Emergency Vehicles Blocked at the Lift Bridge скачать в хорошем качестве

Emergency Vehicles Blocked at the Lift Bridge

A gorgeous spring evening at the Canal broken by the sounds of sirens. Since the interstate, downtown and most of the main emergency service stations are located just a few blocks north of the Canal, sirens are extremely common and I didn’t think much of it until I saw the ambulance and fire truck pull up to the bridge gates. Upon lowering the bridge allowed the ambulance and firetruck over the bridge before opening the gates, the ambulance thanking the operator. Of course as soon as they passed some jerk pickup took advantage of the gate being raised to run the red light 🙄. Hopefully everyone was ok, and that the delay didn’t result in anything bad happening! You’d think it would be a rare occasion that a ship and Emergency vehicles happened to at the Canal at the same time, but surprisingly it seems to happen a handful of times each year, often enough that I know the protocol for it. If 911 dispatch alerts the bridge early enough, the ship will be called off and either wait in the harbor or steam in circles out on the Lake until they’ve cleared the bridge. If the ship is too close to the bridge, like in this occasion, the ship gets priority since it can’t exactly stop on a dime, and the emergency crews have to wait for it to pass, granted skipping ahead of the line of traffic (which can be extremely long). The delay must be very frustrating, but not much can be done, you can’t exactly lower the bridge down on top of the ship, we don’t want another Windoc incident. As for the ship itself, Maumee/Victory made her first trip to Duluth of the season bringing in limestone to Hallet 5. She must have really gotten her unloader tuned up because she was in and out with her 25,000 tons of stone in about 8 hours, pretty impressive for a 73 year old, 815ft converted laker. Built in 1952 as the SS Reserve, the AAA-class ship was an identical twin to well known lakers such as Arthur M Anderson and Philip R Clarke, and sailed in the prestigious (at the time) Columbia Transportation Fleet. She operated under them until 2007 when Columbia folded under after years of financial difficulties. The ship by that point had been poorly cared for, her engines and other systems in dire shape due to a major fire in 2004 that was never fully repaired. The ship was purchased at auction along with her fleetmate, Buckeye (sister-ship of the Michipicoten) by a new startup company named K&K Marine. For the first year, the two vessels were operated in their original configurations, however the Reserve ended up in the shipyard nearly 2/3s of the 2008 season due to continuous engine breakdowns, canceling most of her runs. Plans were made to lay up the ship in 2009 and have Buckeye earn enough money to fix the troubled vessel, but Buckeye ended up running into a submerged rock shoal in Lake Superior late that year, seriously damaging the engineering section and prop of that vessel. With both ships down, it was decided to replace the engineering sections of both vessels with older, affordable tugs. Reserve was renamed James L Kuber and paired with the 1981 tug Victory, while Buckeye was renamed Lewis L Kuber and paired with the historic 1928 tug Olive L Moore. They operated under those names until 2019 after the company was purchased by Grand River Navigation, renaming the two vessels Maumee, after the river in Toledo, and Menominee. In January 2013 the connections between the hulls started breaking in heavy seas, and the tug crew was forced to eject the barge and crew on board into Lake Superior to avoid damage. It was rescued by the Saginaw, and towed to Thunder Bay for repairs. This remains the only incident of an ATB vessel making an emergency separation on the Great Lakes. The ship today remains an extremely active vessel on the Great Lakes, hauling all major bulk cargoes commonly carried here. She is Grand River Nav’s largest vessel, and a true workhorse despite her history and years. Her tug has a fantastic and very powerful horn, easily in the top 5 on the Lakes for volume, can give you a jump scare if you’re expecting a weak tug horn! Hope you enjoy!