CARGO OOPS! en:McMurdo Station, Antarctica, February 1983. U.S. Navy and New Zealand Army dock workers (above) scramble to secure a cargo truck that has just broken through an en:ice pier while off-loading cargo from the freighter USNS Southern Cross. The driver of the truck standing atop the container leapt to safety, receiving minor injuries.

Longshoremen temporarily stabilized the errant truck and its cargo by using cables to secure the truck to the ship's cargo boom. However, this was a dicey move. The safe working load of the ship's boom and its rigging would be severely exceeded if the truck and its cargo sank.

Meanwhile, shore workers rushed to develop a rescue plan. They made the decision to deploy a powerful bulldozer to winch the tractor-trailer from the water. The danger in the plan was the potential for the bulldozer to fall through the ice too. Subsequently, workers placed larger timbers atop the ice to build a temporary roadway to disperse the bulldozer's weight. Workers successfully retrieved truck and cargo.

The ice pier had been in use four seasons. Workers made the ice pier by repeatedly flooding an area with water which quickly turned to ice. Steel cables are crosscrossed to strengthen the structure. However, by the time of 1983 cargo operations the pier was rapidly deteriorating. Severe cracks appeared in the surface as tidewaters undercut the pier's edge causing large chunks of ice to break off.

Yet workers pressed on in a race against time. Authorities held the pier in service for such an extended period in order for the freighter Southern Cross to make an unprecedented two voyages in one season from Port Lylttleton, New Zealand, to McMurdo. The late Capt. Bjorn Werring, a U.S. merchant mariner, commanded the voyages.

Personnel first constructed an ice pier at McMurdo in 1973. Since then, six piers have been built, including the featured ice pier above. Previously, ships moored to sea ice in en:McMurdo Sound and moved cargo ashore by sleds. Alternatively, cargo vessels docked alongside permanent ice also known as fast ice. However, the warm water discharge from ships melted nearly three square kilometers of ice annually, according to the Antarctic Sun.

Sources:

• "Race to reach McMurdo Station," The Press, March 23, 1983; Christ Church, New Zealand.
• "Unique ice pier provides harbor for ships," Antarctic Sun, January 8, 2006; McMurdo Station, Antarctica.
• Eye-witness account as captured on film.