If threatened with higher waters, LST-325 may have to dock elsewhere

WNIN | By Tim Jagielo

Published April 9, 2025 at 7:27 PM CDT

LST-325 Ship Operations Manager Jerry Wirth stands on the approach ramp for the ship, Wednesday April 9. The ship currently has about six-feet of river rise left, before the ship would have to be moved from its set of pylons. For this unlikely event to occur, the river would have to rise to the near major flood level of 51 feet.

The Evansville Vanderburgh County Emergency Management Agency says the river will crest Sunday at 48 feet; a flood wall is being erected ‘out of an abundance of caution’

A crewmember with the Evansville Levee Authority bolds a steel beam to the sidewalk between riverside drive and the LST-325 Museum. This wall will be 10-feet high, stretching to 2nd Street. According to the Evansville/Vanderburgh County Emergency Management Agency, this is only the third time it's been erected. It's being installed as a precaution.

Crews for the Evansville Levee Authority are fastening steel beams into place at the sidewalk along Riverside Drive.

Traffic passes by as the LST-325 bobs 30-feet higher than usual, in the swollen Ohio River.

These steel beams are for a flood wall to be part of the flood protection spanning nearly a mile from where the LST-325 is moored on the river, all the way down to second street. It will be nearly 10-feet tall, designed to hold back the Ohio River in a worst case scenario.

Levee Authority Superintendent Michael Herke said this is being done as a precaution.

“We just want to be prepared in case it was to raise any higher than what they have predicted,” he said. “We just want to be prepared for any kind of storms, or anything that would still come from any of this weather.”

Evansville Levee Authority, LST Museum prepare for high waters

The Evansville Vanderburgh County Emergency Management Agency is predicting that the river will crest Sunday at 48 feet.

Major flooding happens at 52 feet. The record is 53.8 feet in 1937. Rain is predicted this week, but nothing substantial.

LST-325 Ship Operations Manager Jerry Wirth said the prediction of 48 feet leaves a mere three feet of mooring for the LST before it must be moved.

“We have several feet before we would run out,” he said. “But of course, the margin is getting much closer. We did have 40 feet. Now we've got about six feet.”

The ramp to mount the deck of the ship is usually 30 feet down. On Wednesday the approach is a sharp ascent.

The ship is moored to a barge, which is attached to the heavy pylons via sliding steel beam. Wirth doesn't expect to have to move, but the water level predictions have forced staff to consider all possibilities.

“Worst case scenario, we're going to have to get a crew in and probably take it out somewhere and find some moorings that would be able to hold us in place.”

Should the river flood beyond the record level of 53.8 feet, museum staff will have to begin evacuating important documents and priceless LST archives — another discussion prompted by the raising water levels.

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The method of the mooring: the LST is on the far left, moored to a barge which is attached to pylons via sliding steel beam. The top of that beam represents the maximum height at which the ship can be moored here. It normally has several stories of clearance.