GALVESTON, Texas (AP) – A barge crashed into a bridge pillar in Galveston, Texas, on Wednesday, spilling oil into waters near a busy shipping lane and closing the only road to a small neighboring island. It was done. No injuries were reported.
The impact sent pieces of the bridge connecting Galveston and Pelican Island rolling onto the barge, forcing crews to close a stretch of waterway to clean up the spill. One man fell overboard and into the water, but he quickly recovered and was uninjured, said Maj. Ray Nolen of the Galveston County Sheriff's Office.
Texas coastal ports are hubs for international trade, but experts said the collision was unlikely to cause serious economic disruption because it occurred in a little-used waterway. The island is located opposite the beaches of Galveston Island, which are visited by millions of tourists each year.
The accident occurred shortly before 10 a.m. after a tugboat operator pushing two barges lost control, said David Flores, bridge superintendent for the Galveston County Waterway District.
“The current was very bad and the tide was high,” Flores said. “He lost it.”
Pelican Island is only a few miles wide and is home to Texas A&M University at Galveston, a large shipyard, and industrial facilities. Less than 200 people were on campus when the crash occurred, but all were eventually allowed to drive across the bridge and evacuate. The Institute of Oceanography and Oceanography said it plans to remain closed until at least Friday. Students living on campus were allowed to remain there, but university officials said students living on campus and leaving campus “must be prepared to remain off campus for an unknown period of time.” I warned you.
The accident occurred weeks after a cargo ship crashed into a support post on Baltimore's Francis Key Bridge on March 26, killing a man. 6 construction workers.
Flores said the Texas tugboat was pushing a bunker barge, which is a fuel barge for ships. The barge, owned by Martin Petroleum Co., has a capacity of 30,000 gallons, but it's unclear how much leaked into the bay, Galveston County spokesman Spencer Lewis said. He said the spill had closed about 6.5 miles (10.5 kilometers) of the waterway.
The affected area is several miles from the Intracoastal Waterway, which sees heavy barge traffic, and the Houston Strait, a major shipping channel for ocean-going vessels. Marcia Burns, a shipping expert at the University of Houston, said that apart from the environmental impact of the spill, the accident is unlikely to cause major economic disruption in the region.
“Pelican Island is a small location and is not a center of commercial events, so the impact will not be as devastating,” Burns said. “The impact is relatively small.”
A barge runs aground next to the Pelican Island Bridge in Galveston, Texas, on Wednesday, May 15, 2024, after colliding with an old railroad bridge that runs alongside it. The crash shut down the only road in and out of Pelican Island. (Jennifer Reynolds/Galveston County Daily News, via AP)
At the bridge, large pieces of broken concrete and pieces of railway were hanging over the side and above the barge that had plunged into the walkway. Flores said the tracks serve only as protection for the structure and have never been used.
The Pelican Island Causeway Bridge, which opened in 1960, was rated “Poor” by the Federal Highway Administration in its 2023 National Bridge Inventory released last June.
A bridge's overall rating is based on whether its individual components (deck, superstructure, substructure, or culvert (if present)) are in poor or poor condition.
In the case of the Pelican Island Causeway Bridge, inspectors rated the deck in “satisfactory condition,” the substructure in “fair condition,” and the superstructure, the component that absorbs live traffic loads, in “poor condition.”
The Texas Department of Transportation had planned to begin construction on the project to replace the bridge with a new bridge in the summer of 2025. The cost of this project was estimated by him at $194 million. In a document provided during a virtual public meeting last year, the department said the bridge “has reached the end of its design life and needs to be replaced.” The agency said it has spent more than $12 million on bridge maintenance and repairs over the past 10 years.
The bridge has one 164-foot (50-meter) main steel span and was last inspected in December 2021, according to federal data. It is unclear from the data whether state inspections were conducted after the Federal Highway Administration compiled the data.
A tugboat maneuvers a barge away at the Pelican Island Bridge in Galveston, Texas, Wednesday, May 15, 2024. after a barge crashes into a bridge, spilling oil into surrounding waters and cutting off the only road in and out of the island. (Jennifer Reynolds/Galveston County Daily News, via AP)
According to 2011 estimates, average daily traffic on the bridge was approximately 9,100 cars and trucks.
___
Lozano reported from Houston. Associated Press writers Christopher L. Keller in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Valerie Gonzalez of McAllen, Texas; Acacia Coronado in Austin, Texas. Ken Miller and Ken Miller in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.
