Runaway Barge on P2

Well, after getting off work late last night, we decided to try some fishing. It was the latest night I have ever fished the river….got of the river at nearly 6am. earlier in the nights, we pulled up to one spot, I thought to myself, “huh, Ive never seen them tie and park 2-4 barges this close to this spot before, but, oh well, cant wait for all these barges to starting getting out of here and opening up some fishing spots…”

After fishing for about 30 minutes, my buddy (who has never been on the river before) stated, “wasn’t that barge just up here a while back? I didn’t see a tug come by; Did a tug come up here and move them way down there?”

Sure enough, after realizing and watching, it was either 2-4 barges tied together (side x side) (partially loaded as they were about half way down into the water) were floating freely towards the I-494 bridge. If you fish the river, they were located by the lighted, red marker just about .5 mile or so north of I494. With no tugs in sight, the only thing was to call 911, which patched me to the water emergency center, which took my information. After receiving three more calls from Upper River Services and having to re-explain where these runaway barges were, I finally saw a barge come from the airport area about 10-15 minutes later and head downriver. I am not sure why it took them so long to respond and what was so confusing about my location description of the barges of being located ‘approximately 600 yards north of the 494 bridge’…nonetheless, it had to have been a close call from them hitting the bridge. I am sure they wouldn’t have caused any major damage, but sure it saved them from some sort of a water navigation incident report.

This was the most exciting action of the evening….

Maybe they grounded them and they came loose. Got a feeling even a lite tap of those barges on the bridge might of caused some very big issues. It has been fun this year watching the tugs use the practice of drifting one barge while tieing up another in its place. Then chasing down the drifting barge. The ones down river dredging do this constantly. The backhoe on shore shoves the empty one out into the river so the tug can push the full one into place.

Then chasing down the drifting barge.

Ask ol’ Pete how that works.

Had his anchor stuck in the sand I highly double Pete and Shirley would be around today.

Seems to be a common practice up here. Seen them one night unhook one in front of one of the side channels. Then run around to the other end of it and retie to push it up the channel. Guess this was easier than turning the tug up that channel.

The river north of 494 was just packed with barges the second half of this summer. 3 to 4 deep on most of the shorelines. Dont remember ever seeing that many up there. Looks like they have most of them moved out now. About another month til the end of barge season up here.

Mike that might have been when the river was closed to barge traffic do to shoaling. There were a couple places just too shallow to get through.

The Corps seemed to be dredging more this year then in years past…or maybe I’m just more aware of it.

I was thinking the same thing. Had something to do with the hang up earlier this year down river. Not sure if we got more dredging going on this year. There has been one crew working the lower end of pool 2 since the water levels came back down mid summer. Thought there was a second crew down there for a while also. This is the smaller crew. Not the large one that sucks the bottom up and pipes it to the shoreline. Havent seen that guy around in a few years.

Wow. Nice work, Batman. I’ll tell you, one barge service company and their insurance company owes you bigtime!

A barge full of grain can weigh 100 tons. Drifting along in a 2 MPH current, that’s a tremendous battering ram. It probably wouldn’t take out a bridge like 494, but it would have made a real mess. Which the barge operator and their insurance would have been on the hook for.

Great work to get on the horn.

As an aside, IMO one of the most important things a boater can know in an emergency is how to give GPS coordinates.

Unfortunately, the coordinates are often hidden away on many GPS units, you have to access them through the menus. You also have to know how to use the settings to quickly change the format because there are several different formats for coordinates and if you give the person on the other end of the line a Degrees/Minutes/Seconds coordinate set, they may not be able to use it as their system may demand a degree/decimal coordinate format.

All of this sounds complicated, but IMO it is VERY worth spending a few minutes to figure out.

Good work out there. As I said, the barge company owes you bigtime.

Grouse

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

As an aside, IMO one of the most important things a boater can know in an emergency is how to give GPS coordinates.

Whenever I am on the river, I try to pay attention to mile markers on my GPS mapping software. Mile markers are a great way to communicate your position if the need arises.

-Drew

With the Lowrance (HDS units) a simple move of the curser on your gps screen will make a small window pop up with the numbers showing.

Along the same lines as Grouse was talking, a couple years ago a tow “bumped” into the up stream side of L&D 2’s bullnose. I was told it felt like an earthquake.

The newly hired captain was fired and the barge company receive a bill for over a million $$. That might have been a little more then a tap I’m guessing.

I’m trying to get my head around really needing GPS coordinates to find four runaway barges in the Mississippi River above the Wakota Bridge. If you can see the bridge and you can see the barges……..

On my HB unit, the coordinates are displayed in the lower right hand corner.

BS you just wanted to one up a Lowrance.

The people that answer the phones frequently aren’t from the immediate area. “Wakota Bridge” has little meaning to many people more so in the North and West portion of our beautiful Metropolis. The 494 Bridge should ring home a little better, but still I can see the questions coming up from the dispatchers.

The only reason the gps coordinates would work is because they don’t know what they are and would just relay them to someone that knows what they’re doing. LOL!

Now that I think of it, I don’t know the mile marker right in front of my camper.

Just sayin’…

“The people that answer the phones frequently aren’t from the immediate area.”

Ah, I didn’t think of that. I should know better; I’ve tried calling the non-emergency number for the SSP Police department once and the person on the other end didn’t know anything about SSP. I had to walk them through a Hudson Street atlas.

So any idea who we should call instead of 911? The Coast Guard?

how dang complicated is it ?
all the dispatcher should have to do is relay the message
then I’d hope any tug captain worth his salt, upon receiving said message, ought not have any difficulty finding the “494 bridge”

Well, in this case the 494 bridge should have been an adequate landmark, but you never know. In this day when call centers are centralized, you could be talking to someone in Omaha.

My comment was more directed at being able to communication a position if there wasn’t an easily identified landmark available.

Grouse

Well, nonetheless it was interesting. I will be patiently waiting for a “you saved our a$$” check in the mail. Not.

The GPS coordinates is a great idea, but we were a ways from the barge so it might/might not have been as good as the description of “600 yds North of the I494 Bridge” description. Had my anchor come untied on the river, you bet, I would have gotten the gps coordinates and casting treble hooks trying to get it back. To be honest, even though I have HDS units, giving them a coordinate didn’t even come to mind. …but a great idea!

For now, I will just hope they start getting some of these barges out of the way as they are hiding some great spots to fish.

Maybe they (dispatcher) would have asked if it was possible to give them gps coordinates… Just sayin’…

Mark

So any idea who we should call instead of 911?

I have to admit Steve, that struck me as a humorous question. (sadly)

Here’s the number to the USCG that covers the Upper Mississippi Sector. It can be used for reporting missing or out of place Navigational Markers and other things that would effect navigation on the river including emergencies.

But I would think calling 911 would be faster then calling Keokuk, Iowa for a local emergency. (?)

314-269-2610

Im sure if the 911 dispatcher could not of gotten a hold of upper river services a call would of went into south saint paul fire. Those guys most likely would of fought over who got to take that nice boat out that evening. Cant remember if it was last year or the year before they where putting out hobo camp fires with the water cannon on that boat. Pretty cool to see all those light coming up river at night.

Brian Klawitter wrote:

Now that I think of it, I don’t know the mile marker right in front of my camper.

I don’t remember by heart either. I just know that the mile markers are labeled on the lakemaster master chips.

-Drew

Hah! My Navionics too! Never gave that a thunk!