A wooden barge floating down the Kalamazoo River in Battle Creek, Michigan, collided with the Angell Street Bridge on Monday. Then it drifted under the bridge, kept floating, and hit the 20th Street Bridge downstream.
For a moment, nobody knew where the mystery barge came from or why it was loose. Social media did what social media does.
Crews at the Washington Avenue Bridge construction project were using the barge - basically a flat wooden surface mounted on blue barrels - to catch debris falling into the river. It broke free and floated roughly 2 miles downstream, becoming a low-speed maritime disaster.
MDOT eventually confirmed the barge's origin. It's now moored at the 20th Street Bridge with a green strap, sitting there as if nothing happened.
In the age of GPS and real-time tracking, a wooden barge still manages to surprise a city. That says something about how much infrastructure work happens invisibly.
The barge is secured. But it's a good reminder that American bridge infrastructure is a lot closer to the surface than most people realize.
