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ST. LOUIS RIVERFRONT (KTVI-FOX2now.com) -
Riverboat traffic on the Mississippi River at the Arch had to be halted for nine hours Saturday after a tow of 15 barges broke apart and some struck the MacArthur Bridge. Four miles of river were closed during an investigation. No one was hurt in the accident, but four barges sank. Tug boats in the harbor corralled the remaining runaway barges.
All the barges had been loaded with 1550 to 1600 tons of coal at a coal loading facility on Hall Street. The tug boat the "Cindy Celeste" was moving them through the harbor to assemble a larger tow for travel downstream.
One barge remained wedged against the eastern pier of the bridge. A second sank in the channel some one hundred feet south of the bridge. Coal dust was visible on a bridge pier. The Terminal Railroad halted train traffic on the MacArthur Bridge until an inspection showed no safety issues.
U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Rob McCaskey said it could take some time for investigators to determine what had happened to cause the accident. He indicated it was too early to blame the high flood water and strong current.
"In the past several years we've had these kind of conditions and we were basically operating under the same conditions that we normally do," he said.
The Mississippi River was re-opened to traffic at 8:30 p.m. with the warning that the wedged barge was impinging on the channel by 30 to 40 feet and all riverboat captains were to use caution when navigating between the piers of the MacArthur Bridge.
The National Weather Service said that the Mississippi River at St. Louis was at 1.37 feet above flood stage Saturday and was projected to peak at 5 feet above flood stage late Sunday night and early Monday. The St. Louis area has received a record 12.38 inches of rain for the month of October and almost 4 inches of rain just since last weekend, the Weather Service said.
All the barges had been loaded with 1550 to 1600 tons of coal at a coal loading facility on Hall Street. The tug boat the "Cindy Celeste" was moving them through the harbor to assemble a larger tow for travel downstream.
One barge remained wedged against the eastern pier of the bridge. A second sank in the channel some one hundred feet south of the bridge. Coal dust was visible on a bridge pier. The Terminal Railroad halted train traffic on the MacArthur Bridge until an inspection showed no safety issues.
U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Rob McCaskey said it could take some time for investigators to determine what had happened to cause the accident. He indicated it was too early to blame the high flood water and strong current.
"In the past several years we've had these kind of conditions and we were basically operating under the same conditions that we normally do," he said.
The Mississippi River was re-opened to traffic at 8:30 p.m. with the warning that the wedged barge was impinging on the channel by 30 to 40 feet and all riverboat captains were to use caution when navigating between the piers of the MacArthur Bridge.
The National Weather Service said that the Mississippi River at St. Louis was at 1.37 feet above flood stage Saturday and was projected to peak at 5 feet above flood stage late Sunday night and early Monday. The St. Louis area has received a record 12.38 inches of rain for the month of October and almost 4 inches of rain just since last weekend, the Weather Service said.
