Floating restaurant becomes dinner cruise. Jeff Ruby's Waterfront in Covington, KY floats away. Plans to stay open during flood hit a snag & a bridge.
The management of Jeff Ruby’s Waterfront thought they had it all figured out. Instead of having their floating restaurant in Covington, Kentucky shut down every time the Ohio River spilled its banks they bought a floating ramp five-years-ago that allowed staff and customers to come aboard. Because of this, unlike neighboring restaurants, Jeff Ruby’s Waterfront stayed open last night.
On Thursday, WCPO-TV in Cincinnati featured the fact that the restaurant would be open despite the high waters (see third video down). Some nice, free publicity. But the cameras returned last night, along with the live trucks, for a different kind of story.
Around 10:15 PM, the floating restaurant turned into a dinner cruise after the building broke free from its moorings. Luckily the cruise didn’t get very far and you have the news media to thank for that (sort of). The runaway restaurant hit the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge. The bridge is named after a prominent local reporter (see, all of us aren’t bad).
The rescue operation was a slow one and the bridge had to be shut down until it was inspected. The man whose name is on the restaurant showed leadership and found a way to get on board to calm his customers (one of the customers was former Bengals wide receiver Cris Collingsworth). Jeff Ruby also faced the cameras after it was all over.
There is raw video of the Covington Fire Department’s rescue operation at the bottom of this post.
From WCPO-TV (WCPO also has more clips of its live, breaking news coverage of the incident):
The restaurant was lodged under the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge, which kept it from drifting down the river. Tugboats surrounding the restaurant kept it in place, as well.
Crews used ladders and ropes to rescue everyone on board. A walking board was placed on top of the ladders in an effort to evacuate more guests at a faster rate. Authorities say the restaurant drifted about 100 yards from the dock.
People could only be rescued one at a time, which is why it took several hours to evacuate the boat. No injuries were reported.
Water rescue teams and Covington Police and Fire Departments immediately responded and were able to secure the boat. Then they had to get 83 people off the boat. They used a ladder from the shore to the boat because the ramps were no longer usable.
The people had to come down one by one on the ladder with life jackets on. Many women had to take off their high heels so they could walk on the runged ladder.
Restaurant owner Jeff Ruby said he went to the restaurant after hearing about the incident in phone calls from an assistant manager and his lawyer.
Ruby said they didn’t know what happened, but that once he got to the scene his priority was to get on the boat to be with his customers and employees. Once he managed to get on board, he went from table to table to meet with customers and said that everyone on board was very orderly.
Asked if the high water had anything to do with what happened, Ruby said,” We’ve been open in higher waters.”
Police indicated it could take several hours to get everyone off the boat, and about 25 had been removed by 12:30 a.m. By 1 a.m., most of the customers had been taken off, Ruby said.
The bridge was immediately closed to traffic. Ervin said it would remain closed until a state inspector could check out the bridge, since the boat had hit one of its supports.
