A portion of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore has collapsed after a large boat collided with it early on Tuesday morning, sending multiple vehicles into the water.
At about 1.30am, a vessel crashed into the bridge, catching fire before sinking and causing multiple vehicles to fall into the water below, according to a video posted on X.
“All lanes closed both directions for incident on I-695 Key Bridge. Traffic is being detoured,” the Maryland Transportation Authority posted on X.
Matthew West, a petty officer first class for the coastguard in Baltimore, told the New York Times that the coastguard received a report of an impact at 1.27am ET. West said the Dali, a 948ft (29 metres) Singapore-flagged cargo ship, had hit the bridge, which is part of Interstate 695.
Not just Baltimore. This is also a major cargo port. That harbor will be blocked for a long time. Get ready for supply chain disruptions and more rising prices.
I doubt the harbor will be blocked that long, maybe a week or so at most.
That’s a crime scene and a death scene. It’s not going to go quickly. The good news is that it’s a critical roadway and waterway intersection so the feds and state government have motivation to make haste.
Except there is no mystery as to the deaths part. Investigations take a lot of time when there are a lot of questions. The only question here is “why did the boat plow straight into the bridge?”. There’s very little question how/why the bridge collapsed(it got hit directly by a massive cargo ship). No one’s going to question the physics of it. The only question will be “was it captain error or ship error so we know who to fine”. Recovering the ship will be part of answering that and the rest will be communication and maintenance logs.
The accident didn’t happen in the middle of the navigable channel, so you can maintain the pier and ship while clearing the main span.
As for being a death scene, you likely aren’t going to be able to access the site with divers as it is too dangerous.
Good luck finding the necessary crane capacity. There are a handful of seriously big cranes in the 7000 tons plus range, but they are Dutch or Japanese, primarily. Wherever they are, they are probably busy and will take ages to get there. While the weight/mass of the bridge is not available online, it surely exceeds the weight limits of cranes currently in existence by far, so the bridge segments need to be cut up prior to removal.
Even if the US spends insane amounts of money, this issue will take quite some time to resolve.
The Left Coast Lifter is in NY and can be on site in about 24-30 hours depending on currents going up Delaware Bay. It can make picks up to approx 1,600 tons, it would laugh at what the Key bridge weighs.
You’re not lifting it out of the way, you’re gonna pull it out of the way with a tugboat.
I think we all know someone who was forced to buy TP on ebay in the early pandemic.
This could send us right back there. Doesn’t much matter why stuff can’t move from A to B, prices will increase and people will take the opportunity to profiteer.
The AP article says the exact opposite, that it is in fact not a major cargo port.
Vehicles from Europe coming via ROROs come to Baltimore primarily. This will impact them as diverting to Jacksonville or Savannah is going through take a lot of landside logistics to figure out.
If I’m not mistaken, it’s Brunswick, not Savannah, that is Georgia’s major port for automobiles/ROROs. Savannah is bigger overall, but that’s due to other types of cargo.
This article mentions Brunswick having a goal of surpassing Baltimore, which is #1. I guess this disaster makes that more likely…
