TVA River Services and Freedom Crew Notch Plenty of Wins in '24

As work pace goes, 2024 has been a banner year for TVA’s River Services team.

“On all our boats, it’s been extremely busy,” Shane Carman, Tennessee Valley Authority’s River Services manager, said.

Carman’s team oversees half a dozen TVA vessels on the Valley region’s river system, an aqueous highway for transporting loaded barges to critical projects and generating sites.

While three boats are permanently assigned to fossil plants, others tow equipment throughout the rivers. Some, for example, are currently at a massive transmission tower project in Trinity, Alabama, providing support to TVA’s transmission team.

“That’s the biggest project we’ve ever done,” Carman said. “We started in May and we’ve now got 40 TVA employees working from barges there in the river.”

This past spring, the team worked on a sizable project at a river lock near Pickwick Dam, and they were also riverside for work at Sequoyah and Watts Bar nuclear plants.

And in late September and early October, after floods from Hurricane Helene, River Services crews were instrumental in containing flood debris at Douglas Dam.

Looking back, this team’s steady rhythm for 2024 was set in motion on a frigid morning in mid-January.

It began with an unexpected phone call.

It would launch TVA’s flagship vessel, Mv. Freedom, on an emergency journey to help a sister agency in Alabama.

Master marine pilot foreman Billy Parrish chats with River Services manager Shane Carman in the wheelhouse of Mv. Freedom.

‘No Time to Talk’

Carman’s phone rang at 10 a.m. Jan. 17, around the time temperatures plummeted and TVA logged record highs in energy demand.

He didn’t recognize the number, but he answered anyway.

The caller’s voice had an urgency. He identified himself as a member of the Army Corps of Engineers district in Mobile, Alabama, and said, “Hang on, I need to patch you in with some other people.”

“What about?” Carman asked.

“No time to talk,” he said. “I have to get you on a call.”

He soon connected to an Army Corps of Engineers team in Mobile. Carman was no stranger to this group – employees from both organizations have networked about shared capabilities.

“That’s what’s neat about planting seeds,” Vern Gwin, chief of operations with the Army Corps’ Mobile district, said. “We had met up in May (of 2023) … and had a great meeting.”

The Army Corps team toured TVA’s Wilson Dam on that visit, then traded contacts with TVA folks.

They all agreed to stay in touch.

“And so now, here we were, having an emergency,” Gwin said.

A portion of a concrete miter sill in the Demopolis lock – located on the Tombigbee River, near the Black Warrior River in west-central Alabama – had fractured, allowing water to gush freely beneath the lock’s gates.

Built in the 1950s, Demopolis lock is a critical tool in managing river traffic along the Black Warrior River, the Tombigbee River and the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, often referred to as the Tenn-Tom. A shutdown in traffic could mean significant losses for commercial vessels.

“It’s one of our busiest locks,” Gwin said.

To repair the lock and dodge extensive damage, the Army Corps needed to quickly stop the flow of water. And for that, they’d need at least seven concrete stoplogs, each weighing up to 60,000 pounds.

The problem? Their vessels were undergoing routine maintenance. They needed a towboat that could deliver the materials in short order.

Carman sized up the situation. His crew members don't often travel the Tombigbee River – it’s due south of TVA’s service area – and most of them were at their homes, blanketed under ice and snow.

He asked Gwin to send him an email summarizing the emergency.

“Next thing I know,” Gwin said, “he sends me an email and says, ‘We’re coming.’”

A Freedom crew member snapped this photo of ice formed on mooring lines in Pickensville, Alabama.

‘Lightning Fast’

As the fish swims, it’s 282 river miles from Muscle Shoals to Demopolis.

Start at the Tennessee River and cruise west to Pickwick Reservoir, then south along the Tenn-Tom Waterway, which cuts an arc through eastern Mississippi before bending back into western Alabama near Pickensville.

From there, the Tenn-Tom zigzags about 100 miles to Demopolis.

In ideal conditions, the Freedom could hit speeds of up to 14 mph.

“Speed is determined by the depth of the water, the current, the weather and the experience of your pilot,” Carman said.

They had seasoned pilots, but the weather couldn’t have been worse.

And on winding waters, towing a barge laden with 210 tons of material? Anything around 12 mph “would be lightning fast for a towboat,” Carman said.

Despite frigid temps and many unknowns, Freedom’s crew felt up to the challenge.

Of the vessels in TVA’s river fleet, Freedom is the newest. It hit the water in June 2023, outfitted with a fully equipped kitchen, individual bedrooms and bathrooms for each crew member, an office, a meeting room and a state-of-the-art wheelhouse with the latest navigation technology.

Its two Caterpillar engines, each about the size of a small SUV, can generate a collective 2,650 horsepower – theoretically enough muscle to tow 21,000 tons of equipment.

“We don’t have anything where we’d need to do that amount, but that’s what it’s capable of,” Carman said.

The five-person crew prepped the vessel Jan. 17 and, at sunup the next morning, brushed snow off their gear and chiseled ice from the deck.

Stem to stern, this first-of-its-kind trip for the flagship vessel would take about 36 hours.

For gas and diesel mechanic Jake Plunkett and master marine pilot foreman Billy Parrish, it would be just another day at the office.

Sort of.

Plunkett remembers looking at the water as the journey got underway. Chunks of ice floated along the Tennessee River, down toward Pickwick and beyond. They didn’t often see large river ice in those parts.

Along the route south – in Aberdeen, Mississippi – the crew picked up a barge loaded with stoplogs, which the Army Corps strategically places along the Tenn-Tom.

For the next day-and-a-half, they followed a well-tuned rhythm, always with safety top of mind.

The comfort of crew members was top of mind when TVA set out to add Freedom to its fleet. The vessel provides ample space for living and dining.

Snacks and Chats

The crew can live and work on the Freedom for a day or two, or weeks or more depending on the assignment.

Some trips call for well-cooked dinners. Some call for bologna sandwiches.

More than a 12-hour day? Bologna sandwiches.

An eight-hour day?  “We’ll cook something,” a crew member said.

The towboat’s kitchen has stainless-steel refrigerators that can be programmed as freezers or refrigerators. Set them right, you can freeze food or chill it. Set them too cold, you’re eating a frozen bologna sandwich.

Not that that’s happened, they said.

Despite this vessel’s many amenities, life aboard a towboat isn’t cushy.

The crew works long hours, with little downtime. As the expert who kept the vessel’s engines operating smoothly on the wintry trip to Demopolis, Plunkett clocked long hours.

He’s no stranger to that brand of sacrifice. A sergeant in the National Guard, he served a tour in Kuwait and has spent long periods away from family.

Carman, retired from the Air National Guard, also served overseas. He knows what it’s like to miss home for extended spells.

“Jake worked around the clock, on a shift no one wants,” Carman said. “You get no sleep, you get a nap 20 minutes here, 30 minutes there.”

Plunkett looked forward to Facetime calls with family. Smiles from his toddler made long stretches a little shorter.

Modern communication has done wonders for the mariner’s life.

Carman and Parrish, industry veterans, can remember the days before smartphones and Wi-Fi. Passing under bridges, towboat crews would look up for folks to toss them the day’s newspaper.

“If we were near where we live, we’d have a family member toss us something off a bridge,” Carman said. “That was taking place all the way up until about 2005 or so.”

In those days, with no texting or Facetime, they had to get creative.

Helpful lockkeepers would treat them to “radio telephony."

“You’d just call the lock on the radio, and the lock would dispatch you through to their telephone,” Carman said. “You’d talk to your family on the phone, through your radio. … Technology has greatly changed things in the last decade.”

TVA River Services gas and diesel mechanic Jake Plunkett explains his maintenance routines for Freedom and TVA's other vessels.

Good Stewards

On performance, the Freedom improves efficiencies in every sense – towing, navigation and sustainability.

The wheelhouse has special lights that enhance the pilot’s nighttime visibility on the river. There’s even a small loo in the wheelhouse for quick bathroom breaks.

When Carman and his team began looking for a new boat in 2020, they prioritized crew comfort, safety and environmental benefits.

Freedom’s Tier 4 engine has cleaner emissions, meeting TVA’s mission of environmental stewardship. The vessel has no fill points or vents on the exterior, limiting the risk of vapor release or spills.

“We want to be very good stewards of the environment,” Carman said. “We decided that if we’re going to do this, let’s go all in and do the same thing with the engine package on this towboat.”

It offers much in safety, too.

“This boat makes our jobs safer with all of the latest electronics,” Parrish said. “The 2,650-horsepower engines make us more efficient and safer on rivers with fast currents.”

Army Corps of Engineers photos show work crews inspecting Demopolis Lock and installing stoplogs before engineers could repair the lock.

‘A Small Window’

Depending on the haul, the weather and river conditions, steering a towboat toward lock openings is a bit like landing an aircraft in high winds.

It’s part calculation, part experience, part intuition.

Navigation is easier when hauling a barge full of stoplogs, Carman said, as the added weight offers more control over the vessel.

With decades of experience, the Freedom’s pilots saw no troubles on the way to Demopolis.

The towboat arrived on Friday evening, Jan. 19. An additional four employees from TVA's Crane and Heavy Moves team drove their vehicles to the site, putting a total nine TVA crew members at the scene to help the Army Corps place stoplogs.

That Saturday, they worked through shivering bones and cold knuckles. They placed the first stoplog at sunup, the last at 5 p.m.

“They set those in one day,” Gwin said. “That gave us a small window of time to dewater the lock chamber and actually do some triage.

“If TVA had not been able to get there as quickly as they had, we would not have that small window of time.”

After the success in Demopolis, TVA’s River Services team gathered for a celebratory luncheon in Muscle Shoals. At top right, Scott Turnbow, vice president of TVA Civil Projects and Equipment Support Services, congratulates the team as he reads a letter from Army Corps leadership. At bottom right, Bryan Williams, senior vice president of Generation Projects and Fleet Services, lauds the team’s work.

‘Service and Sacrifice’

That Sunday, Freedom’s crew set out for home. They moored in Muscle Shoals on Monday morning.

About a month later, TVA leaders hosted a celebratory luncheon in Muscle Shoals, where they lauded the crew for their rapid response.

Scott Turnbow, vice president of TVA Civil Projects and Equipment Support Services, read from a thank you letter he received from U.S. Army Col. Jeremy Chapman, commander of the Army Corps’ Mobile District.

“Your agency’s immediate response to our request reflects the true spirit of our nation’s values of selfless service and sacrifice,” Chapman wrote.

That’s what it’s all about, Turnbow said – “delivering excellence through service and sacrifice.”

After repairs, Demopolis lock reopened in May, in time for summer season.

Gwin credited the Freedom crew for their role in that success.

“It was amazing,” he said. “I’ll never forget it. Shane responding so quickly to that – he has something in his heart and soul that you could just tell he was going to make it happen. … He could tell it was something where we were in need.

“If I ever get a call from TVA,” Gwin said, “I want the Army Corps to know that TVA dropped everything to come help us. If they need us, there’s no question – we’re going.”

Photo Gallery

Freedom’s Caterpillar engines can generate a collective 2,650 horsepower – plenty to tackle even the most demanding jobs.

The 100-by-34-foot vessel is based in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

Plunkett, a National Guard sergeant, has often been called to spend long periods away from home.

Parrish, a longtime marine pilot, has seen many exciting changes in the industry over the years.

Carman has led the River Services team on critical projects throughout the region this past year, including a large transmission tower project in Alabama.

The Freedom is outfitted with colored lights that enable pilots to see inside the wheelhouse while maintaining clear vision of the river.

Plunkett helps maintain Freedom and many of the other vessels in TVA’s River Services fleet. He's seen here in Freedom’s tool room, which is kept in immaculate condition.

The new vessel improves efficiencies in towing, navigation and sustainability, Carman said.

Plunkett takes in the view outside Freedom with former TVA deckhand Keathan Nutt.

Plunkett and Nutt moor a barge in Muscle Shoals.

A TVA Freedom challenge coin sits atop a control in the wheelhouse.