BUFFALO, N.Y. — The effort to Save the USS The Sullivans continues as we are now one year beyond the fateful day when the public really started to see the listing or tilting of the World War II ship, and then it started sinking into the Buffalo River.
At 80-years-plus, this particular gray lady, which is named for the five sailor brothers from Iowa who died in combat, is still afloat at the Buffalo Naval and Military Park as a reminder of the courage of the fighting men and women of World War II. And it was, of course, a battle to save this veteran.
2 On Your Side saw firsthand below decks some of the progress in keeping the ship and her spirit alive.
That work is handled by a crew of volunteers, such as Mario Roy, who is actually a member of the U.S. Coast Guard, a chief operations specialist who responded April 14 with other Coast Guard members and a variety of first responders and maritime salvage experts to set up a unified command and logistics to rescue the flooded and sinking ship.
"She's a fighter. Like this girl wants to live, and it's something I think a lot of people said couldn't happen," Roy said.
Roy recalled, "Like a lot of folks, I was standing right here at the pier, watching kind of a horror show unfold as far as she began to take on more and more water, and the process to dewater a ship of this size is not exactly something that's a flip of the switch."
Some like Naval Park Museum collections director Shane Stephenson feared the worst a year ago.
"There was a very distinct possibility that she could be lost, that either she would bend or flex in such a way where it would break the keel or break the bow, and then she would have then been, yeah, lost," Stephenson said.
He added: "We knew we had one opportunity to get this correct, or else we'd lose her forever. So that's why the unified command worked really hard, slowly, methodically, and then saving the stories to continue to tell."
Of course, with that massive mobilization effort and donations, USS The Sullivans was saved. Roy got power partially restored to the ship for the first time on Friday.
He took us below decks where he and other volunteers from a similar museum ship worked on the electrical panel here in the aft engine room, which is the heart of the ship. That area was completely filled with water where you can still the high water mark with oil and grease stains on overhead pipes.
Now a year later to prevent future tragedy, bubblers are used to jeep crushing ice from building up around the thin 3/8-inch steel hull. An anticipated grant will cover a flooding alarm system tied to a phone app. A marine contractor will be on a two hour alert to respond quickly to any similar emergency.
And then there is more air circulation and dehumidifiers. Finally, there was more staff training for emergencies.
Also below decks, another battle was fought to remove and save valuable historical artifacts in flooded exhibit space.
"Drying of materials, paper, photographs, removing mold and then just doing gentle cleaning and doing gentle vacuuming as well. So we saved about 65 to 70 percent of the artifacts were able to be saved," Stephenson said.
Now looking ahead for preservation, with $8.5 million in government funding to draw on and potential donations there is the idea to dry dock the ship in a shipyard, perhaps in Erie, Pa., or Cleveland to repair, not just patch, the steel hull.
Buffalo Naval and Military Park president Paul Marzello, using a historic reference to Pearl Harbor and the start of World War II, said "April 14, which is also a day of infamy, as far as we are personally concerned. I think that we have learned a whole lot, and we certainly have a whole lot more in funding and resources to make sure that it never happens again."
A naval architect, who checked out this ship, will turn over his completed report to the Naval Park in May. Then there will be a review by the city of Buffalo with details released to the public in June.