On dangerous & disruptive Houston Ship Channel accidents & injuries | DENENA | POINTS

On dangerous & disruptive Houston Ship Channel accidents & injuries

The Port of Houston is a massively busy international shipping hub, the largest U.S. port for foreign shipping tonnage and the 13th busiest port in the entire world. Our Houston maritime lawyers note that about 60 ships, carrying about $300 million worth of goods, move in and out of the Port complex every day. But the Port of Houston complex is only 25 miles long, and the inland waterway is rather narrow at certain points, so a single accident can disrupt shipping and economic activity on a broad scale for a number of days.

Indeed, in October 2010, the ironically named T/V Safety Quest, pushing a set of 3 barges loaded with scrap metal, smacked unsafely into an electrical tower and pushed it askew. Our Houston maritime lawyers remark that the tower was one of 6 at the waterway, and the closest to the navigable channel. Well-known to navigators familiar with the Port’s waterway, it was nearly toppled by the set of barges. The T/V Safety Quest and its barges held the tower up for several days and kept it from toppling completely across the water until utility crews could remove it. Fortunately, the tower had been shut down prior to the crash so that utility crews could perform maintenance.

The barge accident closed down 19 miles of the Port of Houston facility for more than 3 days, backing up Port traffic, delaying cargo operations, and forcing ships to anchor in place until they were free to move through the waterway again.

But shipping and cargo accidents don’t just disrupt schedules and economic activity. They can disrupt lives and change a family’s fortunes forever. A badly lashed cargo container might topple on workers while a ship is in transit. Or a cargo container with a mis-declared weight might overload and topple a crane or snap the lift cable. Workers can be crushed, permanently maimed, or suffer intensely painful injuries requiring months or years of therapies to heal.

The laws governing redress for seamen’s and dockworkers’ injuries are complex and can be difficult to understand. But to recover the fair financial compensation you need to help you and your family move forward after a catastrophic cargo or shipping accident, it’s essential you make the right steps, file with the correct agencies, and meet filing deadlines and requirements. The aid of an experienced Houston maritime lawyer could be your key to a successful financial recovery.

Learn more about the laws governing injuries at sea or at dockside in this article by our dedicated Houston maritime lawyers.