Two barges attached to a tugboat, on their way to Sidney from construction at the Coho terminal, snapped their lines and broke away in Wednesday night’s windstorm.
The tug was able to be returned back to shore and the Coast Guard rescue cancelled as nobody was in danger. The crew onboard were taken safely to the fueling dock.
In the meantime the two barges have drifted. One is at the bottom of Cook street which is the bigger of the two and with a lot of the debris from the old dock. It is wedged in sand at the moment.
The more dramatic of the two sites, because of the crane configuration, is at Mile Zero. It was originally blown to the rocks at Finlayson Point and is now at the bottom of Olympia avenue.
Emergency crews are aware and monitoring. Strong wind gusts of 30-40 knots have made it impossible to remove the barges.
