That time my cutterhead packed up tight on the Mississippi

Summer of 2019 I was working a stretch near Baton Rouge clearing out silt build up around a bridge pier. The dredge was running fine all morning but around 2 PM I heard the engine start lugging down. I shut everything off and pulled the ladder up to find a steel cable wrapped tight around the cutterhead. It looked like an old mooring line from a barge that sank who knows when. Took me and another guy 4 hours with a torch and a grinder to cut it free piece by piece. Lost almost a whole shift of production over it. I still check the sonar way more carefully before I drop the ladder on any new site. Any of you guys run into random junk like that?

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miles_campbell394mo ago

That cable wrapped around the cutterhead" - that's the part that gets me. How deep was it actually buried in the silt before you hit it? I've seen sonar miss stuff that's sitting just under the mud line. Makes you wonder how many more of those cables are down there. Your torch and grinder plan sounds rough. Did you have to worry about the cable snapping back while you were cutting? I've heard stories of guys getting hurt bad when tension releases unexpectedly.

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the_nathan4mo ago

Honestly torching with a tension block on the other side worked for me.

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jordanr894mo ago

How bad was the tension when you finally got through the last strand (since cables like that can store a ton of energy even at low load)? I've always wondered if there's a safe way to prevent that snap-back or if you just have to accept the risk and stand clear.

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