THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 23, 1994 TAG: 9409230578
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON FRANK, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS LENGTH: Long : 101 lines
Eve Wittig watched Thursday morning while a tugboat captain tried to round up one of his nine barges as it broke away in the heavy weather of a northeaster at the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel.
Wittig, a bridge-tunnel patrol supervisor, was looking at a TV monitor in the span's control tower about 7:45 a.m. Winds were gusting at 60 mph, and there were 6-foot waves on the James River.
``That's when I said, `Something is going to come loose,' '' Wittig remembered Thursday afternoon.
She was right.
The other eight barges being pushed downriver separated. Then, with frightening force, the 120-foot-long barges, loaded with tons of crushed stone and sand, crashed one by one into the seaward side of the 2-year-old bridge-tunnel, which carries Interstate 664 across the James between Suffolk and Newport News.
The barges smashed the concrete covering on several of the bridge-tunnel's pilings. They crumpled parts of a 30-foot section of the concrete barrier wall that lines the outside of the span.
And at one point, about 1,500 feet south of the bridge control tower, wind and rough water pushed one of the barges up the side of the bridge. The barge snapped a light pole, flipped and submerged. And it moved one section of the bridge's outside wall about a foot, said Jim Harrison, a Virginia Department of Transportation engineer.
Bill Cannell, spokesman for the Transportation Department, said three of the bridge pilings were heavily damaged. The barges' impact left 1-foot holes in them, he said.
Both northbound lanes of the span were closed shortly after 8 a.m., and traffic was rerouted to the James River Bridge and the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel. The left northbound lane was opened at 7 p.m., but the right lane was to remain closed today so divers could inspect bridge pilings.
Both southbound lanes were to be open today.
Harrison said most of the damage was done by the barge that flipped.
But, he said, another barge drifted all the way down the seaward side of the bridge-tunnel to the small-boat channel, where it banged its way under the bridge before capsizing and spilling its load of gravel on the river side of the span.
Harrison, who also manages the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, the Coleman Bridge and many of the other bridges in southeastern Virginia, said Thursday's crash was the first serious accident to damage the Monitor-Merrimac in its 30 months of operation.
The barges, owned by Tarmac American Inc., a Norfolk-based construction-materials firm, were en route from quarries in the Richmond area, according to Tarmac spokesman Tim Harkins. Six of the barges were carrying sand and three were carrying gravel, Harkins said.
``They left very early in the morning, and I don't think anyone was aware of the severity of the storm,'' Harkins said. ``I believe the wind speed increased significantly during the hour that the accident occurred.''
Harkins said the trip down the James is routine for Tarmac tugboats and barges. Three tugboats with barges travel down the James River almost daily from Richmond to Norfolk. The captain of the Aries - the tugboat that lost the barges Thursday - has 22 years of experience with Tarmac, Harkins said. The company did not release his name.
Harkins said Tarmac will investigate the cause of the accident.
Whatever the cause, weather played a major role. According to the National Weather Service in Norfolk, Thursday's northeaster traveled up the East Coast and had been predicted well in advance of its arrival in Hampton Roads. The Coast Guard issued a small craft advisory.
``But I don't think there are any regulations in place which would force boat captains to listen to the forecasts,'' said Michael Davis, a Coast Guard petty officer in Portsmouth.
In another accident, Thursday's storm also shut down the Jamestown-Scotland Ferry when a barge slammed into a bridge near a ferry pier. The ferry will remain closed indefinitely, said a Transportation Department spokesman. Traffic is being detoured to the James River Bridge and the Benjamin Harrison Bridge in Hopewell. ILLUSTRATION: PAUL AIKEN/Staff color photos
Norman Clarin, a safety officer on the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial
Bridge-Tunnel, surveys where barges struck bridge pilings Thursday.
Southbound traffic passes a capsized barge near the small-boat
channel. Northbound traffic was halted 11 hours Thursday.
Graphics
STAFF
WHAT HAPPENED
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
THE BRIDGE-TUNNEL
Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel facts
Date opened: April 30, 1992
Cost: $400 million
1993 traffic count: 9,555,900 vehicles
KEYWORDS: STORMS BARGES BRIDGES by CNB