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?

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3 Comments

tessa_kelly5mo ago

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

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alices164mo ago

Wait, people actually did that back then?

0

victorb515mo 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.

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