It is September 2001 and a disaster has hit the United states, but it isn't the one that
you might be thinking of…
Granted, today's subject has been overshadowed by another certain event, but it is no less
tragic.
Yes the death toll is lower, but the collapse of a bridge in texas would bear a startlingly
similarity to several other disasters highlighting that history is doomed to repeat itself and
that bridges over waterways are poorly protected.
Today we are looking at the september 15th 2001 Queen Isabella causeway collapse.
Background
Our Story starts all the way back in 1974 with the opening of the Queen Isabella Causeway,
the bridge that was built to connect Port Isabel to south Padre Island.
The island is a nature reserve, and largely is a tourist draw, but it does have a small
population, by the time the bridge was built, around 300 people called the small strip of
barrier land with Laguna Madre to the rear and the gulf of mexico in front.
The island had only been occupied since 1964, and the new bridge was actually a replacement
for an earlier crossing, rather confusingly also called the Queen Isabella Causeway.
The original crossing involved a wooden causeway and a swing bridge, this allowed the main
land to connect south padre island and long island, not that one, it had been opened in
july 1954 and by august 73,462 vehicles had paid the toll to cross to the island.
Any who, the new bridge was built a half-mile north of the old one with a long curve design
to help the structure withstand hurricanes.
State Highway 100 was extended to the new bridge location through the business district
of Port Isabel, and in the process several buildings were demolished.
The 4 lane causeway was Billed as the longest bridge in Texas at the time, it spanned 15,272
feet across the bay, boasted a width of sixty-eight feet, and a top-of-deck height of seventy-eight
feet above mean high tide at the centre of the main span.
It was constructed of 147 - 80 foot’ prestressed concrete spans with a steel cantilever main
beam span, under this main span runs a shipping channel.
Now the area is a bit of a shipping junction of sorts, and as such vessels in the area
take a rather strange route near the causeway.
Shipping can come to the causeway from 2 directions from the north and from the south, but when
looking at the map the southern approach isn't the way you may think.
You see shipping is directed along a section of channel known locally as the Y, this is
an upside down Y shape, which is at the southern tip of long island, not that one.
The channel is roughly 12 feet deep.
Say you're coming in from the gulf of mexico you travel west until you get to long island,
not that one, from there you can go 2 ways straight ahead continuing west along the ship
channel to brownsville.
If you want to go towards the intercoastal waterway to the north then you turn north
at the Y and navigate the channel behind Long Island, not that one, this section of waterway
is called the S curve, for kinda obvious reasons.
At the end of the S Curve vessels are now in line with navigating under the queen isabella
causeway, to help with guidance buoys are provided, it's the same way you would go If
you were coming from Brownsville towards the intercoastal waterway.
Although guided towards the correct approach to pass under the biggest span of the causeway,
several asslisons have occurred since 1974, but nothing catastrophic, the bridge was inspected
regularly and was being strength by Applying a metallic coating to some of the supporting
bents, a trial on the bridge had started in 1996.
Oh and talking about 1996, we got to mention the plane crash.
On the 13th of august 1996, at 6:22 p.m., a Cessna TR182 crashed into the causeway,
the plane had just successfully flown under the bridge and was going in for another go,
however the small aircraft collided with one of the concrete supports, and plunged into
the water, killing both pilot and pilot-rated passenger.
It later turned out the pilot in command was intoxicated, which isn't surprising.
I mean look at how low the bridge is!.
Although pretty dramatic, plane crashes were not the biggest danger to the bridge, it was
and would always be from shipping, and that would be the case on the 15th september 2001.
The disaster.
It's the 14th of september 2001, and the steel hulled towing vessel named the MV brown water
5, built in 1978 and owned by brown water marine services of rockport texas, is in the
port of brownsville, the day is filled with refuelling minor repairs and marshalling its
barges for the nights trip.
The crew make up today is of 5 men consisting of 3 deckhands, 1 captain and 1 relife capitan,
the 2 captains hold the licence to operate the vessel.
The brown water5 was to push 4 barges this evening and they are loaded with steel with
one loaded with phosphates.
The tug and its cargo leave Brownsville port around 9pm and start to head down the Brownsville
shipping channel.
Captain Rocky lee wilson is at the controls, with the relife capitan asleep, a crew change
over took place at 12 midnight, roughly 9 miles from Long island, yes I know not that
one!
From 12 the man at the controls is Captain David D Fowler, captain wilson then sleeps
in his quarters below, in the wheelhouse accompanying Fowler is one of the deckhands, due to nothing
too exciting planned for the night he is allowed to sleep.
However, Fowler still can wake him up if needed.
The Brown Water 5 reaches the y shipping area at roughly 1am and begins to navigate up the
s curve shipping lane towards the long island swing bridge, logs would indicate the vessel
reached the swing at 0145.
Passing through the swing bridge is around 15 minutes before getting to the queen isabella
causeway, as the Brown water 5 left the protection of the island the current started pushing
the heavy barges in a northwesterly direction.
Captain Fowler was not aware of the current and hadn't been prepared for it as such the
head of the tow was pushed northwest away from the channel.
The vessel was also being affected by another current pushing north east from the s channel
behind it.
The Vessel was being pushed in two different directions essentially turning the mv brown
water 5 off course, it then bumped its hull on the shallows next to the channel, captain
fowler was no longer in control, and was being pushed westwards towards the Causeway.
The Barges and MV Brown water 5 collided with the queen Isabella causeway's support columns
travelling at 0.2 miles per hour head on roughly 375 west of the channel, the sheer weight
of the vessel battered the bridge.
Three 80-foot (24.4 m) sections of the bridge disappeared into the water, the bridge was
now incomplete and in the darkness, almost impossible to spot for road users, 9 vehicles
were plunged into the dark waters of the Laguna Madre.
11 people were in the cars of which 8 would not survive.
The victims were Robert Harris, 46, Hector Martinez, 32, “Harpoon” Barry Welch, 53,
Chealsa Welch, 23, all of Port Isabel; Julio Mireles, 23, of Los Fresnos; Robin Leavell,
29, of Mercedes; Stvan Rivas, 22, of Humble, and Gaspar Hinojosa, 52, of Kingsville.
After the collision Capitain Fowler frantically tried to warn road users of the collapsed
bridge with the vessel's 1,000 watt spot light, but sadly it had little effect.
The first rescuers on the scene were local fishermen who tried to pull survivors from
the wreckage of concrete and mangled vehicles in the water.
Initially it was thought to be a terrorist attack, baring in mind that this was just
a few days after the twin towers, but no it was just a good old tragic series of events.
The bridge not only represented the only method of transport off the South Padre island but
also the small communities water and power supply.
Residents would be isolated for over 2 months, having to rely on a hastily setup ferry service.
The repair works would require the replacement of the 3 spans as well as an additional 2
more sections which although had not collapsed had become damaged.
A $12 million fibre optic driver warning system was installed as part of the refurbishment,
the bridge would see traffic again November 21, 2001 and 2 years after the collapse the
causeway would be renamed to Queen Isabella Memorial Bridge.
But although a local tragedy the root cause of the accident still had to be ascertained,
the US Coast guard would head up the investigation to how the MV Brown Water 5 and more specifically
the person at the controls got it so wrong.
The investigation
The S bend section of the channel was known to be a tricky section of water to navigate
and as such it was essential to be properly prepared, the US Coast Guard interviewed several
mariners who navigated the channel regularly.
And the results were not great for Fowler, expert witnesses stated that the current could
be predicted before exiting the S curve by observing the current in the channel.
The other captain aboard Rocky wilson stated that when he navigated near the causeway he
called the long island swing bridge operator for a current report, as well as observe the
way the water was flowing around the buoys in the area.
Another captain was called as a witness, who had navigated the channel just a few hours
ahead and he stated that he contacted other vessels in the area for their opinion of the
currents, all of these things Fowler failed to do.
The approach to the bridge was deemed adequate in that it was properly marked, the tug itself
was deemed safe, and the weather wasn't too treacherous, the cause was nothing but that
of the person at the controls, although Capitain Fowler would dispute this when a few years
after the disaster he would actually try to sue the tugboat owners.
The USCG report was so daming that it even recommended criminal charges be brought against
Fowler.
A dive into Fowler's past was also something to be concerned about; Coast Guard records
showed the accident to be Fowler's second bridge strike and third grounding in 13 months.
The disaster shows along with the sunshine bridge collapse and I-40 bridge disaster that
just a momentary lapse of judgement can result in so much death
and destruction.
https://www.dco.uscg.mil/Portals/9/DCO%20Documents/5p/CG-5PC/INV/docs/documents/BrownwaterV.pdf