A passenger ferry carrying hundreds of people ran aground near Bainbridge Island west of Seattle on Saturday, but officials said there were no immediate reports of injuries or pollution, and passengers were evacuated from the ferry.
According to Washington State Ferries, a division of the state Department of Transportation, the “Walla Walla” ran aground in Rich Passage around 4:30 p.m. while traveling from downtown Bremerton to Seattle.
“There are initial indications that the ship’s generator failed,” but the agency said investigators were still looking into what happened.
US Coast Guard/Twitter
The ferry was carrying 596 passengers and 15 crew members, said Diane Rhodes, spokeswoman for the ferry. A tugboat and the Coast Guard arrived at the scene.
“Low tide was 8:09 p.m.,” Rhodes wrote in an email. “We’re coordinating with local transit to get the buses to stop.”
The ferry agency initially tweeted that it was “keeping passengers on board” because “ship engineers believe the tide will be at the right height to safely tow the boat by midnight.”
However, the yacht agency Then he tweeted Kitsap Transit, the public transit agency for Kitsap County, part of the Seattle metropolitan area, evacuated passengers from Walla Walla and helped them onto a second ferry. carried away to Bremerton.
Washington State Ferries wrote, “We are working on a plan to have the vehicles on board so passengers can retrieve them tomorrow.
State Department of Ecology Published Photo online showing ship near shore. As people watched it from the beach and took pictures, there was a Coast Guard boat near a tugboat at the end of the boat.
“No contamination or hull damage has been detected at this time,” the department said. “Ecological responders en route to the scene.”
The Pacific Northwest Coast Guard sent personnel aboard a cutter and helicopter.
The Seattle-Bremerton route is out of service until further notice, the Department of Transportation said on its website.
The website lists the Walla Walla as a four-engine, jumbo-class ferry with a maximum capacity of 2,000 passengers and 188 vehicles. It is 440 feet long and has a draft of 18 feet.
The Walla Walla was built in Seattle in 1973 and rebuilt in 2003, according to the site.
