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{{Infobox ship career
|Ship
|Ship country=United States
|Ship completed={{Start date and age|1990}}
|Ship out of service={{Start date and age|2005|08}}
|Ship scrapped={{Start date and age|2006|03}}
|Ship owner=[[Lafarge North America]]
|Ship fate=Broken up and scrapped in March 2006 after running aground in 2005 due to complications from [[Hurricane Katrina]]
|Ship status=March 2006, scrapping completed
}}
{{Infobox ship characteristics
|Ship length={{convert|200|ft|m}}
|Ship beam={{convert|35|ft|m}}
|Ship draft={{convert|10|ft|m}} when loaded, {{convert|1|ft|m}} when empty
}}
|}
'''ING 4727''' was a [[barge]] belonging to [[Ingram Barge Company]] that became infamous when it went over or through a [[levee]] and landed in a residential neighborhood of [[New Orleans, Louisiana]] during [[Hurricane Katrina]].
==Background and specifications==
ING 4727 was built in 1990. It was a dry cargo cover-top barge with a steel hull.
==ING 4727 and Hurricane Katrina==
Shortly before Katrina, ING 4727 was under charter by [[Lafarge North America]], having recently delivered a load of [[cement]], and was reportedly empty just before the storm. ING 4727 was reportedly in the [[Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet Canal]] in New Orleans when the storm hit.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Breakaway Barge Follow-up |journal=GCMA News |date=November–December 2005 |issue=35 |url=http://www.gulfcoastmariners.org/newsletters/novdec2005_35/newsletternovdec_2005_35.htm#breakway%20barge |
While many other vessels in southeast Louisiana broke their moorings during the storm, ING 4727 became particularly notable both due to its size and because of where it landed.
==Speculation on the barge's role==
Many locals blame the barge for the catastrophic inundation of the area. Some lawyers have blamed the barge, including its owners and the cement terminal that had moored the barge and which had the barge in its care, custody, and control at the time of the hurricane.
A week after the storm Army Corps of Engineers project manager Al Naomi gave his preliminary impression, saying, "One would think it's the barge that did it," and confirming that the barge striking the floodwalls would have "precipitated a tremendous collapse".<ref>{{cite journal | title=Corps trying to find reasons for collapse | journal=Times-Picayune | date=6 September 2005 | url=http://www.nola.com/weblogs/print.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/print077196.html }}</ref> However, in the preliminary report presented to Congress, experts say that the barge was drawn through an existing hole in the floodwall, and that it was the topping of the Industrial Canal floodwall, not the barge, that caused the break.<ref>{{cite journal | author=Seed, R.B. | title=Preliminary Report on the Performance of the New Orleans Levee Systems in Hurricane Katrina | date=17 November 2005 | url=http://hsgac.senate.gov/_files/Katrina/Preliminary_Report.pdf | display-authors=etal | access-date=24 February 2006 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060301125801/http://hsgac.senate.gov/_files/Katrina/Preliminary_Report.pdf | archive-date=1 March 2006 | url-status=dead }}</ref> The LSU report subsequently found that overtopping did not occur, rather, design failures precipited the levee failures.
By late 2007, several investigations were completed that included analysis of the question of whether the barge had a causative role in one or more of the failures in the floodwalls atop the Industrial Canal levees, or whether it came into the city from an already-existing breach.
There is also speculation that the barge may have caused the other nearby breaches in the Industrial Canal by striking the floodwalls on the other side before bouncing back and going all the way through the levee near the end of Prieur Street, although all the scientists and engineers who investigated the failures regard such speculation as dubious and without any evidentiary basis.
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In the months after Katrina, the barge became a morbid [[tourism|tourist attraction]] for those interested in the devastation.
On 22 February 2006, salvage work began which lifted the barge approximately {{convert|4
On 4 June 2007, a
}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | author=Gwen Filosa | title=Testimony Begins in Barge Case | journal=Times-Picayune | date=6 March 2007 | url=http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/06/testimony_begins_in_barge_case.html
}}</ref>
On March 31, 2008, Judge Helen Berrigan, Chief Judge for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, issued an
}}{{dead link|date=January 2022|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref>
{{commons category|ING 4727_(ship, 1990)}}
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