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Published
by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. CLICK FOR NEWSPAPER DELIVERY
Tuesday, October 9, 2001
Hearing over bridge accident starts today
A barge hit the Padre bridge; eight killed
By Lety Laurel
Caller-Times
The U.S. Coast Guard will be in Corpus Christi today to determine what role a tugboat operated by Brown Water Towing I of Rockport played in the collapse of part of the Queen Isabella Causeway last month, officials said.
Five crew members aboard Brown Water V, owned by Brown Water Towing I, when the incident took place on Sept. 15 are scheduled to testify at a public administrative hearing beginning at 9 a.m. in the Community Room of Tower II on Carancahua Street.
Testimony is expected to last through Friday.
The Brown Water V tugboat was pushing four barges loaded with steel and phosphates around 2 a.m. when it hit the Queen Isabella Causeway, the only road to South Padre Island from the mainland, according to official reports.
The incident resulted in the deaths of eight people, whose cars plunged 85 feet from Texas' longest bridge, officials said. With repairs on the bridge not expected to be completed until December, the deadly bridge collapse also is crippling the economy on South Padre Island, a tourist's paradise.
Will Pierson, an attorney for the tugboat company and Brown Water Marine Service, another Rockport-based company that supplied the tugboat crew, declined comment Monday on the incident and hearing.
Similar to a court proceeding, one person will preside over the hearings. If the presiding administrator determines that the boat's captain was at fault, he can revoke his license.
"From a Coast Guard point of view, we're just trying to determine the cause of the accident, what happened, what went wrong and how we can prevent it again," Bob Helton, senior investigating officer for the Coast Guard's Marine Safety Office.
The Coast Guard only calls a hearing for serious accidents resulting in death, he said.
"This is more serious, the number of deaths in this particular case. There was a significant and large loss of life," he said.
Two tugboat operators will also be called as expert witnesses, and representatives from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration and the Army Corps of Engineers may also be called to testify.
Lety Laurel at 886-3716 or laurell@caller.com
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