NEW ORLEANS - The entrance to the Mississippi River was closed to oceangoing vessels - including cruise ships carrying thousands of passengers - for a second day yesterday while teams searched for the five-member crew of a supply boat that sank after colliding with a container ship.
There was no way to tell when the river may reopen, said Coast Guard Petty Officer Jonathan McCool.
Probably later than sooner
he said. It's going to be a complicated evolution and it's going to hold things up for awhile.
The 178-foot offshore supply boat Lee III sank early Saturday and blocked the Southwest Pass, seven miles south of Pilottown, the only channel into the river that can be used by oceangoing vessels.
The collision came just a day after the river had been reopened following a collision Thursday between a tanker and a freighter.
Searchers on boats and in aircraft looked for the supply boat's five missing crew members while Navy salvage divers examined the damage to help investigators learn what caused the wreck.
Commercial divers were en route to look inside the partially submerged hull of the Lee III for its crew, McCool said.
At one point, about 40 ships were backed up, including at least three large cruise ships carrying some 7,900 passengers, McCool said
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