Collision off Texas City
The 585 foot long, 43176 dwt bulk carrier Summer Wind collided with a tanker barge being towed by the 20 meter long tugboat Miss Susan in the Houston Ship Channel near the end of the Texas City Dike. The tanker barge, loaded with 924,000 gallons of fuel oil, suffered water ingress and sank at the end of the dike. Reports state an unknown amount of fuel oil was released. A sheen of oil was spotted in the water around the barge. Authorities closed traffic on the channel between the Intracoastal Waterway to lighter buoy 32. Two crewmen on the barge were treated for exposure of hydrogen sulfide. No reports of injuries on the Miss Susan or the Summer Wind. Texas authorities and Coast Guard have deployed response teams to contain and clean-up the pollution.
Related articles
- Barges collide off Texas (shipwrecklog.com)
- Houston area sees a couple of oil spills a day (fuelfix.com)
- Barge leaking oil after collision in Galveston Bay (star-telegram.com)
