My worst week on the river - sandbar collapse wrecked our whole schedule

Last June I was working a dredge job near the Mississippi up by Cairo, Illinois, and we hit a stretch that was pure nightmare. Monday morning we had a sandbar give way right under our cutterhead, and it buried the intake pipe in about 4 feet of silt before I could even throttle down. Took us two full days just to dig it out with a backhoe and reset everything. Then Thursday the hydraulic pump started whining real bad, and we found metal shavings in the filter. Had to call in a rental pump from Paducah, which cost us $1,800 and another day of downtime. By Friday I was running on coffee and pure anger, and the survey crew told us we lost almost 40% of our weekly yardage target. Has anyone else dealt with a sudden sandbar collapse like that? What did you do to get back on track faster?

2 comments

2 Comments

simon_chen3d ago

Man 4 feet of silt burying your intake overnight? That's brutal. I've seen sandbars shift but nothing that fast and that deep. The hydraulic pump failing on top of it is just salt in the wound, I would have lost my cool by Thursday for sure. Getting a rental from Paducah is a headache too, I know that drive and the markup they slap on emergency equipment. That 40% yardage loss stings but honestly with that much downtime you probably did okay just to keep the job alive. Running on coffee and anger is the only way sometimes, I swear it gets the job done but it takes a toll.

wyatt_fox683d ago

Oh man, that reminds me of something that happened to a buddy of mine who runs a small dredging outfit down near Baton Rouge. He had a job on this little backwater channel, nothing crazy, just keeping the boat ramp clear for a marina. Well, one night a big storm rolled through and the whole bank just sloughed off into the water. I mean we're talking like 6 feet of clay and silt, came down and buried his whole setup. His little dredge was just pinned there, couldn't move, couldn't pump. The motor on his cutterhead burned up trying to chew through it before he could even shut it down. He ended up having to rent a trackhoe from some guy he found on Craigslist just to dig the dredge out. Cost him like 3 days and probably made zero profit on that whole job. He still jokes about it but I could tell at the time he was ready to just walk away.