While surveying the approaches to Panama City (FL), St Andrews Bay, and West Bay, Coast Survey’s Navigation Response Team 1 recently made an unexpected find. When team members Mark McMann and Aurel Piantanida reviewed hydrographic data collected with their side scan sonar and multibeam echo sounder, they discovered an upside-down vehicle in Panama City’s West Bay Creek, part of the Intracoastal Waterway (see chart 11385).
The vehicle location was adjacent to the channel maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers, and so it was not an obstruction to navigation. However, it was near a bulkhead where a local company loads gravel onto barges, and NRT1 was concerned about the safety of the barges.
The team relayed the information to Bay County’s sheriff who sent divers to the location. With the NRT’s assistance, the sheriff’s divers found the vehicle and called in heavy equipment from the local gravel company to remove it.
Why was the 2007 Ford Escape in the creek? The investigation is in the able hands of the Bay County Sheriff’s Office. In the meantime, thanks to the sheriff’s response, led by Sgt. William T. Brotherston, a risk to the barges was removed.
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