St. Louis, Missouri officials said that the water line for the Mississippi river is down so low that the Navy’s sunken World War II mine-sweeping ship, the USS Inaugural is now exposed for all to see.
The wrecked ship is located near downtown St. Louis and used to be a National Historic Landmark that was open to the public for tours.
However, in 1993 the Mississippi river rose to a record high flood of 49.58 feet and the ship broke free from its anchor.
It ended up floating downstream until it hit a bank and turned over on its side and sank to the bottom of the river. On Tuesday, the river water was only 3.85 feet high and most of the ship was exposed.
City officials said that the last time they had seen it was in 2015 and 2012. The National Park Service said that they wanted to salvage the wreck in one piece and restore it but there was no way possible.
They claimed the ship was a total loss and had plans to salvage it for scrap metal and save some pieces for museum exhibition purposes, however, that has not happened yet.
The water levels are expected to be low over the next few weeks, though, and maybe they will be able to get in there now and get some work done.
The ship once participated in the invasion of Okinawa but was mainly used for patrolling the South Pacific oceans. Once the war was over, it was used in minesweeping operations around Japan and Korea and was able to find and disarm 82 mines. The ship was awarded two battle stars for its service.