A vessel carrying vehicles briefly became stuck at Dusseldorf harbor due to critically low water levels on the Rhine River, in one of the latest examples of how this year’s extreme weather is threatening transport.
The Terra 2 got stuck on Monday and didn’t disrupt navigation in the area, according to a spokesperson for the police in Duisburg, which is farther along the Rhine. It
has since been freed, is currently unloading vehicles at a nearby loading station, and is due to set sail again on Wednesday, said a spokesperson for Mosolf, which chartered the vessel.
Water levels on the Rhine — an important transportation route connecting European factories with global markets — have fallen to record lows after drought and repeated heat waves this year. The low levels are driving up cost
s for companies, forcing them to use more barges, switch to rail and road, or rely on specially designed vessels that can carry cargo in shallower conditions.
The river, which snakes roughly 800 miles (1,290 kilometers) from Switzerland to the North Sea, carries resources including coal, oil products and iron ore, plus other goods. It’s dotted with major chemical plants, refineries and steel factories.
For this week, warm and dry conditions are expected to linger and keep the river near critically low levels, according to analysis from MetDesk meteorologist Em
ma Patmore. Still, the chance of rain and prospects for river levels show signs of improving in early October, according to weather models and forecasts from the German Federal Institute of Hydrology.
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A Georgia Court of Appeals decision will stand, absolving five insurers of liability coverage and putting an end to long-running litigation stemming from revelations of child sexual abuse at boarding school.
The Supreme Court of Georgia this month declined to review the lower appeals court’s March d
ecision that reversed a $345 million judgment against five insurance carriers in the Darlington School case. The deadline for asking the state Supreme Court to reconsider expired this week, effectively ending the legal battles that began almost 10 years ago.
“So, the Court of Appeals opinion stands unchanged and is binding precedent in Georgia,” said Laurie Webb Daniel, of Atlanta, one of the lead attorneys representing the insurers.
The crux of the legal issue was whether liability policies that were not in force until 2010 should cover actions that took place years before, along with the victims’ more recent mental anguish. A trial court decided the policies should cover, but the appellate judges disagreed.
The abuse at the high-profile boarding school in Rome, Georgia, was shown to have begun around 1974 and continued through 1994. Some 20 boys were sexually abused by a teacher named Roger Stifflemire. Several of the students informed school leadership but the school failed to investigate or terminate Stifflemire, court rulings explained.
