Divers are playing a key role in determining the level of damage or any obvious areas of leaks within the hull of USS The Sullivans. 2 On Your Side on Thursday was able to speak with one of the divers who spends a lot of his working day underwater. First, we wanted to let you know that one of the first lakers has come into the Buffalo River this spring shipping season. A large grain ship carefully backed its way through the Buffalo River after giving two weeks notice of arrival. It went right past the Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park, and the still partially sunk by the stern USS The Sullivans. The grain ship followed that no wake or large waves notice to protect the stricken ship, and to protect people like Robert Dorato. He is a Bidco salvage diver who carefully suited up Thursday afternoon. With his surface oxygen-fed diving helmet, he was lowered by a basket crane into the again-cloudy water for that close-up inspection of The Sullivans. “This is what we do every day on my job,” Dorato said. “Usually it’s all by feel. You shut the lights off and it’s all by feel, so that’s where I specialize in.” Now his specialized work will help to guide the team of the Naval Park, City of Buffalo, and experts like a naval architect who will come up with a strategy to somehow safely get the ship upright again, after its bad list and the stern actually sinking into the sediment.
