Francis Scott Key Bridge (Baltimore) hit by Cargo Ship and Collapsed

JHZR2 said:
Looks can be deceiving but those supports look fairly small. I think about the old rail bridges with solid, huge footings. And even those would probably be shaken/displaced.
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San Francisco Bay has had its fair share of ships colliding into bridge towers, and I’ve never heard of one ever being considered compromised. However, the Golden Gate Bridge and Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge have massive towers on beefy supports. Some ships go under the Richmond-San Rafael and Carquinez Bridges but the big thing is the Richmond tanker terminal.
 
I have no knowledge of the source but this video appears to show vehicles still crossing pretty close to impact and also it looks like they were turning into the bridge at time of impact? Could just be the camera angle?

 
SC Maintenance said:
I have no knowledge of the source but this video appears to show vehicles still crossing pretty close to impact and also it looks like they were turning into the bridge at time of impact? Could just be the camera angle?

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As far as I have been able to tell/read, there weren't any people on the bridge save for DOT workers filling in potholes. The crew of the ship was able to get out a mayday and the authorities closed the bridge.
 
vpr5703 said:
As far as I have been able to tell/read, there weren't any people on the bridge save for DOT workers filling in potholes. The crew of the ship was able to get out a mayday and the authorities closed the bridge.
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That’s why I posted the link. If they closed it they were in the absolute nick of time.
 
This is the base on one of the two main supports on the Charleston suspension bridge. No idea if this would thwart a container ship but it was built in 2005.

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Very sad for those who died this morning and for their families.
This will create years, maybe a decade, of economic damage to the Baltimore area and may result in Baltimore as a port never coming back long term.
Things don't always go to plan, even though they do 99.9% of the time, and accidents are sometimes the outcome.
 
As mentioned, extremely sad for those missing and their families. What does the US export to Sri Lanka? Was Baltimore just a stop along the way on this ship's route?
 
k1xv said:
I suspect the pier protectors were designed to protect against the size of ship that traveled the waterway when the bridge was designed and built, some 50 years ago. But the ships have gotten much bigger, and when out of control, the greater mass means they hit with much more force.
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I can't believe the number of containers on that ship. What happens in the north Atlantic when it gets rough??
 
y_p_w said:
San Francisco Bay has had its fair share of ships colliding into bridge towers, and I’ve never heard of one ever being considered compromised. However, the Golden Gate Bridge and Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge have massive towers on beefy supports. Some ships go under the Richmond-San Rafael and Carquinez Bridges but the big thing is the Richmond tanker terminal.
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It was build to withstand earthquake and then rebuild for higher standard recently, at a hefty cost. You can't compare the standard of Bay Bridge and Key Bridge, and the Vallejo bridge is likely more comparable in build quality.
 
JHZR2 said:
I’d think they would have dropped anchor immediately further upstream, if they knew the issues, called mayday, DOT had time to get out, etc.

But it’s too easy to play armchair Captain.

Very sad. Horrible to see a bridge like that collapse like a toy. Will be interesting to see the info develop from here. That’s going to be a multi-year engineering and construction effort, and that’s if the existing bridge supports could be used. I suspect they’re substandard.
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I've read that they were dragging the port anchor. That bridge is 50 or more years old.
 
tcp71 said:
As mentioned, extremely sad for those missing and their families. What does the US export to Sri Lanka? Was Baltimore just a stop along the way on this ship's route?
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Sri Lanka is sort of a crossroads of the sea. Likely the first stop of many to offload some and re load others. As much as 60% of those containers may have been empty. Pretty common to ship empty containers back to Asia as there are no goods going from here to there.
 
PandaBear said:
It was build to withstand earthquake and then rebuild for higher standard recently, at a hefty cost. You can't compare the standard of Bay Bridge and Key Bridge, and the Vallejo bridge is likely more comparable in build quality.
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The Carquinez Bridge is definitely not built with towers and supports like the other bigger bridges. However, there is traffic to Benicia including a tanker terminal that connects to pipelines and the Valero Benicia refinery. I also remember the ghost ship fleet in Suisun Bay. There are also ships that connect right at the C&H Sugar next to the bridge. It used to be shipments of processed sugar cane from Hawaii, but now likely from Asia or South America.

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I was born and raised in Baltimore, lived 5 min from the bridge and drove it a million times. This is a terrible situation all the way around. I have so many friends that work the harbor (including tug boats thru the harbor) and commute the bridge - thank goodness they are all ok. I pray for the best outcome for all.
 
andrew_j said:
Hopefully the government has starting moving on putting out bids, allocating money , military resource or whatever it takes . At very least a white board.
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Was a toll road destroyed by a private ship. Figuring out who pays will be the most complicated part.
 
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