A light oil sheen, a sprained ankle and waterlogged cargo were among the damage reported when approximately 75 cargo containers tumbled off a stationed vessel at the Port of Long Beach on Tuesday morning.
The U.S. Coast Guard, which is leading the investigation into the incident along with the National Transportation Safety Board, provided an update along with Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson and other officials Wednesday afternoon but offered no definite explanation for the cause of the unusual mishap.
The containers, which carried general cargo such as clothes, furniture, shoes and electronics, mysteriously fell overboard while the vessel was “in the process of offloading” at Pier G around 9 a.m., according to U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Stacey Crecy.
The containers crashed into the water as well as struck and damaged a smaller clean-air barge connected to the large ship named Mississippi.
The containers were seen floating in the port Tuesday morning. Members of the Long Beach Police and Fire departments used boats to help corral the giant shipping crates.
“It was a miracle that no one suffered any major injuries, especially those individuals who were on the emissions collection barge at the time when the containers fell on top of it,” Crecy said.
Long Beach Fire Chief Dennis Buchanan said fire units responded at 9:06 a.m. and found that several containers were also leaning against a gantry crane.
Fire personnel immediately established an isolation perimeter, Buchanan said.
Although initial reports Tuesday said there were no injuries, Richardson confirmed that one worker aboard the barge sprained an ankle fleeing the falling containers.
Buchanan said the worker was assessed and treated at the scene and did not require immediate hospitalization.
“We are fortunate,” Richardson said. “It could have been a whole lot worse.”
Crecy also noted that the damaged barge, owned by cleantech firm Stax Engineering, was the source of a “very light” oil sheen. The ship was loaded with approximately 2,000 gallons of renewable diesel, she said.
It’s unclear how much has leaked from the vessel or from where it leaked.
“We believe that it could be coming either from the generator on board the barge or the tank,” Crecy said.
She noted that an oil spill response team was working to contain the sheen’s spread.
The owners of the cargo and barge vessels would share some of the cleanup responsibilities and also plan container recovery, Crecy said.
A 500-yard safety zone was secured around Mississippi — which carried 2,412 containers in total — by the Coast Guard, which produced safety broadcasts every hour alerting nearby ships of the potential safety hazards.
The Coast Guard said it was working with U.S. Customs and Border Protection to create a list of affected cargo and containers.
Although cargo containers will still need to be fished out of the water, said Port of Long Beach Chief Executive Mario Cordero, “the Port of Long Beach is fully operating.”
Port officials have described the incident as an accident, though Crecy said the investigation was early and “still a dynamic situation with many unknowns.”
When asked whether human or mechanical error played a part, Crecy said many factors will be looked into, including drug and alcohol testing.
Gary Herrera, president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 13, pushed back, saying it “was not human error” involving any union workers.
An online site dedicated to tracking ships says Mississippi flies under a Portuguese flag and was last docked in China two weeks ago.
The incident happened less than a week after the port was named the Best West Coast seaport in North America for a seventh straight year by the trade publication Asia Cargo News.
The port handles more than 9 million 20-foot containers per year from 2,000 vessels, moving one-fourth of all containers on the West Coast.
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