That week on the Mississippi in June almost broke me

We were running 12 hour shifts on a cutterhead dredge near Baton Rouge and hit a buried car frame on Tuesday that bent our cutter teeth like they were made of butter. Had to wait 18 hours for a barge to haul a replacement head down from Vicksburg while the whole project schedule slipped by three days. Anyone else run into weird junk buried in the riverbed that just completely stops progress?

3 comments

3 Comments

tessa_kelly1mo ago

Wait, you used to think dumping junk in rivers was harmless?

alices163h ago

Wait, people actually did that back then?

victorb511mo ago

Whoa. That Mississippi mud is a graveyard of old cars and appliances for sure. We pulled up a whole 50s-era refrigerator once near St. Louis, dressed like a rusty tombstone. It jammed our ladder pump so bad we had to cut it out with a torch, lost two shifts. People just dumped everything into the river back then, and it all comes back to haunt you.