The US Coast Guard (USCG) has released footage (below) of it responding to a mayday call from a dredging vessel involved in a gas pipeline fire near Port O'Connor, Texas, on the evening of April 17, 2018.
Watchstanders of the Coast Guard Sector and Air Station for Corpus Christi took a mayday call from the cutter suction dredger Jonathon King Boyd, which reported that the vessel was on fire after hitting a gas pipeline while conducting dredging operations.
A team consisting of Coast Guard Sector and Air Station Corpus Christi HC-144 Ocean Sentry aircrew, MH-65 Dolphin helicopter personnel and Coast Guard Station Port O’Connor operators in a 29-foot response boat attended the scene.
The vessel Dakota, which was on scene at the time of the fire, safely escorted all the crewmembers from the Jonathan King Boyd.
Response teams established a four-mile safety zone around the scene.
The USCG also closed the Intracoastal Waterway to traffic from mile marker 468 to mile marker 474 to include the Matagorda Ship Channel from the jetties to seven nautical miles inside the bay.
It reported that the impacted pipeline is secure and that the remaining gas is “residual”.
.@USCGHeartland crews are responding to a gas pipeline fire near Port O'Connor, Texas, after a vessel hit the pipeline yesterday while conducting dredging operations. The vessel caught fire, but the crew made it off safely. Read more: https://t.co/70z6OLGONn pic.twitter.com/lNNlX8ksfC
— U.S. Coast Guard (@USCG) April 18, 2018