>
> Sometimes you've just gotta be at the right place at
the right time...
>
> http://koti.mbnet.fi/~soldier/towboat.htm
>
A friend of mine at the Ohio River Company sent me the
following commentary on thses pictures:
Commentary from "River Chat":
I'll try to be brief- April 28, 1979- the CAHABA, Capt.
Jimmy Wilkerson, was
dropping 2 of his 4 barges thru the east span of Rooster
Bridge- mm
200.(something), with intent of running around thru the
lift span and
catching them below. Pilot Earl Barnhart was on the tow
helping the 2
deckhands take off safety wires, winch wires, etc.
Wilkerson under-estimated
current, and got too close to the bridge, and for some
reason they had taken
loose all rigging except the stbd. tow-knee wire. This
wire pulled the stbd.
tow knee under the bridge, and when it broke, the
towknee popped up and hung
in the bridge steel. Now he's stuck, and the current
laid the CAHABA onto
the bridge, stbd. side to. When the lower port deck went
awash, the vessel
rolled, went through the span, and came partially back
up once it cleared.
Capt. Wilkerson remained at the sticks; however, at one
point he was
straddled the stbd. pilot house door frame, and the port
front pilot house
window blew out, filling the place with water.
The boat with the blue trim you see is the CATHY PARKER;
she was waiting
above for her turn. The CATHY radioed to the TALLAPOOSA,
who was down the
reach below Blacks Bluff, that something had happened to
the CAHABA. Capt.
Gary Grammer tied off the TALLAPOOSAs tow, and light-
boated to the CAHABA,
where he pushed her out into a flooded corn field. The
stbd. 16-149 of the
CAHABA was still running. The TALLAPOOSA then rescued
the 3 crew members,
and secured the 2 loose CAHABA barges.
The photographer was from the Linden, AL DEMOCRAT, en
route to Meridian, MS,
and happened to get caught as the CAHABA blew for a draw
at the Rooster
bridge. What kept these pictures out of circulation for
so long (we believe)
was that the President of Warrior & Gulf, owners of the
CAHABA, bought the
negatives immediately after they were published in the
LINDEN DEMOCRAT. I
have a copy of the original published version, although
it's a little worse
for wear after 23 years.
What righted the vessel? She had just topped off with
fuel at Demopolis, 14
miles upstream. The CAHABA has one central fuel tank
fwd. the engines; had
that tank been 1/2 full, she might have never come back
up.
Earl Barnhart passed away several years ago. I have no
idea where Jimmy
Wilkerson is.
--
Keith Quarles
kquarles@xxxxxxx
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