It took a whole day and a side of terrible rainy weather, but a submerged excavator is finally out of Hingham Harbor.
Crews spent the early hours of a murky Saturday morning in the rain trying to pull the excavator out of the harbor during low tide.
Additional excavators were brought to the scene to help dig out the original before high tide arrived. A crane was also on a barge in the water to keep the excavator from sinking any further.
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The work to remove the machine had been going on since Thursday, when the excavator got caught in a rising tide and started spilling oil into the harbor in Hingham, Massachusetts. Crews were trying to fix a crooked pylon when it got stuck.
Local residents are stunned by what happened and have been watching the excavation process.
“I heard it on the scanner, so I said 'Why don’t I just check this out.' Because when I heard they had to notify the Coast Guard, I said, 'Oh, OK, there’s something going on,'" Hingham resident Larry McNamara said. "So I had gone to the shipyard and when I didn’t see it there I came over here and I saw there was a front end loader in the water.”
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Crews were finally able to pull out the excavator Saturday and are now working to move it back away from the shoreline and clear the area.
