Fireworks barge sinks

Dispatch/Argus photo by Andy Costello

From a Dispatch/Argus story:

A barge used for the "Red, White and Boom" fireworks display between Rock Island and Davenport Sunday night began sinking as the show wrapped up, U.S. Coast Guard officials confirmed.

Around 10 p.m. Sunday, the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary got a call that the barge was taking on water, Jack Tumbleson said Monday. He is the public affairs officer for the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Division 9.

The call came near the end of the fireworks event, he said. There were no reported injuries.

The barge was in the Mississippi River near the Modern Woodmen of America offices, off the downtown Rock Island shoreline, Mr. Tumbleson said.

A Blackhawk Fleet towboat took the barge, reportedly owned by RiverStone Group Inc., Moline, to a spot near the Arsenal Island shoreline, west of Lock and Dam 15, according to Robert Carter, night dispatcher for the Buffalo, Iowa, towing company.

Neither a RiverStone Group Inc. spokesperson nor organizers of "Red, White and Boom" could be reached for comment late Monday.

Now that's what I call showmanship. If only they could have mocked it up as the Titanic..... or perhaps in a historic call to patriotism, they could have decked it out as the battleship "Maine".
It appears that RiverStone didn't want to lend out their good stuff.