BUFFALO, N.Y. — Saving Buffalo's historic waterfront landmark, USS The Sullivans, continues this weekend.
The ship started to sink more than a week ago, and it's captured national attention. Divers have been in the water trying to find out what caused the destroyer to start filling up with water.
On Saturday, 2 On Your Side spoke with the Lexia Littlejohn, the Sector Commander at U.S. Coast Guard in Buffalo, for an update.
"We're completing the assessment of the vessel," Captain Littlejohn said. "So divers were able to get all the way around the vessel. As of (Friday), they plugged approximately 13 holes on the starboard and the port side. The divers are continuing to plug holes in the stern, and then once we are able to get personnel inside the vessel, we'll better be able to seal the vessel, and then that will transition into the refloat and repair plan."
2 On Your Side spoke Friday with an emergency response team leader from the T & T Marine Salvage firm of Texas, which will guide the eventual pumping of water from the ship once they're able to get inside and below the deck into those still flooded compartments.
It's a complex process, and they have to be safe.
Clinton Williams told us: "We need to make sure we have all the details. We're depending on all the parties involved to provide details to us. The contractors and the dive parties are helping us out, and we're gathering all this information, and we're designing models to try to figure out what's going to happen as we make this pump, as we start pumping it, to make sure the ship doesn't go the wrong way."