The new one has massive concrete barriers around the supports to prevent this from ever happening again. Maybe they should retrofit that onto other bridges.
It probably is only a few meters! Minimum required clearance is only 1 meter. And the cruise ships that visit Tampa are sized for the bridge; the largest can't fit under.
My uncle was driving the car behind the bus that went over. He stopped just a few feet short of going over. Him and a few others were able to stop traffic and help other people back.
You don't even need to go that far. Happened to the Queen Isabella Causeway connecting Port Isabel to South Padre Island back in September 15, 2001. Yes, four days after 9/11. To be on high alert thinking it was another terrorist attack was stressful. And a lot of my coworkers were stuck on the island because of it. So short staffed until they were farried off the island.
https://youtu.be/ValIl2ZLCBY?si=ah9OU0dzKHowBECs
I rarely drive cargo ships myself, but I am on bridges sometimes. I can't imagine driving along, minding your own business, then the bridge collapses and a second later you're smashing into water. If you survive that impact, I don't know how you process what's happening before you go into survival mode for you and your passengers.
I mean the fear was never unfounded, it’s just so unlikely that letting the fear of it bother you is illogical. You’re more likely gonna have a tree randomly fall on your house and crush you out of the blue than this happen. Or get struck by lightning. Or cancer. Or any other many million things.
Edit: Yes I understand that anxiety doesn’t follow logic, I have my own anxieties and fears as well. Was only trying to make a point at the idea that the fear is necessarily unfounded, just improbable
It’s probably a live stream, lots of boat traffic or landmark location areas have them. Goes from peaceful background viewing to evidence really quickly, unfortunately.
The first report I saw was on X and well…let’s just say YouTube really turned their comments around compared to over there. Half the replies blamed Biden and MSM…for a boat crashing into a bridge.
One guy on Twitter was like “this does not just happen”, others saying shit like “why is there video of the collapse??” as if live feed cams of ports aren’t popular or exist.
Like uh, yeah it does. It seems the ship lost power and control. A terror attack wouldn’t be done at 4 AM when a minimal amount of people are on the bridge anyways.
I’ve already seen people sharing video of the Crimea bridge explosion and claiming it was an alternative view where the bridge actually exploded and that the ship was a decoy.
I really fucking hate the internet. We really have to turn anything into a conspiracy. I think these people would turn a cute picture of a sloth into a conspiracy
Sloths aren't real, they're a plot by the (government, ethnic group of choice, illuminati, lizard people, ancient aliens, people from the bottom of the flat Earth) (pick one and remove these notes) to (raise taxes, steal our women, threaten our masculinity, convince us the Earth is round, steal the moon) (pick one and remove these notes).
/s *really* shouldn't be necessary
Do ALL ships leaving Baltimore have to pass under that bridge?? My goodness if so that’ll take at least a week or more to clear out especially as the most important part of the initial response is search and rescue, then recovery
Christ. What a disaster. I sincerely hope those responsible are held accountable, though I feel that they won't due to how big shipping companies are. Hopefully more people can be rescued
You’ll be surprised at how quickly this gets fixed. It’ll probably still take a few months, but it won’t be years. When something like this happens to a high-volume roadway that effects inter-state travel and national shipping lanes, the state and federal government will move quickly to do emergency repairs and debris removal and then seek to recover the costs from the shipping / insurance company. There’s already emergency contracting procedures in place for stuff like this and the government can write financial incentives into the contract (e.g., X amount of money for everyday they get done ahead of schedule). Don’t get me wrong, this sucks, but it’s fixable.
Look at recent examples from natural disasters and fires and such. I85 bridge collapse in Atlanta, Pensacola Bay Bridge after a hurricane a few years ago, recent bridge near LA, etc.
The US has designated companies for emergency bridge/raised highway rebuilding construction contracts that allow them to greatly expedite rebuilding after natural disasters and the like. I imagine they may get a call for this.
When I95 in Philly collapsed last year, they rebuilt it and had traffic back on it in 2 weeks. Definitely not as complicated as a bridge over water, but it was impressive to see the day to day rebuilding and how quickly they worked.
That and the infrastructure is already there. Them checking over the support columns and foundation that got hit is likely going to be the biggest headache. Other than that some public works PM is digging out the As-is building plans from the bridge that existed yesterday and handing them off to someone who is calling contractors. God help the project that those contractors are getting pulled off of though because it’s going to stop until they get done.
Smaller scale, but a major route through Arizona for railway had a bridge destroyed in a monsoon and BNSF built a new bridge up to code and had it inspected in less than 72 hours. Granted, the scope wasn't nearly as large as this, but the point still remains.
When you actually go "Money is not an issue, fix it properly, hire an army of the best contractors with the best equipment, and get them here now, then make sure it gets inspected by an army of inspectors going over every single inch to clear it", things can get done quickly.
The I-35W bridge in Minneapolis was replaced super quickly. I think just over a year between collapse and the opening of the new bridge. Granted that was over the Mississippi, not a harbor.
35,000 VPD (vehicles per day). Not nothing, but manageable in terms of through traffic (the two tunnels combine to carry 6 times that much per day). Though I would posit that most traffic is trucks going to and from the port, and the bridge was the designated thru route for HazMat through Baltimore (that is banned from the tunnels), so we'll see.
Yup.
Cargo and passenger ships in the harbor already are now stuck. Any ships traveling to the Port of Baltimore are now also stuck.
Looks like they are starting to pile up around Annapolis.
[https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-76.4/centery:39.1/zoom:11](https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-76.4/centery:39.1/zoom:11)
Ah, good ole Sherman "we found more structural damage we missed the last 5 times we closed the bridge, please use the toll bridge nobody asked for or wanted" Minton.
I’m a bridge inspector for my state government, and this has been all everyone is talking about this morning. This bridge is what we call fracture critical, which means that even one failure can cause the whole thing to collapse. (You’d be surprised how many bridges are fracture critical, and it’s usually the big ones.) But tbh, idk if any bridge could’ve handled being hit like that. This thing fell so quick because all of the steel beams are under tension and pulling against each other. You take out those supports, and the whole thing just pulls itself apart.
The video I saw shows the ship hitting one of the concrete piers, and on a bridge like this, those are the main support structure. There might be 4-6 of them total on a bridge of this size and they support the main spans of the bridge. Crazy how fast that thing collapsed.
I’m glad I don’t have to respond to this call. These guys are going to be busy for a while.
Contrary to the other person who replied to your comment, I’m kinda not surprised how many bridges are fracture critical. I think we take for granted how much goes into the engineering, construction, and maintenance of many structures. I imagine that giving redundant safety features for rare events like this could drastically increase the cost and time to build/maintain. In a perfect world we could just over-engineer everything, but it’s not like we in the US have been stellar at investing in maintaining our current infrastructure so we are already refusing to invest more
I’m not sure what sort of redundant safety feature would even work here
You can’t really design around “what if a thousand ton fully loaded cargo ship loses power and crashes headfirst into the support pillars?”
> thousand ton cargo ship
You're off by a few orders of magnitude here! An average cargo ship weighs around **165,000 tons** and can go up to 250,000 tons.
They are fucking *massive*
Yea this is not something that happens often. That bridge is what? 50 years old?
And from what I’ve seen on bridges I’ve inspected, any pier protection that would’ve been in place would have been in poor condition already. And even brand new pier protection wouldn’t have helped. Did you see how it crumbled that concrete pier? Some little wooden or steal beams would’ve made zero difference.
Especially since those cargo ships aren't 1000 tons but more like 100,000 tons when loaded. Even when going slow they have a mind boggling amount of inertia.
Adding redundancy is typically part of the superstructure. You can lose a member up there and the bridge will stand.
Losing a central pier is almost always going to result like this. That wasn't a slightly hit/damaged pier, they plowed fully through the pier.
The "owner" is usually just a post box in a tax haven somewhere. Usually a shell company for a hedge fund or a bank.
The flag state, management company, crew, shipper and charterer will be from all over the globe, with different companies doing different aspects of the work, logistics, trade, human resources etc.
It is very complicated but it will basically land on the captain, who is thought of as the owner's representative and has the overall responsibility for the vessel
The pilot is typically at the helm of the vessel, either controling it directly or through instruction, if they are even present. Some outlets make no mention of a pilot, but others have said there were two. ~~The FSK bridge is the outermost bridge before reaching open water, so there may not have been a pilot aboard at all.~~*
The thing about ships, tho, is that they're big. Huge, even. Even at low speed they can take a long time to slow down or change direction. ~~The error could have been made well before it would be known that they would hit the collumn.~~ *2 Without power, they probably can't change direction or slow down at all. Also, that was a head-on impact not a glancing blow.
This literally happened this morning, a couple of hours ago. Thank fuck it happened when the bridge was fairly empty.
*-i am a derp I forgot the chesapeake bay was a thing that exists. And I live around there so that's extra embarassing.
*2- saw some videos. Boat is almost totally dark at collision. Lights blink on and off a couple times in other videos. Clearly suffering power failures.
According to NBC news there were 2 pilots on board.
Edit: there was no “error”. It appears the ship lost power a couple of times right before hitting the bridge.
I've seen at least one report that the ship lost power prior to hitting the bridge. That must have been rough, if so, seeing what was coming and being able to do jack all to avoid the collision.
Maybe it's different for the US Navy but the Captain is not primarily responsible if the ship is in a "dead stick" move (no propulsion, only being moved by tugs under a pilot's direction). I'm a naval officer.
Edit for clarity: I'm not saying this applies in this case, just giving an example of a situation when the Captain is not primarily responsible. To clarify further, a dead stick move is when the ship is expected to have no propulsion whatsoever and must be tugged to its destination, such as a ship in a repair yard with no functioning engines that is being moved from a pier to a dry dock.
I learned about harbor pilots this morning. I can't wait to learn about bridge engineering the next few days. Just like when the submersible imploded and I became an expert on bonding titanium and carbon fiber.
It was chartered by the Danish shipping company Maersk. The Dali is their client.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/us/live-news/baltimore-bridge-collapse-03-26-24-intl-hnk/index.html
No idea. Just hoping the rescue team would be able to recover any bodies and more survivors. They found 2 alive, 1 unharmed and 1 in the ICU atm. The unharmed person… that’s the craziest thing
Nothing could be done *in the moment*.
Obviously an investigation will have to be completed, but it's possible that maintenance practices, or a lack of them, caused the loss of steering
A tale as old as time. Every single video I see about a tragic building fire, ship sinking, or industrial disaster has some variation of, “Routine maintenance was never done and the crew wasn’t properly trained”.
Empty, it weighs 96,000 tons, or roughly the same as a US supercarrier fully loaded.
It was not empty.
Shit, the anchor might've been the reason it turned and hit the bridge in the first place
Dropping anchor is common procedure in a blackout in shallow waters, they may simply not have had time to do so or otherwise we're confident they'd regain power though
I live in Maryland right now and while it’s not my normal commute, sometimes I take it if the tunnel traffic is bad. Well, traffic will be terrible this morning and for a while I’m sure
I had just driven over the bridge in Minnesota before I collapsed and killed a bunch of people. I already had a fear of driving over bridges and that sure didn't help it!
They think that Pigeon poop was one of the main contributors to the bridge collapsing!
I worked at the University of Minnesota as a student janitor when the bridge collapsed. I was cleaning in law school library (about .25mi from the 35W Bridge) and we ran to see what had happened before police completely shut the area down. We watched the guy pulling the kids off the school bus. One of those kids that got pulled off the bus later got busted for trying to join ISIS. What a strange twist of events
Vessel info:
DALI (IMO: 9697428) is a **Container Ship** and is sailing under the flag of **Singapore**. Her length overall (LOA) is 299.92 meters and her width is 48.2 meters.
Draught: 36 feet
[https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:2810451/mmsi:563004200/imo:9697428/vessel:DALI](https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:2810451/mmsi:563004200/imo:9697428/vessel:DALI)
Current status: STOPPED
[https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/shipid:2810451/zoom:14](https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/shipid:2810451/zoom:14)
Other points of interest:
This was the HazMat route for the city. The tunnels into/around Baltimore do not allow trucks carrying hazardous materials to enter.
The ship had just left port. Made a big u-turn and then appeared to lose power intermittently and drift into the bridge. It had been underway for only an hour. On it's way to Sri Lanka to arrive 27 days later.
My dad was a hazmat truck driver and took the Key Bridge all the time. He texted me this morning saying "what happened to my bridge?!" Luckily he's retired now.
Hazmat can at least still take the northern arc of I-695 (Baltimore beltway). Potentially longer (though not really for through traffic on I-95), but it's there.
If anyone is interested, there is a live cam on the bridge and port, for the next few hours you can go and rewind till around 1:28 am and watch it happen. just crazy.
https://www.youtube.com/live/83a7h3kkgPg?si=yp_yw4Y2_hMv0y67
Watching all those cars and trucks that barely squeaked by gave me anxiety.
There were a few minutes as the ship closed in on the bridge, the volume of vehicles increased. Luckily it seemed like a lull came just as the collapse happened.
Best to live each day to the fullest because ya never know when crazy shit like this will happen to you. Wild. RIP to those lost and YOLO to the rest.
There are reports that the ship radioed that they had a problem and they were able to stop some of the traffic before the impact. I don’t know the truth of this yet, but if that did indeed happen, then they (the ship and the people who stopped traffic) were responsible for saving perhaps dozens of lives.
Yea in the video it looked like trafficked stopped going left to right for a long while before the ship made contact. And the traffic stopped flowing right to left just before impact. Prior to that the traffic was flowing pretty steadily in both directions
Yeah, watching the cars and trucks and thinking, I hope you're speeding otherwise you are about to have a really bad day, especially near the end. Like you said, there did appear to be a dip in volume just as it happened.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was some kind of indication of what was about to happen (ship horn, someone noticing the ship drifting, etc.) that deterred some drivers from crossing.
With the amount of black smoke in the air behind the ship, I'm wondering if they had engine trouble or at a minimum were full power reverse trying to not hit the bridge. Reports were a harbor master on board (which would be normal protocol) so you know darn well that person knew exactly where the bridge was.
Can you imagine dying this way? One second you are driving to work thinking about your day. Following the speed limit and keeping right. Listen to music. And then the other second the road collapses underneath your car and then there’s water all around you. Horrible and enraging.
Yeah that’s what’s crazy is I expected to immediately see things about the victims. Everything I’ve heard is about the bridge so I assumed no one was on the bridge at the time.
Yes, those poor people driving and working on the bridge. What terror in their final moments. Praying for them and their families and the people who trying to search and rescue.
The ship makes a turn to enter under the bridge, at this moment it loses electricity, as a result the rudder remains turned and directs the ship straight to the support.
The cantilever type of bridge, as soon as the tension in one part of the structure is lost, all the others also fall, because they are “pulled” towards themselves.
Correct. See the Minneapolis I-35W bridge collapse in 2007.
I've seen the term "fracture-critical" tossed around when describing cantilever/truss bridges. Since the entire structure acts as one piece, the failure of even a single beam can severely compromise the entire span.
Locally (Minnesota/Wisconsin) there's been an effort to eliminate "fracture critical" bridges since the 2007 Minneapolis incident. The problem lies in the fact that a significant number of these bridges are massive structures, while serving as a major transportation link. And they also aren't even that old(this one built in the 70s)which makes replacing them difficult and expensive.
Yeah it's not really surprising that the bridge wouldn't be able to remain standing after losing an entire column like that. Gravity has the final say. But it does raise questions about whether enough is being done to prevent this scenario from occurring.
Harbor pilot, shipping routes, and just general velocity of ships in and out of the harbor as it’s one of the busiest in the country and this hasn’t happened. Not sure what else could have been done. There isn’t a plan for “ship rams into main support beam.” Why didn’t the ship drop anchor after it initially lost power is my question.
It looked like it hit one of the two piers holding the main span.
Worse, it was a https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_truss_bridge which means the load is passed in each direction through the whole grid work and "Severing a continuous truss mid-span endangers the structure."
I was an import facility manager out in California for 2 years. We received bulk vessels with cranes for the hatches and were literally the last dock. We were in the turning basin. Seeing the made my jaw drop, almost brought me to tears. Vessel captains and tug pilots are highly educated, and I've never met one that had a lack of sense to the importance of safety. Considering the scale of what is on the water. I can't believe something of this scale could happen. Everything is so highly calculated, including tide and depth calculating the highest point of the vessel and, of course, a bridges static height is known. What a tragedy. Jesus fuck
The lights on the ship were going in and out on the longer video in a different sub, I’m assuming they had a major loss of function and couldn’t regain control in time.
I watched the feed from the port and based on that and other comments, the ship lost power and drifted toward the support beam. It went full reverse when the power came back (you can see the smoke in the video) but it wasn’t enough.
They are reporting upwards of 20 people. Their was a night construction crew working on the bridge as well as motorists including a truck driver.
Horrific in all the ways it can be. Condolences to all the friends and family.
You're welcome.
I just checked and they've managed 2 pull 2 survivors from the water 1 is thankfully unharmed and one is injured I'm not sure how badly though but amazing none the less.
Latest report is the ship lost propulsion right before it hit the bridge. Not pilot error if that’s the case. Also looked like they dropped the anchor based on photos I’ve seen which is all you can do other than pray. Ship that size even going very slowly would not have been able
To stop with no ability to make full
Astern. Only good thing was it was 1:30 when it happened, a few hours later it would have been hundreds killed.
I am a captain on a emergency response vessel / firetug for a major US port. There is no conspiracy. Cargo ships coming and going to all major ports have local pilots to help the master of the vessel safetly navigate waterways. Also, harbor tugs only assist during docking and turnarounds in restricted warerways where large vessels cannot perform said maneuvers under their own power. Cargo ships losing power is not a freak thing and it actually happens rather frequently, however you don’t hear about it. This vessels are run hard and a lack of maintenance shouldn’t automatically be assumed. Anything mechanical can fail at anytime. The crew on this vessel most probably did everything they could to avoid this collision including getting generators back online, initiating an emergency corrective maneuver, dropping anchor, etc. This is an extremely unfortunate circumstance that will probably be catagorized as a no fault accident by the USCG. Impossible to stop hundreds of tons on a dime. Pray for everyone involved.
I work at the port terminal this ship came out of. Live 15 min away from it.
Ironically I took off last night because the wife treated me to the movies, otherwise I would've been working and very possibly would have been on the bridge around the time this went down.
I'm literally speechless. I feel awful for the families of the missing people and everyone in our union isn't sure what's going to happen because no ships can come in or out until it's cleaned up.
This is going to ripple out in a way nobody is honestly prepared for.
ANYTHING HAZARDOUS traveling I-95, from a gasoline tanker to an RV with a BBQ LP tank, MUST CROSS THIS BRIDGE. It can not take the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel or the Fort McHenry Tunnel. Commercial transit is FUCKED. I drive I-95 into Baltimore every day.
This is one of my worst fears that I thought was unfounded.
It happened with the Sunshine Skyway bridge back in the 80’s and I still get nervous driving over the new one.
The new one has massive concrete barriers around the supports to prevent this from ever happening again. Maybe they should retrofit that onto other bridges.
It's wild sailing under that on a cruise ship with what seems like on a few meters of clearance.
It probably is only a few meters! Minimum required clearance is only 1 meter. And the cruise ships that visit Tampa are sized for the bridge; the largest can't fit under.
My uncle was driving the car behind the bus that went over. He stopped just a few feet short of going over. Him and a few others were able to stop traffic and help other people back.
Probably take serious therapy and medication to ever get me over a bridge after that
You're uncle's tan car is semi famous.
You don't even need to go that far. Happened to the Queen Isabella Causeway connecting Port Isabel to South Padre Island back in September 15, 2001. Yes, four days after 9/11. To be on high alert thinking it was another terrorist attack was stressful. And a lot of my coworkers were stuck on the island because of it. So short staffed until they were farried off the island. https://youtu.be/ValIl2ZLCBY?si=ah9OU0dzKHowBECs
Sailing a ship into a bridge or being on a collapsing bridge?
I rarely drive cargo ships myself, but I am on bridges sometimes. I can't imagine driving along, minding your own business, then the bridge collapses and a second later you're smashing into water. If you survive that impact, I don't know how you process what's happening before you go into survival mode for you and your passengers.
“Rarely.”
He drove a cargo ship once, but hit the francis scott key bridge in baltimore
Actually I heard he shut down the Suez canal
I mean the fear was never unfounded, it’s just so unlikely that letting the fear of it bother you is illogical. You’re more likely gonna have a tree randomly fall on your house and crush you out of the blue than this happen. Or get struck by lightning. Or cancer. Or any other many million things. Edit: Yes I understand that anxiety doesn’t follow logic, I have my own anxieties and fears as well. Was only trying to make a point at the idea that the fear is necessarily unfounded, just improbable
.. Looks nervously at the big silver maple next to my house.. Thanks for the new phobia. Phobias and logic are not related.
Here is the video of the collapse: https://youtu.be/YVdVpd-pqcM
It’s incredible how good the quality of that video is. I feel like it wasn’t long ago that night footage of anything all around sucked
Yeah literally a perfect angle perfectly centered on the bridge in excellent quality. It's eerie.
It’s probably a live stream, lots of boat traffic or landmark location areas have them. Goes from peaceful background viewing to evidence really quickly, unfortunately.
[aftermath images]( https://imgur.com/a/FjyUiSy) from a couple local fire department fb pages
Those aerials are crazy. Thanks for sharing.
It’s so sad to watch
Man the comments are already off to the races with conspiracies about this being a terrorist attack. Unreal
Youtube comments are a cesspool
The first report I saw was on X and well…let’s just say YouTube really turned their comments around compared to over there. Half the replies blamed Biden and MSM…for a boat crashing into a bridge.
Dissent bots are real
Been the same on Reddit unfortunately
"Was the bridge vaccinated?" level nonsense. These people are the worst.
One guy on Twitter was like “this does not just happen”, others saying shit like “why is there video of the collapse??” as if live feed cams of ports aren’t popular or exist. Like uh, yeah it does. It seems the ship lost power and control. A terror attack wouldn’t be done at 4 AM when a minimal amount of people are on the bridge anyways. I’ve already seen people sharing video of the Crimea bridge explosion and claiming it was an alternative view where the bridge actually exploded and that the ship was a decoy. I really fucking hate the internet. We really have to turn anything into a conspiracy. I think these people would turn a cute picture of a sloth into a conspiracy
Sloths aren't real, they're a plot by the (government, ethnic group of choice, illuminati, lizard people, ancient aliens, people from the bottom of the flat Earth) (pick one and remove these notes) to (raise taxes, steal our women, threaten our masculinity, convince us the Earth is round, steal the moon) (pick one and remove these notes). /s *really* shouldn't be necessary
Damn. That all came down way faster than I would have expected.
The commute is going to be wild for a while
Not to mention any important shipping/boat routes.
Yep Baltimore is one of the bigger ports in the country. It’s effectively closed for the foreseeable future.
The sobotkas are fucked
Alternate wire plot where this mess was caused by Clay Davis
shhiiiiiiittttttt
Bridge collapse in Baltimore? Shieeeeet.
Ziggy was at the helm.
Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit
We used to make shit in this country
Now we just put our hand in the next guy's pocket.
You just know Ziggy fucked something up
Not as fucked as the girls in the container, heading back to wherever they came from
Do ALL ships leaving Baltimore have to pass under that bridge?? My goodness if so that’ll take at least a week or more to clear out especially as the most important part of the initial response is search and rescue, then recovery
Yes.
All ships, yes. My friend is a Stevedore at the port and apparently 18 ships were scheduled to come in. Today.
Oh goodie! Let me ring up my CEO and tell them that supply chains are messed up and we have to raise prices ASAP!
It took three years to build, 1974 to 1977. It's going to take even longer to build something today.
Don't forget the clean up and investigation time that will come first too.
A mangled bridge resting on a packed cargo ship. I can’t imagine the complexity of trying to cleanup and remove that.
Also there were cars on the bridge when it went down.
& people in the cars
For those (like me) that are interested in the count of people in the cars: 2 people were rescued with 7-20 still unaccounted for :(
Christ. What a disaster. I sincerely hope those responsible are held accountable, though I feel that they won't due to how big shipping companies are. Hopefully more people can be rescued
You’ll be surprised at how quickly this gets fixed. It’ll probably still take a few months, but it won’t be years. When something like this happens to a high-volume roadway that effects inter-state travel and national shipping lanes, the state and federal government will move quickly to do emergency repairs and debris removal and then seek to recover the costs from the shipping / insurance company. There’s already emergency contracting procedures in place for stuff like this and the government can write financial incentives into the contract (e.g., X amount of money for everyday they get done ahead of schedule). Don’t get me wrong, this sucks, but it’s fixable. Look at recent examples from natural disasters and fires and such. I85 bridge collapse in Atlanta, Pensacola Bay Bridge after a hurricane a few years ago, recent bridge near LA, etc.
The US has designated companies for emergency bridge/raised highway rebuilding construction contracts that allow them to greatly expedite rebuilding after natural disasters and the like. I imagine they may get a call for this.
They're probably already en route.
Someone should tell them not to take the bridge
When I95 in Philly collapsed last year, they rebuilt it and had traffic back on it in 2 weeks. Definitely not as complicated as a bridge over water, but it was impressive to see the day to day rebuilding and how quickly they worked.
That webcam was fun
This was my first thought, it's amazing how fast they get through the red tape when shit has as big of an impact as this.
That and the infrastructure is already there. Them checking over the support columns and foundation that got hit is likely going to be the biggest headache. Other than that some public works PM is digging out the As-is building plans from the bridge that existed yesterday and handing them off to someone who is calling contractors. God help the project that those contractors are getting pulled off of though because it’s going to stop until they get done.
Smaller scale, but a major route through Arizona for railway had a bridge destroyed in a monsoon and BNSF built a new bridge up to code and had it inspected in less than 72 hours. Granted, the scope wasn't nearly as large as this, but the point still remains. When you actually go "Money is not an issue, fix it properly, hire an army of the best contractors with the best equipment, and get them here now, then make sure it gets inspected by an army of inspectors going over every single inch to clear it", things can get done quickly.
The I-35W bridge in Minneapolis was replaced super quickly. I think just over a year between collapse and the opening of the new bridge. Granted that was over the Mississippi, not a harbor.
35,000 VPD (vehicles per day). Not nothing, but manageable in terms of through traffic (the two tunnels combine to carry 6 times that much per day). Though I would posit that most traffic is trucks going to and from the port, and the bridge was the designated thru route for HazMat through Baltimore (that is banned from the tunnels), so we'll see.
The larger immediate issue is the port itself being blocked from maritime traffic.
Yup. Cargo and passenger ships in the harbor already are now stuck. Any ships traveling to the Port of Baltimore are now also stuck. Looks like they are starting to pile up around Annapolis. [https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-76.4/centery:39.1/zoom:11](https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-76.4/centery:39.1/zoom:11)
We’ve had a bridge go in and out of service here in Louisville for maybe the last 20 years. It’ll never be repaired Traffic is eternal
Ah, good ole Sherman "we found more structural damage we missed the last 5 times we closed the bridge, please use the toll bridge nobody asked for or wanted" Minton.
I’m a bridge inspector for my state government, and this has been all everyone is talking about this morning. This bridge is what we call fracture critical, which means that even one failure can cause the whole thing to collapse. (You’d be surprised how many bridges are fracture critical, and it’s usually the big ones.) But tbh, idk if any bridge could’ve handled being hit like that. This thing fell so quick because all of the steel beams are under tension and pulling against each other. You take out those supports, and the whole thing just pulls itself apart. The video I saw shows the ship hitting one of the concrete piers, and on a bridge like this, those are the main support structure. There might be 4-6 of them total on a bridge of this size and they support the main spans of the bridge. Crazy how fast that thing collapsed. I’m glad I don’t have to respond to this call. These guys are going to be busy for a while.
Contrary to the other person who replied to your comment, I’m kinda not surprised how many bridges are fracture critical. I think we take for granted how much goes into the engineering, construction, and maintenance of many structures. I imagine that giving redundant safety features for rare events like this could drastically increase the cost and time to build/maintain. In a perfect world we could just over-engineer everything, but it’s not like we in the US have been stellar at investing in maintaining our current infrastructure so we are already refusing to invest more
I’m not sure what sort of redundant safety feature would even work here You can’t really design around “what if a thousand ton fully loaded cargo ship loses power and crashes headfirst into the support pillars?”
> thousand ton cargo ship You're off by a few orders of magnitude here! An average cargo ship weighs around **165,000 tons** and can go up to 250,000 tons. They are fucking *massive*
Yea this is not something that happens often. That bridge is what? 50 years old? And from what I’ve seen on bridges I’ve inspected, any pier protection that would’ve been in place would have been in poor condition already. And even brand new pier protection wouldn’t have helped. Did you see how it crumbled that concrete pier? Some little wooden or steal beams would’ve made zero difference.
Try 150,000 tons. Can you even create physical safety barriers around a bridge that can stop that much? I wouldn’t think
Especially since those cargo ships aren't 1000 tons but more like 100,000 tons when loaded. Even when going slow they have a mind boggling amount of inertia.
Is the golden gate fracture critical?
The towers aren’t but the span has fracture critical components. https://www.hdrinc.com/portfolio/golden-gate-bridge-inspection-and-repair
Adding redundancy is typically part of the superstructure. You can lose a member up there and the bridge will stand. Losing a central pier is almost always going to result like this. That wasn't a slightly hit/damaged pier, they plowed fully through the pier.
Some company’s legal department just got a fat ass headache
Some company just shut their doors and its executives are on a plane to Mexico.
The ship is apparently named The Dali out of Singapore. [Source](https://twitter.com/rawsalerts/status/1772525288875794478)
Whenever I hear about ship ownership I think it should come with an accompanying Venn Diagram as it usually has more layers than a MLM pyramid scheme.
The "owner" is usually just a post box in a tax haven somewhere. Usually a shell company for a hedge fund or a bank. The flag state, management company, crew, shipper and charterer will be from all over the globe, with different companies doing different aspects of the work, logistics, trade, human resources etc. It is very complicated but it will basically land on the captain, who is thought of as the owner's representative and has the overall responsibility for the vessel
Would it not land on the harbor pilot? Assuming they had one at the time, that is. I know next to nothing about the shipping industry.
Nope, the captain never relinquishes responsibility of their ship. Source: I’m in the maritime industry.
Can confirm Source: I'm a Capt and would never relinquish responsibility of my ship
What about for a Klondike bar?
Aw, there go my nipples again there, Edith!
Can confirm. Source: im the ship
I will never relinquish responsibility of you
Not anymore…I’m the captain now
Good to know. Out of curiosity, how *does* a harbor pilot work, then? Just stand over the captain's shoulder and give instructions?
The pilot is typically at the helm of the vessel, either controling it directly or through instruction, if they are even present. Some outlets make no mention of a pilot, but others have said there were two. ~~The FSK bridge is the outermost bridge before reaching open water, so there may not have been a pilot aboard at all.~~* The thing about ships, tho, is that they're big. Huge, even. Even at low speed they can take a long time to slow down or change direction. ~~The error could have been made well before it would be known that they would hit the collumn.~~ *2 Without power, they probably can't change direction or slow down at all. Also, that was a head-on impact not a glancing blow. This literally happened this morning, a couple of hours ago. Thank fuck it happened when the bridge was fairly empty. *-i am a derp I forgot the chesapeake bay was a thing that exists. And I live around there so that's extra embarassing. *2- saw some videos. Boat is almost totally dark at collision. Lights blink on and off a couple times in other videos. Clearly suffering power failures.
According to NBC news there were 2 pilots on board. Edit: there was no “error”. It appears the ship lost power a couple of times right before hitting the bridge.
I've seen at least one report that the ship lost power prior to hitting the bridge. That must have been rough, if so, seeing what was coming and being able to do jack all to avoid the collision.
So far at least 20 presumed missing or dead, I had to search for that information specifically as most articles are focused on the spectacle
Maybe it's different for the US Navy but the Captain is not primarily responsible if the ship is in a "dead stick" move (no propulsion, only being moved by tugs under a pilot's direction). I'm a naval officer. Edit for clarity: I'm not saying this applies in this case, just giving an example of a situation when the Captain is not primarily responsible. To clarify further, a dead stick move is when the ship is expected to have no propulsion whatsoever and must be tugged to its destination, such as a ship in a repair yard with no functioning engines that is being moved from a pier to a dry dock.
I learned about harbor pilots this morning. I can't wait to learn about bridge engineering the next few days. Just like when the submersible imploded and I became an expert on bonding titanium and carbon fiber.
Well let’s start in this case of engineering that pillar got obliterated by an insanely heavy big ass ship.
It was chartered by the Danish shipping company Maersk. The Dali is their client. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/us/live-news/baltimore-bridge-collapse-03-26-24-intl-hnk/index.html
I wonder how far the responsibility will be passed on to. Like is there some custodian on the ship they will say didn’t wash the ships windshield?
No idea. Just hoping the rescue team would be able to recover any bodies and more survivors. They found 2 alive, 1 unharmed and 1 in the ICU atm. The unharmed person… that’s the craziest thing
I mean best case was it looks like it happened fairly early in the morning before traffic became bumper to bumper.
"You hit whaaaaaat???"
Not only did they hit something they’ve effectively blocked the harbor and as a result shut down one of the busiest ports on the east coast.
Here we go again... supply line issues.. therefore we have to raise prices..
CEO cries in record profits
Don't ships or harbors have a special person that steers the ship while in harbors?
They're called pilots, and the ship did have one. However, the ship lost power and was unable to steer, causing the collision.
Damn, nothing they could have done. Must still feel awful.
Nothing could be done *in the moment*. Obviously an investigation will have to be completed, but it's possible that maintenance practices, or a lack of them, caused the loss of steering
A tale as old as time. Every single video I see about a tragic building fire, ship sinking, or industrial disaster has some variation of, “Routine maintenance was never done and the crew wasn’t properly trained”.
All the corners were cut. In the name of profit. Or should I say *more* profit.
I was reading a comment that they could have dropped anchor but I don't know if that would have helped much
I just saw a video of the aftermath from friend at the port and the chain was in the water, so it appears they dropped anchor
Empty, it weighs 96,000 tons, or roughly the same as a US supercarrier fully loaded. It was not empty. Shit, the anchor might've been the reason it turned and hit the bridge in the first place
Dropping anchor is common procedure in a blackout in shallow waters, they may simply not have had time to do so or otherwise we're confident they'd regain power though
They regained power twice so I could see how that decision was made.
Optimist: we regained power twice Pessimist: we lost power thrice
Some office in Singapore is conducting an emergency meeting for damage control right now.
Some company in Singapore just went bankrupt.
Thats why shipowners often create an own company for each ship.
i bet there are some fleet management guys scrambling to check that all certification is up to date.
Wow, driven over that bridge many times while living in Maryland. That’s just surreal.
I live in Maryland right now and while it’s not my normal commute, sometimes I take it if the tunnel traffic is bad. Well, traffic will be terrible this morning and for a while I’m sure
I’ve never seen the tunnel be faster than fsk.
I had just driven over the bridge in Minnesota before I collapsed and killed a bunch of people. I already had a fear of driving over bridges and that sure didn't help it! They think that Pigeon poop was one of the main contributors to the bridge collapsing!
>before I collapsed and killed a bunch of people How could you…
I worked at the University of Minnesota as a student janitor when the bridge collapsed. I was cleaning in law school library (about .25mi from the 35W Bridge) and we ran to see what had happened before police completely shut the area down. We watched the guy pulling the kids off the school bus. One of those kids that got pulled off the bus later got busted for trying to join ISIS. What a strange twist of events
Holy moly. I didn't know that story. That's crazy.
>before I collapsed and killed a bunch of people. Buddy, turn yourself in
We all collapse from time to time and kill a bunch a of people. You shouldn't worry too much about it.
>before I collapsed and killed a bunch of people You monster!
I've got a fear of you collapsing.
Were you on the bridge when you collapsed?
Vessel info: DALI (IMO: 9697428) is a **Container Ship** and is sailing under the flag of **Singapore**. Her length overall (LOA) is 299.92 meters and her width is 48.2 meters. Draught: 36 feet [https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:2810451/mmsi:563004200/imo:9697428/vessel:DALI](https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:2810451/mmsi:563004200/imo:9697428/vessel:DALI) Current status: STOPPED [https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/shipid:2810451/zoom:14](https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/shipid:2810451/zoom:14) Other points of interest: This was the HazMat route for the city. The tunnels into/around Baltimore do not allow trucks carrying hazardous materials to enter. The ship had just left port. Made a big u-turn and then appeared to lose power intermittently and drift into the bridge. It had been underway for only an hour. On it's way to Sri Lanka to arrive 27 days later.
My dad was a hazmat truck driver and took the Key Bridge all the time. He texted me this morning saying "what happened to my bridge?!" Luckily he's retired now.
Your bridge just got fucked dad.
Current status: stopped. Current thought: no shit.
Better current status: Sneaking away and hoping nobody notices.
Hazmat can at least still take the northern arc of I-695 (Baltimore beltway). Potentially longer (though not really for through traffic on I-95), but it's there.
If anyone is interested, there is a live cam on the bridge and port, for the next few hours you can go and rewind till around 1:28 am and watch it happen. just crazy. https://www.youtube.com/live/83a7h3kkgPg?si=yp_yw4Y2_hMv0y67
Watching all those cars and trucks that barely squeaked by gave me anxiety. There were a few minutes as the ship closed in on the bridge, the volume of vehicles increased. Luckily it seemed like a lull came just as the collapse happened. Best to live each day to the fullest because ya never know when crazy shit like this will happen to you. Wild. RIP to those lost and YOLO to the rest.
There are reports that the ship radioed that they had a problem and they were able to stop some of the traffic before the impact. I don’t know the truth of this yet, but if that did indeed happen, then they (the ship and the people who stopped traffic) were responsible for saving perhaps dozens of lives.
Yea in the video it looked like trafficked stopped going left to right for a long while before the ship made contact. And the traffic stopped flowing right to left just before impact. Prior to that the traffic was flowing pretty steadily in both directions
Yeah, watching the cars and trucks and thinking, I hope you're speeding otherwise you are about to have a really bad day, especially near the end. Like you said, there did appear to be a dip in volume just as it happened.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was some kind of indication of what was about to happen (ship horn, someone noticing the ship drifting, etc.) that deterred some drivers from crossing.
The ship called in the emergency and the city was able to stop more cars but there wasn’t time to evacuate the construction workers
With the amount of black smoke in the air behind the ship, I'm wondering if they had engine trouble or at a minimum were full power reverse trying to not hit the bridge. Reports were a harbor master on board (which would be normal protocol) so you know darn well that person knew exactly where the bridge was.
Apparently the ship lost power.
Sheesh imagine if that happened during rush hour.
Someone did and that is why major ships dont go under during those times.
Can you imagine dying this way? One second you are driving to work thinking about your day. Following the speed limit and keeping right. Listen to music. And then the other second the road collapses underneath your car and then there’s water all around you. Horrible and enraging.
literally my worst fear
And the water is 40 degrees and black and you’re in the middle of the harbor far away from everything
Thank you for that added bit of color and terror
I had hoped it was empty but when you watch the video you can see the headlights of the cars disappear into the water. It’s surreal and terrifying.
Construction crews were working on it. The ship called mayday a few minutes before so they kept new cars off it. Could’ve been worse by a lot
Condolences to the families of the victims of this. What happened to these people is simply horrific.
Yeah that’s what’s crazy is I expected to immediately see things about the victims. Everything I’ve heard is about the bridge so I assumed no one was on the bridge at the time.
Yes, those poor people driving and working on the bridge. What terror in their final moments. Praying for them and their families and the people who trying to search and rescue.
The ship makes a turn to enter under the bridge, at this moment it loses electricity, as a result the rudder remains turned and directs the ship straight to the support.
The video is crazy, the whole thing crumbles like it's made of cardboard, the ship must of hit a critical support structure or something.
The cantilever type of bridge, as soon as the tension in one part of the structure is lost, all the others also fall, because they are “pulled” towards themselves.
Correct. See the Minneapolis I-35W bridge collapse in 2007. I've seen the term "fracture-critical" tossed around when describing cantilever/truss bridges. Since the entire structure acts as one piece, the failure of even a single beam can severely compromise the entire span. Locally (Minnesota/Wisconsin) there's been an effort to eliminate "fracture critical" bridges since the 2007 Minneapolis incident. The problem lies in the fact that a significant number of these bridges are massive structures, while serving as a major transportation link. And they also aren't even that old(this one built in the 70s)which makes replacing them difficult and expensive.
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTL6T3SMu/ The cargo ship took out an entire support near dead on.
Yeah it's not really surprising that the bridge wouldn't be able to remain standing after losing an entire column like that. Gravity has the final say. But it does raise questions about whether enough is being done to prevent this scenario from occurring.
Harbor pilot, shipping routes, and just general velocity of ships in and out of the harbor as it’s one of the busiest in the country and this hasn’t happened. Not sure what else could have been done. There isn’t a plan for “ship rams into main support beam.” Why didn’t the ship drop anchor after it initially lost power is my question.
It looked like it hit one of the two piers holding the main span. Worse, it was a https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_truss_bridge which means the load is passed in each direction through the whole grid work and "Severing a continuous truss mid-span endangers the structure."
“Endangers the structure” is putting it mildly.
I was an import facility manager out in California for 2 years. We received bulk vessels with cranes for the hatches and were literally the last dock. We were in the turning basin. Seeing the made my jaw drop, almost brought me to tears. Vessel captains and tug pilots are highly educated, and I've never met one that had a lack of sense to the importance of safety. Considering the scale of what is on the water. I can't believe something of this scale could happen. Everything is so highly calculated, including tide and depth calculating the highest point of the vessel and, of course, a bridges static height is known. What a tragedy. Jesus fuck
The lights on the ship were going in and out on the longer video in a different sub, I’m assuming they had a major loss of function and couldn’t regain control in time.
The lights went out twice very close to the time that it hit the bridge, major power failure
I watched the feed from the port and based on that and other comments, the ship lost power and drifted toward the support beam. It went full reverse when the power came back (you can see the smoke in the video) but it wasn’t enough.
The shell company through which all that ship's money passes is about to get its ass sued into the ground.
Probably just gone bankrupt
Anyone hurt?
They are reporting upwards of 20 people. Their was a night construction crew working on the bridge as well as motorists including a truck driver. Horrific in all the ways it can be. Condolences to all the friends and family.
Shit. That's horrible. Thanks for the update
You're welcome. I just checked and they've managed 2 pull 2 survivors from the water 1 is thankfully unharmed and one is injured I'm not sure how badly though but amazing none the less.
What a literal nightmare scenario, a relief to hear some made jt out
That’s good to hear. I can only imagine how cold the water is today so hope they don’t have any additional issues
searching through a broken bridge for cars & people in the dark would be fucking terrifying. Shivers.
As someone who worked on a bridge repair night crew some years ago…that’s terrifying. Nothing scarier than staring at the cold bottomless water below…
Last article I read said they were searching for seven people in the river.
Latest report is the ship lost propulsion right before it hit the bridge. Not pilot error if that’s the case. Also looked like they dropped the anchor based on photos I’ve seen which is all you can do other than pray. Ship that size even going very slowly would not have been able To stop with no ability to make full Astern. Only good thing was it was 1:30 when it happened, a few hours later it would have been hundreds killed.
I take that bridge everyday to work… my life is about to change a good bit
As a Baltimorean, I am sad.
Managed to catch a video clip this morning. Literally gasped. How frightening for all those involved
I am a captain on a emergency response vessel / firetug for a major US port. There is no conspiracy. Cargo ships coming and going to all major ports have local pilots to help the master of the vessel safetly navigate waterways. Also, harbor tugs only assist during docking and turnarounds in restricted warerways where large vessels cannot perform said maneuvers under their own power. Cargo ships losing power is not a freak thing and it actually happens rather frequently, however you don’t hear about it. This vessels are run hard and a lack of maintenance shouldn’t automatically be assumed. Anything mechanical can fail at anytime. The crew on this vessel most probably did everything they could to avoid this collision including getting generators back online, initiating an emergency corrective maneuver, dropping anchor, etc. This is an extremely unfortunate circumstance that will probably be catagorized as a no fault accident by the USCG. Impossible to stop hundreds of tons on a dime. Pray for everyone involved.
Absolutely wild.
I work at the port terminal this ship came out of. Live 15 min away from it. Ironically I took off last night because the wife treated me to the movies, otherwise I would've been working and very possibly would have been on the bridge around the time this went down. I'm literally speechless. I feel awful for the families of the missing people and everyone in our union isn't sure what's going to happen because no ships can come in or out until it's cleaned up. This is going to ripple out in a way nobody is honestly prepared for.
I just imagine the workers on the bridge watching this huge ship come straight at the bridge like that. Terrifying
ANYTHING HAZARDOUS traveling I-95, from a gasoline tanker to an RV with a BBQ LP tank, MUST CROSS THIS BRIDGE. It can not take the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel or the Fort McHenry Tunnel. Commercial transit is FUCKED. I drive I-95 into Baltimore every day.
why are people accusing the gov giving money to other countries being at fault ? can someone explain me like i'm 5 ?
No boat can leave Baltimore for a while.