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Posted in Texas Maritime News on October 28, 2010
GALVESTON, TX – The U.S. Coast guard has reported that a barge crane on the Galveston Causeway Bridge broke free sometime after 5:00 a.m., Thursday morning, October 28, hitting a power line resulting in a major outage on the island.
It is believed gusting winds of 30mph set free a crane barge which struck a transmission power line disrupting electicity to some 16,000 Galveston residents. CenterPoint crews went to work immediately, rerouting and restoring power.
“A crane barge apparently during the night with high wind and rough water broke free and hit a power line,” Renee Aiello a Coast Guard spokeswoman Petty Officer said.
There were no reported injuries at the time of the incident.
Galveston County Daily News reports:
The work at the bridge is not affiliated with BNSF Railroad, company spokesman Joseph A. Faust said.
The work is a county project contracted by local, state and federal officials.
“The bridge was condemned under the Truman-Hobbs Act as a hazard to navigation and it is being widened to accommodate the Intercoastal barge industry,” Faust said.
Kevin Reece of KTOU in Houston reports:
City officials said the outage wasn’t a big problem at UTMB, where emergency generators kicked in until power was restored.
Galveston ISD said only two schools were impacted, and their biggest issues were with computers and phones. Students weren’t in class Thursday, because of parent-teacher conferences.
“Our crews have gone out. We’ve reset all of our traffic signals at this point. City Hall went to emergency power right away. Outages didn’t cause any real hiccups as far as city operations go. But I’m sure people waking up had a slower day in front of them,” Alicia Cahill with the City of Galveston said.
CenterPoint officials said they expected everything to be back to normal by noon.
Published by Houston maritme lawyer and barge injury lawyers, Gordon & Elias, LLP