Thousands of container and tanker ships as long as a 60- to 90-story office building is tall and wide as an 8- to 10-lane freeway enter the bay annually, navigating narrow, sometimes shallow channels. Here are some examples documented by Mercury News reporter Paul Rogers:
In 1988, the Arco Juneau oil tanker slammed into the Carquinez Bridge, ripping a 100-foot-long gash in the hull. The ship’s cargo had just been offloaded.
In 1995, the Mundogas Europe, carrying potentially deadly anhydrous ammonia, lost steering heading into San Francisco Bay. The ship came within 200 yards of the Golden Gate Bridge south tower. A rupture of the vessel’s tanks would have led to mass evacuations.
In 1996, the Cape Mohican, a military reserve ship, spilled 40,000 gallons of fuel oil into the bay.
In 1998, the Jo Rogn chemical ship lost steering in the bay. Eight years earlier, it had spilled 12,843 gallons of a chemical used to make nail polish and plastics into the Delaware River, causing evacuation of homes, sending 10 people to the hospital and closing the Betsy Ross Bridge.
In 2003, the Cefalonia tanker, carrying 27,000 tons of ammonium nitrate, the chemical used to blow up the Oklahoma City federal building, ran aground in mud near Pittsburg.
In 2007, the Cosco Busan cargo ship sideswiped a Bay Bridge tower in dense fog, ripping a 211-foot-long gash in the vessel’s side, dumping 53,000 gallons of bunker fuel, oiling 69 miles of shore and killing more than 6,500 birds.
In 2009, the Dubai Star spilled 422 gallons of bunker fuel into the bay when a tank overflowed during refueling. The oil coated 10 miles of shore in Alameda County, closed Crown Beach for 25 days and killed an estimated 186 birds.
In 2012, the Overseas Tampa, loaded with low-sulphur diesel, nearly ran aground departing Richmond, coming “very close to disaster,” investigators concluded.
On Monday, the Overseas Reymar, crossing under the same Bay Bridge section as the Cosco Busan five years earlier, collided with a tower in fog.
