March 5, 2021 By Shelley Byrne
No one was hurt when a towboat lost power and went through a gate of the Belleville Dam March 3 on the upper Ohio River, then free floated roughly 11 miles downstream.
The boat was the mv. Edith Tripp, owned by Paducah, Ky.-based Crounse Corporation.
“They were northbound out of the lock and had gotten about five football field lengths above the dam and lost power,” Meigs County (Ohio) Emergency Management Director Jamie Jones said.
The mv. Edith Tripp free floats down the Ohio River below the Belleville Locks and Dam on March 3. The crew was able to escape in two skiffs before the boat and an empty gravel barge both went through the dam’s gates. (Photo courtesy of Meigs County (Ohio) Emergency Management Director Jamie Jones)