Barge 45 became lodged against a Peace Bridge pier on Aug. 7, 1986, after breaking loose while being towed through the Niagara River. The 175-foot barge was empty, but its location created an immediate problem.
Those who there and witnessed the mishap gathered Friday at Buffalo Yacht Club to mark the event's 40th anniversary.
Gary Schaffstall was working as a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers construction inspector on Bird Island Pier at the time and watched Barge 45 drift toward the bridge. He said the tug operator fought against the river’s current but couldn’t regain control.
“He was sideways, floating right by me. He had the engine screaming on the tug, but it wasn’t making any difference. There was one thing on the barge as he went floating by, and that was a mid-’80s Dodge Ram Charger,” Schaffstall said.
Crews were especially concerned about what could happen if the barge remained there into the winter.
The US Army Corps of Engineers estimated it was obstructing about 10% of the river’s flow, while pressing against the bridge in currents reaching roughly 10 to 12 knots. After witnessing the crash, Schaffstall said he later climbed inside the damaged barge with another inspector to gather information crews would need to remove it.
“While you're standing in there, the river's coming up and going down, coming up and going down. She's creaking and she's groaning, and you're just hanging on with a little three-eighths nylon rope on your belt because that's all that would pass through the hole to get in," he said.
The operation eventually required help from the Navy and a specialized salvage contractor, which built equipment capable of lifting the roughly 300-ton barge against the force of the Niagara River. Multiple attempts failed before crews finally freed it on Dec. 19. Retired Corps employee Ed Gurecki said the river made Barge 45 unlike a typical bridge strike.
“The current is just a huge difference. You know, most places you're going to hit a bridge, there may be a small amount of current, but in this case, you have a very high-velocity current, which really pins it in there hard," he said.
Today, the Corps has tools including drones, digital mapping and side-scan sonar that could help responders assess a similar accident, but Buffalo District Operations Chief Adam Hamm said what crews accomplished with the technology available in 1986 remains remarkable.
“It's a really significant feat of getting it from when it hit in August to actually getting it off in December, with all the different variables they had to deal with — the weather, the depth of the water, the velocity and the speed of the water," Hamm said.
The entire response ultimately cost the federal government about $5 million. Also lost in the crash: a mid-’80s Dodge Ramcharger that slid off the deck and into the Niagara River. Forty years later, nobody knows exactly where it ended up.
