More than 60 stalled southbound river tows were to be released to continue their passage through Vicksburg at daylight today after Coast Guard officials Saturday worked out a plan to reopen traffic on the Mississippi River on hold since 30 barges broke loose Wednesday.

“We will have the Vicksburg Information Center control the northbound vessels during the night, and during the day they will start running vessels southbound,” said Lt. j.g. Ryan Gomez, public information officer at the Coast Guard’s Vicksburg station.

The Vicksburg Information Center was described as a cooperative of river industry and Coast Guard officials.

Smaller tows will go first, Gomez said, so the Coast Guard can make sure vessels in the fast currents and high water of spring snow melts can clear the Interstate 20 bridge and a barge lodged since Wednesday against one of the piers on the east side of the river.

A third day of efforts to dislodge the 35-foot-wide barge — loaded with soybeans at the time of the crash — failed Saturday, though officials reported and dozens of bystanders saw some progress.

“It’s a pretty tough barge,” said Kirk Gallien, assistant district administrator for operations with the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, which maintains the I-20 bridge. “It’s in a bad spot, with fast currents and high water. There are a lot of things working against us.”

No attempt to move the barge was expected today, and Gallien said it could be two weeks before new equipment is prepared for another attempt.

Officials set no limit on the number of barges towboats will be allowed to push up or down the river, Gomez said.

I-20 over the bridge, which was closed to all traffic for nearly three hours immediately after the accident Wednesday afternoon and again on Thursday, has remained open since Thursday evening.

The river has been closed to southbound tows since the towboat Kay A. Eckstein, owned by Marquette Transportation of Paducah, Ky., lost control of 30 barges that scattered down the river.

One sank, 28 were recovered and the last lodged against the pier.

Saturday, crews with Vicksburg-based Big River Shipbuilders and Salvage began around 9:40 a.m. trying to cut the 200-foot-long barge in half, with a crane dropping a heavy double-pointed chisel on the partially submerged barge.

Big River project manager Hugh Smith said cutting was successful, but the currents did not allow the barge to move.

“We were able to cut it almost all the way through, but the bridge people wouldn’t let us near the concrete of the abutment — understandably so,” Smith said. “They didn’t want the chisel hitting the abutment.”

Later in the afternoon, a Marquette Transportation towboat worked for about an hour trying to push the weakened barge off the abutment. That, too was unsuccessful, and operations were suspended around 3:30 p.m.

Officials, including Coast Guard, Marquette and Louisiana Department of Transportation representatives, met to regroup and plan their next move.

After the meeting, Gallien said bridge officials decided the best option is a steel A-frame supporting a cable chain that will finish cutting it in half.

“The only thing we have available from an equipment standpoint is for the salvage company to cut down the A-frame so it will fit under the bridge,” he said. “That’s what we wanted to do in the first place, but right now it’s too tall and would hit the side of the bridge. They will have to shorten it to get it underneath to do the work.”

Gallien said it will take two weeks to get the frame cut down and assembly ready.

Meanwhile, Coast Guard officials, working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, worked to find a way to safely allow southbound river shipping to resume.

Gomez said some of the 65 southbound tows, which have not been allowed to pass a spot 26 river miles north of Vicksburg, were waiting as far north as Greenville.

The vessels include hundreds of barges loaded with grain, coal, oil and other products headed for Baton Rouge, New Orleans, East Coast ports and international markets.

The National Weather Service River Forecast Center continued to predict the Mississippi at Vicksburg would crest Tuesday at 43 feet, Vicksburg’s flood stage. At 7 p.m. Saturday, the river was measured at 42.6 feet, up three-tenths in 24 hours. The forecast for this morning was 42.7 feet.