PORT FOURCHON, La. (AP) – Divers looking for oil industry workers on an overturned lift ship ready to enter the ship on Friday, a complicated rescue effort due to challenging technical challenges and continued bad weather.
The hope is that the 12 missing people have found airbags to survive inside the Seacor Power, most of which is submerged in 50-foot seas about 13 miles off the coast of Louisiana.
“Right now we are praying for a miracle,” said Steven Walcott, brother of the late worker Gregory Walcott.
3rd Class NCO Carlos Galarza said early on Friday that, weather permitting, divers will try to get into the boat.
Two of the missing had been communicating with lifeguards by two-way radio on Tuesday after the nasty platform boat capsized with hurricane-force winds that day. They were seen clinging to the overturned hull, but returned to seek refuge inside after a third man fell into the water and got lost. There have been no signs of life since then, officials said.
Time is of the essence because airbags will eventually run out of oxygen, said Mauritius Bell, a diving safety officer at the California Academy of Sciences.
“It would be a bit analogous to breathing in and out of a paper bag,” he added. “At some point, you can’t survive.”
Survival may depend on the size of your pocket. “The bigger the better, and it’s time,” Bell said.
On Thursday, investigators called the ship’s hull unanswered.
“There’s the potential that they’re still there, but we don’t know,” second-class NCO Jonathan Lally said Thursday. “We’re still looking for 12 people because we’re still missing 12.”
Relatives of the missing gathered at a Port Fourchon fire station, an extensive base for much of the offshore oil and gas industry in the Gulf of Mexico. The harbor, occupied with cranes, cargo and heavy equipment, is where workers from all over Louisiana and beyond are loaded with a fleet of helicopters and boats that take them to the platforms for long stretches of work.
Marion Cuyler, who is engaged to crane operator Chaz Morales, wavered between optimism and fear after relatives received closed-door briefings from Seacor and Coast Guard executives. He said he believes the 12 are inside the ship.
“Hopefully, they’re all in one room and can only rescue them all in one day,” he said.
Families expressed frustration during the briefing and want answers to their questions about why the ship ventured out to sea despite warnings of an approaching storm, he said.
“I asked,‘ Who gave the orders, ’and of course silence,” he said. Cuyler said she had told her future husband not to go out in such intense weather. “And I knew they shouldn’t have been dating.”
Walcott, who has also worked on lift boats, echoed this frustration about the conditions. He said the boats are not designed to travel in untimely weather.
Bell said it is fortunate that lifeguards knew the design of the boat.
“It’s not like they’re plunging into a damaged old shipwreck and being destroyed,” he said. “One of the things you’re in favor of is that it’s a ship in operation, so you’ll know the layout of the ship.”
Six people were rescued shortly after the ship capsized on Tuesday. The Coast Guard’s first boat arrived at the scene at 5:10 p.m., about 40 minutes after the initial distress signal, and saw five men clinging to the hull, Galarza said.
A Bristow Marine Company helicopter crew lowered their life jackets and two-way VHF radios, he said. Two of the men fell into the water and were picked up by the Coast Guard. About the same time, Good Samaritan ships rescued four other people, he said.
The Coast Guard was able to talk to the three people who were still in the hull of the ship via the radios, but the sea was too rough to get there. Later on Tuesday night, the Coast Guard was notified that a person had fallen into the water and was not seen again.
Shortly before 10 p.m., the two remaining people told the Coast Guard they would return inside, and it was the last time the Coast Guard spoke to them, Galarza said.
On Thursday, a Coast Guard crew arrived a few feet from the capsized boat and threw a hammer against the hull to try to contact potential survivors, the agency said. If there was any response, they could not hear it because of the wind and engine noise, they said.
A person’s body was recovered from the water Wednesday as investigators explored an area about the size of Hawaii, the Coast Guard said. The Lafourche Parish Forensic Office identified him as David Ledet, 63, of Thibodaux, a town in southeast Louisiana where many people work in the oil industry.
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Martin contributed from Woodstock, Ga.