Lift Bridge Gives Hazard Warning To Christmas Boat Leaving Duluth

It's amazing to see how many views the Duluth Harbor Cam gets on their videos of ships arriving and departing Duluth. This video was just posted, and it already has nearly 8,000 views at the time of this article.

Recently, the vessel Philip R. Clark departed Duluth and traveled under the lift bridge. It left the Twin Ports on the evening of December 15. It's a fun video to watch as you can see all the Christmas lights onboard. The ship's captain got festive, pretty neat!

In this video, we could also hear the radio transmissions between the ship and the aerial lift bridge. The operator, who controls the bridge from the house above the span of the roadway, radioed the Philip R. Clarke to go to channel 10.

The operator wanted to warn the captain about a dangerous situation we've been dealing with for the past several days. It has to do with the heavy, wet snow we've got over 2 feet of in some areas. The two days of snowfall actually placed in the top ten of snow amounts in Duluth's history. 

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You can hear in the transmission that he tells the captain that they've been dealing with falling snow and ice from the bridge. The captain responds with a thank you and orders his men off the deck so no one would be injured by falling chunks.

The city of Duluth issued a warning to pedestrians to not use the walkway under the bridge, too. Several vehicles also reported damage to their vehicles from falling ice and snow underneath the Blatnik & Bong Bridge.

It's been one heck of a kickoff to winter here in Duluth. A snow squall was issued on Friday for Duluth. We had expected light snow, but the National Weather Service in Duluth issued the warning at 12:30 pm about the snowsquall being possible.

It's just been a week, hasn't it? Anyway, check out the video of the Christmas Ship going underneath the lift bridge.