Echoes of the Ever Given: Giant ship runs aground in Chesapeake

Last year, it happened in the Suez Canal. This year, it's happened halfway around the world in the Chesapeake Bay -- and now the U.S. Coast Guard is trying to figure out how to get the massive boat moving again.

Almost one year after the Ever Given container ship became stuck in the Suez Canal due to high winds, leading to a global disruption in trade, another Evergreen Marine Corp. cargo vessel has run aground but this time in Maryland.

The 2-year-old vessel, nearly 1,100 feet long, was headed to Norfolk, Virginia, after leaving the Port of Baltimore on Sunday around 9 p.m. local time. Identified as the Ever Forward, it didn't get very far as it became grounded in the Chesapeake Bay, port officials said.

The container ship Ever Forward, which ran aground in the Chesapeake Bay off the coast near Pasadena, Md., the night before, is seen Monday, March 14, 2022. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Petty Officer 1st Class Steve Lehmann, a spokesman for the Coast Guard’s Mid-Atlantic district, told ABC News that an environmental team boarded the ship Tuesday morning to determine how to safely get it towed off what is believed to be a sandbar, without harming the crew or polluting the water. No injuries have been reported thus far, according to Lehmann, and no pollution has been detected due to the incident.

According to the U.S. Coast Guard Mid-Atlantic, the ship is outside the main shipping channel and is not a hazard to other ships. While it still remains a mystery as to why the ship got stuck, the vessel was outside the normal deep-water shipping channel. Some areas of the Chesapeake Bay are more than 150 feet deep.

The weather is not likely to be blamed. "Unlike inland lakes, the Chesapeake Bay doesn't experience big changes in water level as a result of drought or runoff," AccuWeather Senior Weather Editor Jesse Ferrell said.

A response boat crew from Coast Guard Station Curtis Bay monitors the 1,095-foot motor vessel Ever Forward, which became grounded in the Chesapeake Bay, March 13, 2022. The Coast Guard and Maryland Department of the Environment are coordinating the refloating of the container ship. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Kimberly Reaves/Released)

The U.S. Coast Guard Mid-Atlantic, along with the Maryland Department of the Environment, is coordinating the refloating of the container ship, which is stuck in about 23 feet of water. Lehmann noted to ABC News that the Coast Guard Mid-Atlantic team is "making sure all boxes are checked" before attempting to free the ship, and that there is currently no timeline in place for such an attempt.

The Chesapeake Bay region will encounter a storm approaching from the south on Wednesday evening, according to AccuWeather meteorologist Joe Curtis, bringing periods of rain and breezy conditions into Thursday. Dry weather will "briefly" return to the area on Friday, with more rain expected to return by Saturday.

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