Fire chief details Seacor search for remains

In two weeks, it will be one year since the SEACOR Power lift boat capsized off the coast of Port Fourchon.

HOUMA, La. (KLFY) -- In two weeks, it will be one year since the SEACOR Power lift boat capsized off the coast of Port Fourchon.

Six men were rescued, six were found dead, and seven were never found.

One of the last hopes to bring families closure was when the vessel was brought on land and firefighters gave one final search of the ship after it was searched twice by divers.

Chief Quint Liner and the Dularge Volunteer Fire Department searched the recovered sections of the SEACOR Power about four months after it capsized. It took a full day to clear and catalog the ship with three four-man-teams working in 30 minutes cycles due to the August heat.

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Newly acquired images from the M.A.R.S. scrapyard show the condition of the SEACOR Power hull and legs after they were retrieved from the Gulf. Firefighters had to clear every room of the upside-down vessel, visibly already torn apart from the conditions at sea, particularly an end-of-May storm SEACOR cited for rolling the boat during a June 9 family meeting.

Chief Quint Liner explained, "The way the boat was sitting, it caused the bow to break off, so they picked that part up easy, but if anybody was in there, it was all open."

With an open boat, the Dularge fire chief already knew the chance of his men finding any human remains in the hull was slim.

"If someone was in that part when it broke up, I think 90% of our chances were lost," Liner said. "Sea life is going to eat on it and with the hull open up if something is in there, it's going to float away with the current, or a fish go in there and pull it out. You're not going to find it."

During the firefighters' search, they found a helmet here a glove there, rescue equipment, a radio. Each time a discovery was made, everything stopped to document it, but there was only one thing Liner truly wanted to find but never did.

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"We were hoping to at least find some bones or something or human remains because at this time you are not going to find a whole human body. You are going to find bones or something, and that's what we were hoping for to give that family closure," Liner lamented. "Cause that's the whole thing. I had someone in my family drown. You don't have closure until you have that body in your hands."

Liner remembered a SEACOR company man provided a layout of the boat which was used to make sure his firefighters knew each room they were heading into of the upside-down liftboat. No one was ever was able to search the living quarters which broke off from the hull and was subsequently buried by Hurricane Ida.

"We kind of wished we could have searched it, but I mean we were prepared, the (Terrebonne Parish) sheriff's office was prepared. We were ready to do a thorough search of the next part," Liner said. "I saw what the family were going through, and you just want to find something, but you know it ain't there."

Liner promised his team searched the sections of the SEACOR Power that were brought on land thoroughly, to point of even cutting open the ballast tanks. He assured if there would have been any remains, he said his team would have found them to give the families closure.