[Ted Davisson]

Greetinggs From New Orleans ,
Well , by now most everyone is somewhat familiar with what took place in the New Orleans harbor a few early mornings ago and this is somewhat of an up date as to what happened and what is expected to happen . First of all , the ship was south bound below Six Mile Point and as the traffic pattern sometimes dictates was favoring the west bank ( right decending shore ) of the river . Secondly , at about two-thirty in the am the M/V Mel Oliver with one tank barge was coming out of the Harvey Lock , at about river mile 98.5 ahp . Its my understanding that the south bound ship attempted on numerous accasions to establish radio contact with the M/V Mel Oliver and with no success , repeatedly blew the Danger Sigfnal and upon making a visual with the ship the M/V Mel Oliver went astern on her engines and backed into the path of the oncoming south bound ship . It has also recently been disclosed by the investigating officiers of the Coast Guard that no one at the helm of the M/V Mel Oliver was licensed to operate this tank tow . Unfortunately , a collision insued and the tank barge was literally sliced in half spilling approximately 400 thousand gallons of heating oil into the river . Fortunately , there was no loss of life life on the M/V Mel Oliver and all the crew was accounted for . Yesterday , one half of the leaking tank barge sanked into the river and the other half is still afloat but wedged aganist the up river east channel span pier . Today , they will atemmpt to remove the wedged tank barge half and although the river is closed for approximately one-hundred miles to traffic , the smart mney is on the bet that within the next few days the river will re-open to one way traffic . This is actually the second accident on the Mississippi River and in the New Orleans harbor in as many weeks and hopfully this will not be an ongoing trend . I have a few pictures of the wedged tank barge and the oily water that I down loaded from NOLA.COM and if interested they have a more thorough report on the accident .
Smoothe Sailing ,
Ted Davisson