Family, friends mourn the dead in Sunday's boating accident in Intracoastal waterway at Palm Valley

PALM VALLEY — Mourners from coast to coast will awaken Tuesday morning with an emptiness caused by an explosion of fiberglass and metal that left bodies broken on an otherwise peaceful Intracoastal Waterway. Federal and state investigators said they expect to spend a week or more piecing through wreckage and witness accounts to determine the cause of Sunday’s boating accident that left five people dead and nine injured. Investigators will try to determine if alcohol, speed or excessive weight were possible factors when the overcrowded 22-foot Crownline pleasure boat slammed into a moored 25-foot tugboat, authorities said. The empty tug and a barge were in place to help build a dock for a home under construction on Roscoe Boulevard South.