Casino boat, barge collide on Mississippi River

Jim Salter

Monday, July 31, 2000 | 8:32 a.m.

A casino boat en route to Indiana collided with a tow boat early Monday on the Mississippi River at the Missouri Bootheel. No one was seriously hurt, but the casino boat was badly damaged.

The accident happened near Caruthersville, Mo., about 200 miles south of St. Louis. Ninety-one people aboard the Belterra casino boat had to be rescued.

The boat took on water very quickly following the accident, but managed to stay afloat long enough for emergency workers and volunteers to rescue the passengers, said Jim Brimhall, who coordinated the rescue for the Pemiscot County Emergency Response Team.

"We could have had 100 bodies floating in the river," Brimhall said. "That boat could have been like the Titanic."

Three people were treated at a hospital for minor injuries and released. By late morning, the bottom of the boat sat on the river bed in shallow water near Caruthersville, ironically, not far from the Casino Aztar, another gambling boat that sits permanently docked there.

"Pretty extensive damage," said Lt. James Collins of the U.S. Coast Guard. An investigation is expected to take at least at week. Both the pilot of the casino boat and the tow boat pilot will be tested for drugs and alcohol, Collins said.

The casino boat was recently built in Mobile, Ala., and was on its way to its permanent home in Vevay, Ind. It had been scheduled to open in August near the Markland Dam on the Ohio River.

About 1:15 a.m., the captain of the Belterra issued a Mayday call, and said his boat was taking on water following a collision with the tow. The southbound tow, the Elizabeth Ann, was carrying two cement barges when it collided with the side of the northbound casino boat, ripping a 70-foot-long, 10-foot-wide hole, authorities said.

Rescue squads from several counties in Missouri and Tennessee responded, along with dozens of volunteers. The volunteers had been trained in case just such an accident happened at the Casino Aztar.

Collins said the Belterra passengers were crewmen as well as construction workers who were still putting the finishing touches on the vessel as it made its was to Vevay, a town of 1,400 residents about 50 miles from Cincinnati.

The tow and barges were not badly damaged, though Collins said the tow did experience some minor flooding in its front compartment.

Officials with the Belterra Casino did not immediately return phone calls from The Associated Press. A spokeswoman for the Missouri Barge Line of Cape Girardeau, Mo., which owns the tow boat, refused comment.