shipping is under attack in attempts to destroy critical infrastructure.
it was the power outages on the ship that resulted in the collision
steering went out along with the power
we’ll have to see what result investigation yields on those power outages
ship lights blinked out twice, if I recall correctly
emergency diesel generators tripped on, that caused the puff of black smoke out of the stacks
I think I read that the pilots attempted full reverse thrust as well as dropping the port? anchor
depending on the orientation of the rudder, that full reverse power could be what caused the ship to divert from it’s established heading and veer sharply into the bridge support
Those two power interruptions seemed to occur as evidenced only by the lights on the ship. But there is no way on earth that the ship “just happened” to turn into the ONE SINGLE EXACT heading (out of all possible random headings it might have taken) that led directly into one of only two main support stanchions, each 600 ft to the left and right of the channel center, and then stopped turning once it was aimed at the south stanchion ,and MAINTAINED that exact heading up to the impact.
That was a coordinated direct hit on the bridge using a ship large enough and at a speed fast enough to impact with enough energy force to overcome the minimal structural strength of that stanchion. Everything else is a diversion narrative created to appear to be a viable explanation for the “accidental” allision.
Had the ship simply kept turning it would have missed the main support and maybe knocked down one or two of the minor supports under the south end approach ramp. But the main span would have remained in place and not blocked the port.
The people who executed this knew what they were doing and have managed to fool a lot of otherwise smart people. I just don’t trust the government investigators to come to the correct conclusion publicly. Who knows what they have been told or warned against saying.
Exactly.
There was zero reason for the rudder to have been placed in any other position than the straight ahead spot it that was doing just fine until it wasn’t.
Also, ships have great redundancy for the rudder, much as aircraft have multiple separate systems to ensure loss of any one will not eliminate the ability to control the aircraft, so locked still makes no sense.
Those puffs of smoke were far too powerful to have been from back up generators, I can’t imagine being convinced otherwise.
One of our number posted an article a couple weeks back that I am kicking myself for not saving, written in 2014, that bemoaned the severe hacking vulnerability of modern sea-going vessels.
I’m talking vulnerabilities like almost anyone could gain control, make the ship do anything they want, and make the command crew see whatever they want them to see on their instruments, and ensure that any recording features only show what they want to be seen.
The lights blinking out was surely a ruse, to create the impression of what was happening to us noobs, but were not genuine proofs of anything at all.
That ship could only have struck that pylon at speed on one single trajectory that had to thread the needle around that dolphin structure placed to protect the pylon from exactly this kind of event.
Furthermore, I consider that the Derp State must be destroyed.
🎯🎯🎯
Add in the missing black box data and the only conclusion is it was NO accident.
Reminds me of mission nixon tape data.
There was no pylon protection for the key bridge!
There was what is called a Dolphin, two actually, placed to either side in parallel with the main channel, they are very low and appear as circles low to the water in images, which would only slow a ship that had strayed out of the channel but was attempting to follow a straight path out of the harbor parallel to the main channel.
Clearly grossly inadequate.
As were the zero protections against this kind of hacking.
Your last point about ’That dolphin structure…’. Folks should take a good look at Google maps Sat view, consider the ships path taken, and rationalize how the ship navigated around that dolphin. Marquis, you are the first I have read that picked up on this point.
a good narrative on path and events known
I’ve been saying that from the outset. There are several Treepers here and folks on social media who’ve also observed the ineffective dolphins placed too far out from the bridge pylons / stanchions to be of much protection. I also noted the clear difference between the poorly placed Key Bridge dolphins and the new dolphins placed much nearer to the main pylons of the decades-old but larger Delaware Memorial Bridge just last year.
The Dali executed a strategic turn to starboard once it passed the point where the SW dolphin would have been in its path. Too many coincidences to be accidental.
thx for your replies, All
you’ve been paying more attention than I have
Looked deliberate to me also. Since when do barges have a mind of thrir own to “break loose”?
It happens when the mooring lines decide to cut themselves or untie themselves……
Sorry, but your explanation is entirely uncredible.
Per a merchie chief engineer (and as a one-time USN chief engineer) too much black smoke for the emergency diesel. He speculates they may have restarted a service diesel-generator (not clear that the emergency diesel generator came on line on time — by spec 45 secs). He doubts that you could get the propulsion diesel running and developing astern thrust in the time available — the prop would have still been turning in the ahead direction so starting and reversing the engine not easy. But with no power on the prop the rudder would have limited authority. I don’t think it’s accurate to say the ship “veered sharply”.
thx, scott
this late change of 11 deg from 141 deg to 152 deg is the ‘veered sharply’ I was referring to
when it first lost power, it kept to the 141 deg heading for quite a long time
this late veer happened in the final couple minutes
the narrator says “people say the ship is turning” and says “well, that’s a perspective error”
that’s not an “error”, more correctly it’s a perspective effect that may give a stronger visual impression of the turn, but it’s still turning, it’s not imagined or an ‘error’
this video is time cued to 21:24 in case it loses the cue
Interesting we are getting so many officious sounding citations to poo poo this . . .
Yeah, another “no one’s to blame — it’s just one of those things.” Raise rug, sweep all the dirt under it. Watch out Mississippi River…you’re next! Or will they switch to burning down food processing plants or burning down another Hawaiian town?
You got it.
re: “They assign local pilots to steer them in and out.”
Standard. Procedure. LOCAL PILOTS know the flow in the bay and how currents affect the ships that need to be in the center of a 50 foot deep dredged channel that those larger ships require.
DEI hires probably
Local pilots are used worldwide.
Yes, and Master, Mates, & Pilots Union has tight control, plus ports/shipping channels have local pilot associations which control things.
Never heard of “international pilots”. Only ever seen was local pilots, pretty heavily unionized.
Sabotage!
RULES for a good conspiracy theory on any topic like this:
Propose the root cause is terrorism
Ignore ANY effects like weather, incl. esp. high winds
Ignore ANY contributing factors like human negligence
or poor decision making on the part personnel lashing barges to piers
failure of infrastructure like due to age, like a a dock or pier the barges were tethered to
Ignore high water conditions on the rivers resulting in strong currents due to flooding in the area
No, battle. No 26 of anything happens if it wasn’t purposeful.
Ignore high water conditions on the rivers resulting in strong currents due to flooding in the area
Ignore energetic material that is subject to combustion in response to shock or heat …
Rules for suppressing sentient thought in the midst of a Communist Coup:
Pretend it’s all normal and counsel citizens to lay back and enjoy it.
Yep😂
just like covid
No business leaves 23 loaded barges unattended on a dock. There is always someone guarding the merchandise. Further, ALL vessels are known to be subject to becoming loosed from there mooring in a storm. No professional would ignore the weather.
ignore the “coincidences” right in front of you
You know those Chinese Spy balloons don’t come here for nuthin’.
And Delusional Joe and his maladministration Team ZERO Dark Hundred just let them saunter across the country anywhere they want to go.
God only knows what they might be droppin’ along the way too.
Dripped some oster bunnies at the white house nursing home.😳
Suspicious Cat looks pissed.
All this happens right when Iran decides to begin their strikes against Israel. Its time for the cat to start working out on the scratching post and get those nails sharp. This is going to escalate, especially here in the U.S.
Cat scratch fever?
I swear these DS operatives get all of these sabotage ideas from crime shows on TV. They all must have grown up on TV and video games. It’s SOOOO obvious what is going on.
Mayor Pete sure has made a wreck of the place. Every thing he looks at turns to sh t.
Our perimeter is being probed. Let’s see if we can find out who is doing it and what they hope to accomplish. Was it internal operatives or external operatives if any operatives are involved at all? Good investigative work should answer the questions.
The idea that this could be sabotage is frightening.
The idea that this is as sign of rising incompetence in the DEI sense or in the ‘Corporate Boardroom Rot’ sense is almost more frightening.
Not unusual around Pittsburgh when water levels and velocities jump quickly. In the storms of the 70’s it was a frequent occurrence.
Dunno, but I am starting to purchase TP on sale regardless if it isn’t my favorite brand.
I have lived on the Ohio river for over 30 years and have never heard of such a thing happening. The river at Pittsburgh is at flood stage and I suppose it is possible. Perhaps if there weren’t so many other “accidents” happening all at once, people wouldn’t be so skeptical.
We are in the same “living’ situation. This human in the state of PA no longer believes in the word “perhaps.”
Only 26? Hold my beer.
Barges Break Loose On The Mississippi River | FOX 2 (fox2now.com)
(2013 incident.) Barges have been known to break loose in high water. This latest Ohio River incident isn’t unique.
Not 26 at once shy. of a hurricane or tornado.
Yup. There was an incident on the lower Mississippi where 80 barges broke loose, but that was during Hurricane Ida.
Barges break loose in high water and it’s even more likely when there is accompanying high winds.
What I’ve seen that warrants the suspicious cat’s attention is the Federal Gub’mint’s response, which has been missing with the exception of Mayor Pete’s non sequitur responses. Racist bridges? C’mon, man.
Never let a crisis go to waste. Our infrastructure has been deteriorating. Stuff happens.
So I’ve been asking myself what do the TLAs and GEBs have to gain if they do nothing? If the goal of the TLAs and the GEBs is the destruction of the middle class, catastrophes in the logistics chain would be useful. They happen. So the simplest way to use those to further the goal of the destruction of the MAGA middle class is to not lift a finger to help out.
Send Mayor Pete. Yeah, that’s the ticket. If he can tear himself away from breastfeeding long enough to show up, at least he can be depended upon to address the problem by blaming racism and provide zero recovery funds. All money goes to Ukraine, doncha kno. That’s useful.
The conspiracy theories that these disasters are a cunning TLA plot are useful. I don’t think our TLAs are smart enough to orchestrate these disasters. But if people think they are cunning enough to pull them off, it generates fear of the power of the TLAs. That’s useful.
And the narrative in the YSM (Yellow Stream Media) is “You are SOOOOO Screwed! Give up! Despair! Curl up into a ball and weep!” That’s useful.
My original point is that none of these disasters are unique and are not even the worst of their type. For another example, the Skyway Bridge disaster was way worse than the Baltimore bridge collapse.
IMO, this stuff happens. So I’m seeing the conspiracy as a coordinated effort to do nothing when the inevitable does happen. It’s useful. We are expending all sorts of time trying to figure out how “They” pulled it off. They didn’t have to do anything. We should be watching what “They” are actually doing.
I guess if you are familiar with the Pittsburgh locale, there really was flooding in these parts last night. Three rivers congregating. But funny the way it is that early on in the Bribedem years, a bridge collapsed in the ‘burgh (as we call it) just before his “untimely” visit, and the Ghoul was there about a minute after it happened. All staged if you were to ask me.
I also guess that all of these ” untethered barges” were just a coinkydink, and Bribedem will be on the scene to take a dump in this neck of the woods, NEXT YEAR. Just like in E Palestine, Hawaii, you name it. Oh, I meant he and his buddy Buttabutjob will make a visit, say, October 2024.
I’m not suspicious anymore. I’m not a skeptic anymore either. Something evil is feathering its nest with every supposed disaster. And all of the authorities come in “sucking their thumbs” pretending they don’t get it either.
how did all those the barges break loose at the same time?
I’m not sure of the exact configuration but there isn’t sufficient river front owned by the Boat company to tie each individual barge to the land so perhaps 8 are tied to land and then 3 abreast with a couple of stragglers with the group being all tied together. This creates enormous tension on the the cables connecting them. Look there are strange things going on but this isn’t one of them
How?
Calling it Eco Terrorism yet??
The NWO/communism’s road to success is the ecology route……..a fake climate agenda. What could go wrong??
Enemies and threats are everywhere – just ask the IC.
I will go under the assumption that there are no coincidences.
Most are quite ignorant of the maritime industry. Collisions, allisions, groundings, spills, and barge breakaways are all common occurrences. Could these have been cut loose? Sure, but it’s more likely high water conditions and someone thinking “good enough” (I.e. human error) was the cause.
-25 year Coast Guard vet sends
Barges breaking loose from their moorings is not uncommon on the three rivers of Pittsburgh. The snow melt and the continuous rains of late March and every day of April and May and most of June cause high water float away of barges yearning to be free. The wet weather of the Burgh’s area is part of the reason as to why I now live in the desert. But, I still miss the Burgh.
Possibly signals from China, Russia et al. that they can reach out and mess with us here. Baltimore was an attack to show what’s possible if we keep escalating in Ukraine or Taiwan. Fifth generation warfare at its finest.
Expect to see:
https://www.landerholmimmigration.com/blog/2018/march/can-i-get-a-commercial-driver-s-license-cdl-if-i/
Wish I hadn’t clicked that link… shoulda looked closer first.
Landholder IMMIGRATION. “Can I Get A Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) If I Am Undocumented?”
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We Fight For Your American Dream!
Yeah? What about MY “American Dream”?
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Gotta love Suspicious Kitty.
Only 50 miles from East Palestine, Ohio train disaster…same river impacted…
I have seen this happen on the Monongahela river (a main tributary to the Ohio river) in 70’s. Several barges were let loose and floated down the river to the next lock. It was in the news and was done by miscreants. Those barges weren’t watched by any security. They were tied off by barge ropes and were easily released. I can imagine that things haven’t changed that much, as far as security goes, since then..
It was in the news and was done by miscreants
miscreants?
are we sure they weren’t recidivists or ne’er-do-wells?
or even ruffians?
Since I was a kid i remember barges breaking loose and my uncle going out helping to catch them.
I can’t remember when exactly but barges and a tugboat went over a damn.