ST. MARY’S, W.Va. — Barges hauling vital cargo up and down the Ohio River have come to a halt between Parkersburg and St. Mary’s. The Willow Island Lock and Dam has been closed until further notice due to the extreme weather conditions.
“Ice is growing so fast and so quick we can’t keep up with it. It’s all over the lock walls. We can’t get gates back in recess, we struggle getting gates mitered, we’re constantly flushing ice. It’s a battle we’ve lost unfortunately,” said Jason Casto, Project Manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at the Willow Island Lock and Dam.
Ice all week has built up in the interior lock wall which has narrowed the chamber. However, the bigger issue according to Casto is the ice building up on the gates which has made it impossible to close and seal the doors on the lock chamber. With the leakage there’s no way to elevate and lower the water levels in the chamber to allow barge traffic to pass through.
“We were maintaining it as best we could up until yesterday, but it got so cold where we were trying to defrost things with a propane torch, the propane bottle kept freezing. Nobody really understands talking over the phone, you really have to see it to understand the level and the safety concerns,” he added.
It’s a COLD day on the Ohio River. A barge captain shared this video with me. The Willow Island Lock and Dam is temporarily closed due to severe ice issues and barges are waiting to get through, Probably going to be a while. pic.twitter.com/X9H0M8NJ5t
— Chris Lawrence (@WVOutdoors) January 29, 2026
As of Thursday morning there were seven barges stranded at Willow island, six headed downriver and the seventh was waiting to lock up river. The locks will be closed until further notice.
Other locks on the Ohio River continue to operate, but Casto said from talking to his counterparts at other facilities they too are starting to have trouble and even the barges are having difficult moving on open water where the river is frozen. In some places the ice is six inches thick or more.
“When it piles up and builds up in the extreme temperature, the least little bit of wind or water splashes on it, it just locks all together,” Casto said.
Temperature at the lock on Thursday morning was 1 degree. It’s unclear for how long the lock will be out of commission.