‘It’s crazy.’ 140-foot barge stuck across Norwalk River since Saturday; plan set to free it Wednesday
It’s wedged into the eastern and western sides, blocking access to and from the Norwalk Boat Club. But the unusual sight has drawn traffic to the river's banks.
There’s a new plan in place to free a 140-footlong barge that’s been stuck across the Norwalk River since the weekend. It’s wedged into the eastern and western sides, blocking access to and from the Norwalk Boat Club. But the unusual sight has drawn traffic to the river's banks.
“It's crazy,” said Adraelle Guerra, who lives in the Head of the Harbor South apartment complex along the water.
“It's lopsided,” added her mom, Simaly Rojas.
“I had to look a couple times and say, ‘What?!’” laughed Richard Brousseau, property manager of Head of the Harbor South.
“Never seen this before,” Brousseau stated.
“Every day, we come out and just take a peek, see the progress,” Rojas told News 12. “Low tide. High tide. It’s interesting.” The barge became lodged around 11:30 a.m. Saturday when a routine delivery to Devine Bros., a construction and energy business, turned into anything but. “Every few months, Devine Bros. gets a shipment of material that's brought up by barge for their concrete operation,” explained Norwalk Harbormaster Bruce Lovallo
This time, it was 1,600 tons of gravel, according to Lovallo.
He said the good news is no one was hurt and no property damaged, but it has been an inconvenience. Since Saturday, crews have tried to get the barge out—first, by using tugboats.
“The tugboats have to work with the tide obviously, so they tried that afternoon,” explained Lovallo. “Sunday night they came back with another barge, and they had two barges—one pushing, one pulling, and they were not successful.”
But a plan is in motion to dislodge the barge on Wednesday. A contractor will arrive with a crane barge which will be used to unload all the gravel from the wedged vessel to an empty one, lightening the weight.
“Their plan right now is to offload as much material as they can to float it, and then on high tide, they'll try to dislodge the shell with a tug,” added Officer Owen Lee, of the Norwalk Police Marine Unit.
“Our family feels terrible about what has happened with the barge on the Norwalk River; Devine Bros. hasn’t seen such an incident in its 107-year history here,” said President Tom Devine in a statement to News 12, adding that the company has remained in contact with the Norwalk Boat Club and the apartment complex, giving them updates on the situation and how it will be rectified. “We are sorry for any disturbance or inconvenience this has caused them.”
Devine went on to say that after the barge is removed, the company will meet with Lovallo and the transport company to discuss how such an accident can be avoided in the future.
“Thank you to the Norwalk Police Marine Unit and Norwalk Harbormaster for their help and quick response to this situation,” Devine concluded.
