LOUDON COUNTY, Tenn. (WATE) - The cause of Friday night's "runaway river barge" is still being investigated by authorities; as well as looking to discover its owner. 

The unmanned barge caused some major traffic delays Friday night as authorities with the Loudon County Sheriff's Office and Tennessee Highway Patrol worked to stop both directions of traffic on I-75 in Loudon County near the Tennessee River bridge as a precaution. 

The barge, which was reportedly carrying 200,000 pounds of cargo, was stopped some 600-plus yards from colliding with the bridge. 

According to the Loudon County Sheriff's Office's David Moss, the barge came out of Fort Loudoun Terminal on the Tennessee River, but officials still don't know who owns the barge. 

"The barge was docked and became free after the rope or cable broke in half," according to Moss. "There were a total of three ropes and cables that were broken."

Moss says that the only damage he knows of that the runaway barge caused was to a boat dock in Loudon County.

No other damage was reported.

The Fort Loudoun Terminal has been in operation for many years and this runaway barge incident was the first time something like that has happened, according to authorities. 

"We really do make a difference," teamwork stops runaway barge

LOUDON, Tenn. (WVLT) - Friday night turned into a race against time to stop an unmanned barge floating down the Tennessee River from hitting the I-75 bridge. To safely stop that from happening, it took a very coordinated effort from several different law enforcement agencies, and the help of a tugboat from Tate & Lyle, working together.

The 911 Center in Loudon County said this was not a typical situation to face. Katie Cole was on shift the night the barge left its dock. She said it took a lot of team work in order to find the best solution to find and stop the barge, and prevent it from causing any major damage.

“It shows that we really do make a difference, and it’s kind of a cool feeling to see how big of an impact it could have been, and how we were able to put a stop to it," Katie Cole said.

The Loudon County Sheriff's Office said they train for many types of situations, but a potential bridge strike could have caused massive damage. That is why the decision to close the I-75 bridge was made, just in case the barge made contact with the interstate.

Thankfully, the barge did not make it to the interstate bridge. It was located by the tug boat belonging to Tate & Lyle company in Loudon. Larry Spangler was among the crew on board working to track down the barge.

"We deal with barges all the time so I wasn't scared about the work, it was just the adrenaline flowing and we want to catch this barge and stop it and get it some where safe," Spangler said.

He said while they were looking for the barge, their spotlight failed so they used flashlights to help with visibility.

"We made it back fine. Almost ran out of fuel pushing up river in that hard current. It took hours, I don't know how many, three hours, something like that to push it back. They said we were right before the interstate bridge. We had our hands full, we didn't know exactly where," Spangler said.