Barge collision collapses causeway
By LYNN BREZOSKY
Associated PressPORT ISABEL — Barges rammed a bridge connecting this fishing community to South Padre Island, killing at least two people and leaving several more missing as cars plunged into the water, officials said.
The search for missing vehicles and victims was suspended about 8 a.m. because of unsafe conditions and was expected to resume around 11 a.m., said Texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Lorraine Ronquillo. Divers at the scene were trying to reinforce the structure.
"One of the columns is very unsafe and the waters are muddy," Ronquillo said.
Five vehicles were still under water, possibly more, Ronquillo said. At least 13 people had been rescued.
The tug Brown Water V and its four barges carrying steel coils and phosphate struck a pillar of the Queen Isabella Causeway, toppling two 80-foot segments and cutting phone service to the island, officials said.
Randall Dillard of the Texas Department of Transportation said his agency’s investigators, including specialized diving crews, were en route to inspect the damage. Personnel with the Coast Guard, Texas Parks and Wildlife, and local police and emergency medical teams also were called to search the Laguna Madre.
In the meantime, Dillard said officials were devising a temporary ferry system to shuttle people from the island. About 2½ miles long, the Queen Isabella Causeway is the state’s longest bridge, 65 feet wide and two lanes in each direction, and the only thoroughfare connecting the island to the mainland.
"We’ll be looking at the condition of the bridge as it is now and working to develop emergency contracts to make repairs. We need to look at it a little closer to know what the extent of what those repairs are going to be," Dillard said.
Betty Ewart, 62, came to watch the rescue after her husband, Edwin Ewart, 49, didn’t arrive home as expected between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. from his job as a waiter.
"I was at home for about an hour or two. I was waiting by the phone. I didn’t want to come out," she said. "He would have called by now. That’s what leads me to believe something’s wrong."
Michael Lorber was driving back from South Padre Island behind a friend. His friend’s car hit the water, while he slammed on the breaks.
Lorber returned to the island and took a boat back to Port Isabel. His friend was missing.
Matt Pechacek, a friend of both men, waited at Port Isabel as divers searched for survivors.
"They should have 50 boats out there. Why isn’t there a million boats out there?" said a visibly shaken Pechacek.
Southwestern Bell spokesman Bill Noble said workers were splicing together fiber-optic lines and microwave towers also were being brought in to restore telephone communication. Communication on the island itself was not affected.
Area homebuilder Clayton Brashear said thousands of volunteers across the region were due to show up Saturday for Adopt-A-Beach day to help out with island beach cleanup efforts.
Meanwhile, rooms at island hotels were about 70 percent booked, mainly with Mexican tourists celebrating Diez y Seis de Septiembre, that nation’s independence day.
The crash comes amid a call for public hearings to discuss building a second causeway to the island.
Cameron County Judge Gilberto Hinojosa said the accident occurred within 48 hours of a discussion he had with South Padre Island Mayor Ed Cyganiewicz about constructing another link to the island.
State Rep. Jim Solis, D-San Benito, said last week that he supports a resolution from the city of Port Isabel seeking further study and a traffic flow plan — early steps needed to build a bridge between Holly Beach and the island.
A draft was to be presented Sept. 27 at a Texas Transportation Commission meeting in Austin.
Impact studies and public hearings also have received public support from state Sen. Eddie Lucio, D-Brownsville, who won $10 million in Transportation Department funding for causeway construction during the 2001 legislative session.
Vicky Lopez, a clerk at the Break Time convenience store in Port Isabel, said several customers were concerned about the possibility of terrorism in light of Tuesday’s attacks on the East Coast.
"There were rumors that it may have been a bomb, but police said it wasn’t," Lopez said. "It’s just tragic. I was just praying for all those poor people in New York, now here it is in my own back yard."
State Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., D-Brownsville, said authorities considered the crash an accident.
"I think there’s some contributing factors — current, bad lighting — but we have no reason to believe it was anything but an accident," he said.
The barges were owned by American Commercial Lines LLC of Jeffersonville, Ind., and were being pushed by a tugboat owned by Brown Water Marine Service Inc. of Rockport, American Commercial assistant vice president Jim Adams said.
They were loaded in Brownsville and destined for Tennessee, Adams said.
Officials with Brown Water Marine Service, which has operated in Texas since 1987, did not return repeated telephone calls to The Associated Press.
