The Scoop

Andrea James of the Mobile Register used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain records on shipping incidents in Mobile Bay since 2000, finding “366 records of investigations, including those of at least 26 deaths and injuries. Those records support what experts describe as an increase nationally in accidents related to equipment failures such as the one that caused the Nordic Svenita to lose steering control.” In that incident, a bar pilot convinced an oil tanker not to drop its anchors on a tunnel portion of I-10 crossing the bay, which could have killed passengers in cars inside the tunnel.