Sector St. Petersburg Incident Management crews and pollution responders respond to a sunken vessel, the Miss Jordi, which spilled diesel fuel off Tampa Shrimp Docks, Dec. 17, 2023. The vessel has a maximum capacity of 10,000 gallons of fuel. It is reported there were about 2,000 gallons on board. (U.S. Coast Guard)
TAMPA, Fla. (Tribune News Service) — Tampa police are searching for the captain of a sunken 63-foot shrimp boat that has leaked thousands of gallons of diesel fuel into the water in northern Hillsborough Bay.
Officers arrived to the 2600 block of Causeway Boulevard, near McKay Bay, before 8 a.m. to find the Miss Jordi underwater. The police department has been unable to locate the captain of the boat, identified as Curtis Lee Cowling.
Police believe Cowling lives on the boat full time, but they don’t know if he was on the boat when it submerged. He was last seen Sunday night around 11 p.m. and is now considered “missing and endangered.”
Dive teams have been unable to enter the water because of the amount of diesel fuel contamination, police said in a media alert. The United States Coast Guard is treating the spill as a hazardous materials incident.
The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office is assisting the Tampa Police Department with incident response. Anyone who has information about the missing captain, Cowling, is encouraged to contact Tampa police at (813) 231-6130.
©2023 Tampa Bay Times.
Visit tampabay.com.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Sector St. Petersburg Incident Management crews and pollution responders respond to a sunken vessel, the Miss Jordi, which spilled diesel fuel off Tampa Shrimp Docks, Dec. 17, 2023. The vessel has a maximum capacity of 10,000 gallons of fuel. It is reported there were about 2,000 gallons on board. (U.S. Coast Guard)
