COURTESY NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
The USS Arizona Memorial is closed for repairs after the exhibit’s loading dock sank over the weekend.
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The USS Arizona Memorial is closed for the rest
of the week due to the submersion of the shoreside floating dock where visitors board vessels for harbor tours, according to the
National Park Service.
All USS Arizona Memorial programs also have been canceled through Saturday, according to a phone
recording and messages posted on the World War II Valor in the Pacific
National Monument’s
official Twitter and Facebook pages. Harbor tours were halted Sunday after the 180-foot long concrete
dock sank partially
overnight, according to
officials.
NPS spokesman Jay Blount said repairs are
estimated to take about a week. While crews have been pumping out the chambers of the dock, he said it remains unknown what kind of damage is causing them to sink.
”If they’re able to patch the leak relatively quickly, we could be operational again in a matter of days,” said Blount. “We have
no real way of knowing
until we get people looking at it in the water.”
The Pearl Harbor Visitor Center remains open its usual hours from 7 a.m. to
5 p.m. daily, along with its two museums, shoreside exhibits and book store.
Visitors to Pearl Harbor can still watch a free
documentary film,
according to Blount, as
well as visit with on-site park rangers and volunteers offering interpretive talks and the book store.
The memorial’s partners, the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum and Park, USS
Battleship Missouri Memorial, and Pacific Aviation Museum Pearl Harbor
also remain open.