Thousand Footer Burns Harbor Stuck Aground. H Lee White to the Rescue!

Now here’s something you don’t see every day! The explanation behind this is a little science-y, and probably more than a bit embarrassing for someone. Note: this is an ongoing situation and I’ll edit the description and/or correct things as I find out more information! In the meantime, here’s what I was able to gather by listening to the radio communications in the harbor on the marine scanner before they switched to a private channel:

Earlier this week, Duluth had a strong blizzard, which dropped 17 inches of snow, and more importantly for this situation, had 45 mile per hour winds coming straight down Lake Superior and into the harbor. This caused what’s called a seiche effect, the wind pushed the surface water to towards the harbor, raising the water level on this end of the lake. During this period of time, Burns Harbor was loading iron ore at Superior’s BNSF 5 ore dock (seen here to the left), preparing to leave once the storm ended. Once the winds stopped, the lake sloshed back the other direction, dropping the water level in the harbor by several feet. Usually not a big issue, except the problem this time was Burns Harbor had apparently been loaded with the raised water levels in mind, forgetting that it would drop once the weather calmed. The waves probably washed some sand from the lake bottom and Park Point Beach through the Superior Entry and deposited it in that area as well. Loaded too deep, Burns Harbor got stuck and grounded attempting to leave the dock. The water level continued to drop, causing the ship to lean slightly to port (left) She sat there for awhile, hoping the winds that came a couple days later would raise the water level enough to free her. They didn’t.

So rather than getting dragged out of the dock by tugs and potentially damaging the hull from dragging through rocks and sand for an unknown distance, they called for backup. Her sort-of fleetmate, H Lee White, which was in Lake Superior bound for Silver Bay, was diverted to Superior. After waiting out the night, she moved into position along side Burns Harbor, while the larger ship swung her unloading boom over her deck and start unloading into the smaller ship to try and lighten the load and raise the ship up enough to where they’re able to leave. Simple and hopefully effective plan. This type of operation is incredibly rare to see and to my knowledge hasn’t been done in the Twin Ports in decades. There’s probably a lot of suction along her bottom that they’ll need to break, and the H Lee White has less than half the carrying capacity of Burns Harbor. The loading operation itself is rather complex, the Burns Harbor crew has to make sure the ore is loaded into the smaller ship evenly so they don’t tip over or stress one section of the hull more than others, potentially breaking the ship. But they’re well trained for this possibility and the dock crews are likely on site as well. So we’ll see if this works!

Edit 1- H Lee White is leaving, about 9 hours after she first pulled in. It’s not clear if the Burns Harbor is free yet, they could have simply loaded enough ore that they were risking getting stuck themselves.

Edit 2- H Lee White is not actually leaving, they’re just sailing out to anchor because it’s getting dark. Burns Harbor remains aground for now.

Edit 3- She’s out! Not sure how it happened but she started moving a little before 11pm. Maybe they did free her and it just took awhile to get going, or she was able to work herself loose eventually on her own with the lightened load. We may never know but regardless, the operation worked! Superior is back open for business.

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