Monday marks 22 days since a ship called the Ever Forward got stuck in the Chesapeake Bay near Pasadena, Maryland.
Efforts to get the massive container ship unstuck have failed over the last three weeks, so on Monday the U.S. Coast Guard announced new strategy: removing the cargo.
“The new strategy offers the best chance of successfully re-floating the Ever Forward,” the Coast Guard said in a statement.
Salvage experts determined they wouldn’t be able to overcome the ground force of the more than 1,000-foot Ever Forward, loaded with nearly 5,000 containers, the Coast Guard, Maryland Department of the Environment and Taiwan-based Evergreen Marine Corp., the ship’s operator, said in a news release.
Dredging will continue to a depth of 43 feet, and crews will install crane barges near the vessel. Those will remove the shipping containers during the day and put them on barges, which will then take the cargo back to Baltimore’s Seagirt Marine Terminal.
“Once the containers are removed, tugs and pull barges will attempt another refloat,” the Coast Guard said.
This will take about two weeks, said the guard, which cautioned it could take longer if weather doesn’t cooperate.
A 500-yard “safety zone” will be set up around the Ever Forward for the duration of the process. The shipping channel, though, will remain open to one-way traffic.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
