500 Foot Freighter Goes Aground and A Shipping Logjam Ensues

It's one thing to see a logjam on the highway on your way into work but its quite another when it happens in the water.

The Detroit River near Grosse Ile experienced such an annoyance earlier today as a nearly 500 foot freighter ran aground and a second ship attempting to avoid the grounded freighter hit bottom while trying to detour along another channel.

The captain of the freighter did the best job possible to handle the monster freighter but after a mechanical problem caused the ship to drift, there wasn't a whole lot that could be done.

U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Jeremiah Schiessel had this to say about the accident:

"Once they lost propulsion, they were unable to control the ship and so they dropped their stern anchor and that causes the bow to kind of swing," Schiessel said. "When someone loses propulsion it's a very dangerous situation so the best thing to do is to get that thing stable, but unfortunately the bow ran aground." -Detroit Free Press

Although the ship was carrying thousands of gallons of diesel, there was never any danger to the environment as no pollution or chemicals were spilled. Bad timing for the vessel too as the river becomes enormously busy this time of the year as companies hurry to beat the cold and frozen waters.

Here's what it looked like with a nod to our friends at WXYZ Channel 7: