Lieutenant Dan Kozak, USCG (ret.) was a Merchant Marine “between 1946 and
1986, serving 12 years about federally-owned vessels, ranging in civil service ranks from Apprentice Seaman to Captain.
Some 22 years of that was a on a NYC Fireboats, 18 of which was in the uniformed rank of Pilot (a promotion from Fireman
1St Grade). Between 1954 and 9157 he was a NYC Correction Officer. He
retired from the USCG(R) in 1990 as a Lieutenant, after serving in several port security billets and also a stint aboard the
USCG Cutter RELIANCE as the ship’s Intelligence Officer.” Lieutenant Dan Kozak is the author
of Ice Fire: N.Y. Harbor: What Happened Beneath The Verrazano Bridge.
Lieutenant Colonel Me. Earl, USMC(R)
(Associate Editor, The Officer, 8/2007) said of Ice Fire: N.Y. Harbor: What Happened Beneath The Verrazano Bridge,
“When a drug-smuggling freighter and a Russian tanker loaded with liquefied natural gas (LNG) collide in New York City’s
busy harbor, all of Manhattan is at the mercy of terrorism and fire. In his novel Ice Fire: What Happened beneath the Verrazano
Bridge, Dan Kozak blends disturbing realism with a psychic twist. The novel’s main events are a “what if ”
based on the 1973 fiery collision in New York Harbor between the underway container ship SS Sea Witch and the heavily loaded
oil tanker SS Esso Brussels.
The Verrazano Bridge almost burned
down, and 31 crewmembers had to be rescued by a NYC fireboat. Suppose instead that the tanker had been filled with LNG, super
cooled for maritime transport, but highly volatile when abruptly exposed to the atmosphere. Mr. Kozak weaves this “what
if” with other actual cataclysmic events that have occurred.”
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