In a bizarre incident, 26 barges broke loose in Pittsburgh and drifted uncontrollably down the Ohio River on Friday night.
Shortly after the barges broke free, Pittsburgh authorities closed the McKees Rocks Bridge and the West End Bridge “out of an abundance of caution.”
Authorities reported that eleven barges were stopped by running into a river bank by Brunot Island, and now tugboats are on the scene pulling the barges out.
Nine were found stopped at the Emsworth Lock and Dam.
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From time to time barges come loose. The only thing note worthy here is the large number of barges that got loose.
I was not aware barges come loose.
Out of 7 decades on this earth I have never read, nor seen 26 barges break loose from their moorings at all. I have worked many times and did many jobs on our docks working for the public utility I retired from, and we have never seen our barges break loose. the Companys dock master had to make sure when our oil barges came into dock they were securely tied down or he would have lost his job.
I’m sure multiple barges break loose every week if not every day; it’s only through the magic of the internet that we can hear about it so often.
All I can state I have never seen any of our large oil barges break away from our docks, if they did, heads would roll and be fired on the spot. Now I am not absolutely certain it couldn’t happen and if it did it would be human error or a massive storm.
I have lived along the Delaware, Main (Germany), Hudson and Ohio rivers. Barges get loose a lot especially with the spring rains.