BALTIMORE — A massive cargo ship, stretching more than 1,000 feet long, is stuck in the Chesapeake Bay.
The Cargo ship is called “Ever Forward.” On Sunday, the vessel ran aground on its way to Norfolk from Baltimore.
United States Coast Guard captain David O’Connell said a team has been investigating how that could have happened.
“This is a complicated response when you have such a large vessel. It’s over 1,100 feet; It has over 4,900 containers on it,” O’Connell said. “Both the environmental causes will be looked at as well as the personnel, and what actions were taken on board the ship.”
If this scene looks familiar – that’s because it is. This boat is a cousin to the container ship “Ever Given” that blocked the Suez Canal in March 2021.
“We’re aware Ever Green is the same company with the incident last year, around the same time,” O’Connell said.
“But this is a separate incident and we’re focused on this incident. At the end of the day - at the end of the investigation - if there’s something we can compare with that incident, then we’ll do that and share it.”
Ever Given blocked the Suez Canal for almost a week.
O’Connell didn’t put a timeline on how long it will take to get the Ever Forward out of the bay.
He said the Cost Guard is working with a marine salvager to refloat the vessel and get it on its way.
“We definitely don’t want to rush a response,” he said. “We’re waiting on a salvage plan to determine how long that will be.”
Although we don’t know if weather played a roll, 13News Now meteorologist Craig Moeller said low tide combined with last weekend’s storm led to low water levels.
“Those strong northwest winds – it drove the water out of the Chesapeake Bay,” Moeller explained. “And it’s happening at an astronomical low tide. We’re almost a full moon right now and that’s making the lower tides even lower than they normally would be.”
O’Connell said no one was injured, and the ship is not leaking any pollution into the bay.