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Date: September 03, 2003 at 10:30:10
From: Kris Garnjost, [nh-claremont-cmts2-32.bur.adelphia.net]
Subject: What Happened When The DQ Hit The Dam |
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Here is what I saw from the dinning room windows
when the DQ hit the dam. It was Captain's Dinner
night and we knew we were coming to a lock soon.
I didn't really notice anything until we hit the lock
wall.
Certainly bouncing off the lock wall was nothing too
out of the ordinary. Not usually a big thing. This
night was different. As Judy said, I also heard later
there was an out current across the entrance of the
lock. Usually, when you bounce of the lock wall you
are going forward and into the lock and then you
touch the opposite lock wall and settle into the
lock.
This night we bounced off and turned sideways. I
knew something was wrong when I looked out the
right side dinning room window and could see all
the way down into the lock to the far end. We
weren't far enough into the lock to hit the other wall
and the out current pulled us right past the
entrance.
We then swung around 180 degrees and we could
look out the left side of the dinning room and see
the dam coming toward us. The dam gates were
opened most of the way. We were moving pretty
fast.
Someone said, "Hold on." And we hit and hit hard.
People screamed. Several people were knocked
off their feet. A couple of tables toppled over when
people's chairs tipped and they held on. All the
glasses in both bars smashed on the floor. The
only significant injury was a dislocated shoulder
when a cook fell down the stairs.
As we could see later. We hit one of the icebreaker
points between the lock gates and there was a
deep (about 3 feet) gash in the gunnell above the
waterline.
At the time, no one could tell the extent of the
damage and whether we were taking on water. We
immediately went into emergency mode. I had
always wonder when I was ever going to use my
fire and boat drill training. We evacuated the
passengers off the bow on to the dam and lock
and from there to shore.
Buses were arranged to take the passengers first
to a Holiday Inn in Hannibal and then a hotel in St.
Louis. Once it was clear that there was no
immediate danger, a select group of crew
members went back on the boat and packed the
passengers' luggage.
The crew stayed in St Louis for two days and then
were allowed back on the boat to pack up our
belongings to take a two-week (I think, maybe
longer) lay off.
As Judy mentioned, they did try to pull the boat off
without success. Capt. Blum got a small tow to
lend a hand and they tried to pull the boat off
without having the corp close down the dam gates.
They weren't ready to do that until the next morning.
Unfortunately, this unsuccessful attempt cost Blum
his job. The big problem was that in this process
one of the big heavy pull lines snapped and hit a
deck hand (nickname was Snake and I think Eric
was his first name) and broke his leg very badly.
It was certainly an unusual, exciting, and a little bit
scary experience. I was proud of how well we all
did our jobs and kept relatively cool. We only had a
couple of hysterical passengers and they were
calmed fairly quickly.
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