TOWBOAT

On April 19, 1979 towboat CAHABA, under the command of Capt. Jimmy Wilkerson, was dropping 2 barges thru the east span of Rooster Bridge on the Tombigee River (mile marker 200), with intent of running the boat around thru the lift span and catching the barges downstream of the bridge (for the why of this, see the following note). Pilot Earl Barnhart and two deckhands were placed on the tow to cast off the safety wires and winch wires.

For some unknown reason, the hands on the barges had taken loose all rigging except the starboard tow-knee wire.

Capt. Wilkerson and his crew were aware of the potential hazards when undertaking this manuver. Notice that the work deck doors to the engineroom and other spaces have been closed and secured.

With the tow wire still attached, the barge pulled the boat's bow underneath the bridge, trapping CAHABA against the structure. When the wire finally broke, the vessel popped up and hung the tow knee underneath the bridge.

CAHABA was trapped against the bridge span starboard side to. Towboats like CAHABA have a substantial amount of draft (8 to 12 feet) and, when this large surface was presented beam to the river current, the boat started rolling to port.

Once the port side deck went awash, the vessel rolled completely onto her side, passed through the span, and partially righted after clearing the bridge.

Throughout the ordeal, Capt. Wilkerson remained at the sticks. At one point, when the boat was completely horizontal, he was straddling the portside pilothouse door frame. During the time the pilothouse was immersed, the port front pilothouse window blew in, filling the space with water.

The boat with blue trim that you see in the first picture on this page is the CATHY PARKER. She was waiting above the bridge for her turn to pass through (if you look closely, you can see the CAHABA immediately to the left and upstream of the CATHY PARKER). CATHY PARKER radioed to Capt. Gary Grammer on TALLAPOOSA (which was down the reach below Blacks Bluff) that something had happened to the CAHABA. Capt. Grammer tied off the TALLAPOOSA's tow and light-boated to the CAHABA, where he pushed her out into a flooded corn field. The TALLAPOOSA then rescued the 3 crew members, and secured the 2 loose CAHABA barges.

Notice anything unusual? Look at the smoke coming from the exhausts. Amazingly enough, this thing is still running!!! CAHABA's starboard EMD 16V149 engine remained running the entire time.

According to the crew, she had just topped off with fuel at Demopolis, 14 miles upstream. CAHABA has one central fuel tank forward of her engines. Had that fuel tank been 1/2 full, she probably never would have come back up.

Charles Barger, the photographer of this amazing sequence of photos, was en route to Meridian, Mississippi and happened to be caught as the CAHABA blew for a draw at the Rooster bridge. He later provided the photos to the Linden, Alabama DEMOCRAT-REPORTER.

Epilogue:

According to historical sources, the Tombigee River was running at an historically high level When this incident occured, the Tombigee River was running at an historically high level . At Demopolis, Alabama the river was running at 73 feet. A typical flow is approximately 12-13 feet. CAHABA is still running the rivers but is now named M/V CAPTAIN ED HARRIS.

Info found at: riverchat.com

Capt. Michael L. Smith's Account

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 times 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...

Why barges are dropped through a non-opening bridge span...

Most of the old bridges on the Tombigbee happen to be built in bends (Rooster, in the old days, Naheola mm. 173, and Jackson RR, mm 89.0). During extreme high water at the Rooster and Naheola bridges, it was easier (and safer) to get next to the east bank, out of the heavy current, and ease your tow through the span closest to the bank where the current wasn't so fierce rather than trying to drive or flank the tow through the lift span of a draw bridge that had 150' or less of horizontal clearance.

The idea was to "drop" (cut loose) the barges through the slack water span, run light-boat through the draw span, and catch up to the barges just below the bridge. If you had a good deck crew, and winches with brakes wouldn't lock up on you at the worst possible time, this procedure took about 15 minutes. At the Jackson RR bridge there is no choice because there is no "alternate" span to get the tow through; you either run it or flank it in high water.

Cahaba Hubbub
Winona, Minn. -- Towboats, especially small ones, are surprisingly nimble craft that can turn and maneuver in some pretty tight spaces. In mid-February Big River received notice of a fascinating series of photos on the internet of the towboat Cahaba. The photos show an approximately 37-foot-tall towboat passing through an 11-foot-high bridge span. In the photos, the boat appears to roll on its side, submerge almost completely, then pop up on the other side of the bridge.

The photos became wildly popular on the internet, appearing on at least a dozen websites. People who saw the pictures wondered if this was an actual event, or did someone alter the photos?

Big River did some checking around. According to insiders, the Cahaba really did accidentally go under the bridge the hard way.

According to riverchat.com, (a website for sharing information and gossip frequented by southern river pilots) the incident took place on April 28, 1979, on the Tombigbee River in southwest Alabama at a place called the Rooster Bridge. All of the crew and captain came through the incident unhurt.

The photos were first posted by a retired Alabama man with connections to the commercial marine industry. He says that they had been circulating as a PowerPoint presentation among Gulf shipping companies. He placed them on his personal website, which got 85,000 hits in less than three days. If you haven’t seen the spectacular photos, check the link on the Big River website.