Here’s a followup to the photos

It was either late 1978 or early 1979, I have forgotten exactly, but anyway,
I am close on either… The river is the Tombigbee River and this happened
to be the record high water ever for that area. The towboat you see coming
down on the bridge is the Motor Vessel Cahaba owned by Warrior Gulf
Navigation out of Mobile, Alabama. Warrior Gulf is a subsidiary of
Pittsburg Steel. I know you are familiar with Birmingham’s coal mines and
steel mills, and this company would haul iron pellets up to Birmingport and
off-load to make steel plate. On the return the barges were filled with
coal for export at the McDuffie Coal Terminal at the mouth of the Mobile
River and at the head of Mobile Bay.
The Bridge was the Old Rooster Bridge (since demolished and removed – I saw
the explosion to tear it down also) located below Demopolis, Alabama. The
land-side highway dead ends at the bluff, and you can still drive to this
site and imagine how high the river had to be to get to the bottom of the
bridge…
The pass or Channel Span of the bridge was located on the far West side of
the river, or on the opposite bank from the photographer’s standpoint. In
normal river flow, we would drop down near the rock bluff and steer through
the opening to pass southward with our tows of coal barges. Normal loads
were six barges, each measuring 195′ X 35′ and loaded to a 10′ draft. This
allowed each barge to carry approximately 2,000 tons of coal (times six =
12,000 tons X 2000 pounds = 24 Million pounds of cargo.) The boat is 1800
Horsepower twin engine diesel built in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. It is named
after one of the eight “friendly” Indian tribes. It is the Motor Vessel
Cahaba. At the “sticks” or helm is Captain Jimmie Wilkerson, a long time
river pilot and was my personal friend – since deceased.
The river current was so very treacherous that we were forced to drop down
to the bridge in the slack(er) water on the left descending bank and when we
got down to the bridge, we uncoupled the boat from the barges and let the
barges drift down under the bridge. The bottom of the bridge would “shave”
the coal stacked in the barges off to a level surface. The next step was
to back the vessel upriver and then go over to the far West side and
traverse the bridge’s channel span with the boat, and run down and catch the
barges. It was just too dangerous to try to bring the barges through the
bridge span in the current.
Anyway, Jimmie dropped down properly and with the entire rest of the crew
standing on the barges for safety, he began to reverse his engines to back
away. His stern would have to be kept directly pointed into the current or
the boat would travel sideways like a kite without it’s tail. Captain Jim
was a fine pilot, but he made a small mistake and his stern was caught in
the current, twisted sideways and the river smashed him into the bridge
sideways. Notice that the boat re-surfaced right side up on the down stream
side. What luck you say? Nope, WGN ballasted all their vessels with three
to four feet of cement in the bottom. The boat was like a little yellow
rubber duckie, and came back up like a duckie oughta do. The boat
suffered major cosmetic damages, but little flooding because of water tight
doors, except in the pilothouse. Notice the picture where the boat is not
quite righted and you can see water pouring out of the wheelhouse door. The
chair washes out, and Jimmie told me he was holding on to the controls with
all his might to keep from going out the drain and into the river.
He was very shook up and you can see him approach the tow of barges
downriver. Well he didn’t get it together quite soon enough and he smashed
into the barges, causing further damage.
I next saw Jimmie about a month after this and we had a cup of coffee
together and talked about the incident. He was smoking a Camel Non-filter
but didn’t even need an ashtray beacuse his hands were still shaking too
much for the ash to build up to any degree.
How do I know all this? I was on the boat that went through the bridge
immediately before the Cahaba. The Motor Vessel James E. Philpott made the
bridge and was headed south at close to 15 MPH. For all you who don’t
understand, that is very fast on a commercial towboat with that much
tonnage.
Glad to pass this on to everybody…
Captain Michael L. Smith

Thanks, GLSailor. Very interesting reading.

Man, it’s really gettin’ deep on this thread

Hi Ken,

A couple of “observations” about barges and tows that I have seen over the years (I spent 10 years sailing on the Mississippi in St. Louis)

1. Towboat operators rarely stop for anything, high water, floods, anything. As you can imagine, the experienced captains have seen just about everything and know how to deal with it, high water in particular. Unless the Corps of Engineers or the Coast Guard specifically prohibits them from operating, the’re out there – same thing on the Great Lakes – storm warnings don’t mean a thing to those guys. If they do have to release the barges, they will publish a “PAN” signal informing others that their barges are loose (and assuming that the towboat is going to pick them up shortly)

2. Releasing the barges is a also a pretty common practice if the towboat is having difficulty. Not at all uncommon to see barges adrift, stuck on an island or actually moored to some spit of land so the towboat can do something else. A bit unusual to leave the crew on the barge, but again, not uncommon. Remember, it’s just a raft floating down the river with no power of its own while the towboat has a LOT of power to go up/downstream fully loaded (even though at full flood, it’s a lot of mass moving a good speed – dangerous – but it’s entirely the captains decision and wishes.)

Imagine the power necessary to push xxx tons of barge up the river against a 3-5-7 knot current!! The wash generated by the towboats can affect a sailboat as much as 100-200′ behind the towboat (as can the wash generated by a Lakes freighter as well – they are now up to the 1000′ foot size, limited only by the size of the locks at Soo Ste. Marie going into Lake Superior (smallest locks on the St. Lawrence Seaway, I think))

The locks on the Mississippe are supposed to control flooding on the river (as if man can actually control Mother Nature…) and they have actually made the situation worse by NOT giving the river anyplace to go when the river floods. There was HUGE argument after the ’93 flood about the Corpse of Engineers (sic) and the miserable job they had done “managing” the river and the argument rages today. The Corps has built so many levees to protect towns, etc., that when the river does swell, there is absolutely no place for the water to go except over the levees. All of the natural overflow areas had been dammed up and its worse the farther south you go on the Mississippi.

Sorry to get on my soapbox, but I’ve gotten a little frustrated about the machinations of the “corps” over the years. Hope this helps…

Mike

quote:

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Originally posted by GLSailor:

The locks on the Mississippe are supposed to control flooding on the river (as if man can actually control Mother Nature…) and they have actually made the situation worse by NOT giving the river anyplace to go when the river floods.

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Mike, thanks for the additional information. You certainly have a lot more experience and knowledge of the river than I do (I have done some boating on the Mississippi, and have enjoyed “upping” my boating skills to go through the locks). However, I do know the Army Corps of Engineers states that the locks and dams were not built for flood control. The information they publish says the dams and locks are strictly to maintain a navigation channel for river traffic. As I say, I’m no expert, but that’s what the Corps says.