Francis Scott Key Bridge Crashed By Ship...

[fazool]

I grew up here......these bridges were a part of our island life and culture so a bridge disaster is quite :interesting" to me.


One thing I noticed was how flimsy their supports looked compared to ours......

[imwjl]

Originally Posted by Dirk Hofman

Incredible how fast and how completely it went down. Shocking, really.

After past accidents plus debates over new or replaced bridges, news and then my own curiosity caught the pros and cons of the construction types. I'm sure news coming will have it as a topic again.

It has been a long time but I remember that as a maybe even 2 miles bridge with a mix of decks and steel truss, and I recall not all steel truss types are same. A lot of bridges in the area were as more freaky than mountain passes when you were in the no longer popular cab over tucks. If memory serves, the older Chesapeake Bay span was the worst to me.

Horrible tragedy now and I hope we don't get more bad news.

[Bob from Brooklyn]

This is a pretty good clip. To my eye it appears that there was a minimum of traffic (if any) at the time of impact.

[Dirk Hofman]

Originally Posted by Bob from Brooklyn

This is a pretty good clip. To my eye it appears that there was a minimum of traffic (if any) at the time of impact.

Sounds like the ship was able to get off a warning and this saved a lot of folks.

[Talk2Me]

Originally Posted by Bob from Brooklyn

This is a pretty good clip. To my eye it appears that there was a minimum of traffic (if any) at the time of impact.

Although most news outlets are simply reporting this accident happening "in the early morning hours Tuesday" or some such language I did find one that said reports started coming in about 1:30am. Not too surprising the traffic was light both on the road and in the water at that time.

[tinnitus]

I once had a mind-numbing government job with a desk window facing the Willamette River in downtown Portland. I used to watch tugboats wrestle loaded 200' gravel barges down-river under the Hawthorne Bridge and daydream about piloting something like that instead of shuffling papers for a living.

That fantasy blew away like a puff of smoke the day I watched a tug lose steering and bear down on a key bridge piling under one end of the lift span. Like a mile-long train, the whole mess took a full minute to stop, mere yards from impact before backing off to await another tug. Glad I didn't have to watch something like that with full-volume daytime auto and bicycle traffic in both directions.

RIP to those lost in this mishap.

[random works]

A relative of mine living in Baltimore said 30,000 people a day crossed the bridge.
What a disruption in addition to all the rest.

[eyesore]

Originally Posted by JackB1

What I don't understand is that the ship warned everyone is was out of control and that they should close the bridge. Yet still there were 8 people on it at the time of the collapse. Did people just ignore the warnings?

Horrible! I work on a VERY busy bridge in the Philadelphia/ NJ area. 25 years . I ve seen and heard a lot!! I have worked up there with our maintenance gang ;still do, and it is hard to communicate with anyone by radio ,cell phone service can be sketchy. It is extremely loud and dangerous . Probably one reason the workers were not notified. My heart goes out to their families!

[Cypress Knee]

According to The Baltimore Sun, police cars were in the area and were able to block access to the bridge just before impact.

There were seven or eight Hispanic construction workers on the bridge. Evidently one of them walked away without injury. A second was treated and released. The other six are missing and presumed dead.

Sonar has detected vehicle signatures in water about fifty feet deep. Dive teams are attempting to locate the vehicles and any other victims. It has been reported that they have found a truck in two pieces and are looking for other vehicles.

This is the second time in recent memory that the Hispanic construction workers in Baltimore have had tragic experiences. Almost one year ago to the day a speeding car barreled over the jersey wall barrier on I 695 and killed six workers.

[raysachs]

I was born in Baltimore and still have family there, so for the many years we lived in the Philly area I’d drive to or through Baltimore a lot. But for all the times I’ve been through the tunnels under the harbor (95 & 895) and gone out around the west side of the beltway, I’d never once been far enough out east to cross that bridge. Horrible accident, but kind of miraculous it claimed as few victims as it did. Sounds like the cops did a pretty good job with limited warning of keeping more than the few cars off the road. Thank goodness for that.

That east coast earthquake mentioned a few times earlier in the thread was really easily felt an hour and a half up the road in the Philly area. I remember my furniture started shaking and rattling, went outside and all of the neighbors were out wondering what was going on. My brother was at home in Roanoke, VA, which was within an hour or so of the epicenter and they had some damage at their place…

-Ray

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by Cypress Knee

I used to live in Baltimore. This is a disaster. Why the harbor master did not have tugboats out there re-directing this ship when it was apparent that it was having issues is a criminal offense. But Baltimore has a long, sordid history of letting public officials off the hook, and this will be one more official exonerated in the back room while innocent people suffer the consequences.

I was wondering, too, why tugboats weren't shepherding a ship like this out. This is a monumental disaster. The cost to the public will be huge. And the likely loss of life is very, very sad.

- Glenn

[Gitfiddlemann]

Originally Posted by DrunkUncles

Form the video I saw, she did not have issues until about 2 min before impact, she then briefly regained power and lost it again.

I noticed that too. Right away. Weird.
I'm really hoping this wasn't the work of malevolent hackers targeting our economic infrastructure. I've been hyper paranoid ever since hearing recent testimony from our FBI director.
Maybe I need to chill a little, but can't help feeling paranoid.
At least, the NTSB is in charge of the investigation. It may take them a while, but they will find out how it happened.
Condolences to the families of those who perished.

[frankmcr]

Originally Posted by DrunkUncles

Form the video I saw, she did not have issues until about 2 min before impact,

.

See, that's not okay. They can't say "everything was fine until two minutes before we lost power and crashed into the bridge". What that means is, there was a very serious problem existing before they crashed into the bridge. Maybe they failed to be aware that the ship was subject to sudden losses of power, or maybe they just assumed they could cowboy their way along regardless of a problem they were aware of. Either way, "Whoops!" doesn't cut it.

[imwjl]

My biggest point of curiosity is it seems like there might not have been fenders, pilings, riprap, or structures I assumed are by all bridges that get a lot of river traffic.

Yesterday I looked at Google 3d view but assumed it might not be an accurate view. In today's news I see some stuff that supports that curiosity.

Other curiosity is about the power failure. I assume a ship that new has a single engine, but has thrusters and backup for electricity generation. Thought not under Jones Act, my guess is a US accident means much authority to investigate.

Let's hope not just learning but precautions put in place from this tragedy.

[Bob Womack]

Originally Posted by imwjl

My biggest point of curiosity is it seems like there might not have been fenders, pilings, riprap, or structures I assumed are by all bridges that get a lot of river traffic.

If you look carefully you can see "dolphins," round structures built upon pilings that stand between the piers and the traffic.



Unfortunately in this case the ship was out of the channel and the dolphins couldn't protect the piers. There has been a move in the last few decades to build artificial islands around bridge piers that can absorb a ship strike. Does anyone remember the Big Bayou Canot rail accident caused by a barge strike? More, HERE. What are the bets the efforts for pier protection will accelerate?

Bob