Towboat salvage operation suspended
INDUSTRY – The emotions of Rick Conklin’s family these days are about as turbulent as the Ohio River waters that rush past the sunken boat where Conklin was last seen alive. On Wednesday, Conklin’s loved ones lined the shore of the river near the Montgomery Locks and Dam, hopeful that a salvage operation of the Elizabeth M. would finally locate him. He is believed to have drowned when the boat was swamped by runaway barges.
“This has been a nightmare like you can’t imagine,” said Conklin’s mother, Carol Ann. “The thoughts of him being downriver so far, it’s like devastating to a mother,” she said.
But just after noon Wednesday, operations were suspended as the swift current of the Ohio kept divers from putting straps under the boat’s hull so that it could be lifted by cranes. Crews weren’t sure when the river might be calm enough for another try.
“I can’t believe we came up here again for nothing,” Conklin’s son, Alan, 22, said as he rubbed his face with his hands just after hearing of the suspension of the salvage effort. Minutes later, Conklin, his voice breaking, said, “I hope they’re trying their hardest to find him. He’s still at work as far as I’m concerned. I miss him. I just want him back.”
Conklin, 40, of Crucible, Greene County, and six other fellow employees of Campbell Transportation Co. of Washington County were aboard the towboat in the early morning of Jan. 9, towing six coal-laden barges.
As the barges left the Montgomery locks, the swift current of the Ohio River tore them out of place, and the crew of the Elizabeth M. apparently tried to corral the barges, but the boat was pushed through the dam and swamped. Three of Conklin’s crewmates died, and three others were rescued from the frigid waters. Conklin is presumed dead.
Several of Conklin’s siblings, along with his mother, son and others, returned to Industry on Wednesday, just three days after a fruitless search for his body along the banks of the Ohio.
They watched as two barges bearing cranes moved alongside the 108-foot-long, 300-ton Elizabeth M., and divers entered the Ohio River.
As a heavy fog moved in and shrouded the boat from the view of the Conklin family around 10:30 a.m., his mother spoke of the man she called “Tic-Tac,” and how whenever he called, he would say, “Momma, it’s Rick.”
“He never had to tell me who he was, because all of my other kids called me ‘Mom,'” Conklin, 64, said.
She also said that about three months before the accident, she looked at him as he was standing in her driveway and knew in her heart that disaster loomed.
“I just kept praying, ‘God, please don’t take him,'” Conklin said. Now, she mourns his loss, and her husband, Robert, 65, cries, thinking that his son will walk into the house
“You have to say that God’s in control,” Conklin said. “He’s the author of all things. I have to believe there’s a reason for all this.”
Around noon, the thick fog lifted just enough for the family to see that the barges were no longer at the boat.
Rich Riley, the head of Marion Hill Associates Inc. in New Brighton, which is leading salvage operations, said that currents were too strong for divers to put lifting slings in place as the water around the boat continued to rise.
The boat, Riley said, appears to be resting on the downstream slope of the dam, and the hull appears to be sound.
Once crews decided to stop salvage of the Elizabeth M., Riley said, they went downstream to continue salvage operations at one of the sunken barges.
The Conklin family broke down into tears when they heard the news, wondering why crews hadn’t tried to raise the boat last week, when the weather was better.
“They’re dragging their feet, and they’re dragging our hearts,” said Conklin’s sister Lori Hoover.
Yet, the family vowed they would return when salvage crews returned to the Elizabeth M., hoping, praying that maybe their loved one would be found when the boat is raised from the river.
“You go to bed thinking about it, and you wake up in the morning thinking about it,” said Kathy Herrold, another of Conklin’s sisters. “There’s no escape.”
Bill Vidonic, a staff writer with the Beaver County Times, can be reached online at bvidonic@timesonline.com.