On Friday, crews began to cut up the cargo ship that’s been stuck on its side off the Georgia coast for more than a year.
The Golden Ray will be sliced into eight sections with a chain sawing back and forth from below. Each cut is expected to take about 24 hours, and the entire process will take at least two months.
The car carrier still has 4,200 cars inside.
“We expect there will be noise, fires, product discharges, and debris once we begin the cutting and lifting process. It would be unrealistic to say that this operation will be clean and perfect,” John Maddox, with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, said in a press release. He’s the state’s representative in the multiagency response team.
There’s a barrier set up around the ship meant to trap oil and debris. And people are out on boats watching for it, too, as well as monitoring the beaches and marshes.
