It seems that all the fatalities were those of workers on the bridge. While I did hear one very early report that mentioned “cars in the water,” I haven’t heard that repeated and I have heard news sources say that the mayday issued by the ship before it collided with the bridge gave time to keep cars off the bridge.
I’m very glad no cars slid into the river (my first thought when I saw video of the collapse was “Oh my god! The vehicles on the bridge!”). But the mechanics of this are unclear to me. How much time would there have been between the mayday and the collision? How would the bridge have been successfully blocked off/evacuated? Surely there aren’t State Troopers just waiting around on site in case they need to stop people from driving on the bridge. And as to a mechanical block - an arm that could be lowered or a gate that could be shut - that would trap some cars ON the bridge at the same time it prevented additional cars from getting on.
So, how did they do that?
Also, did the construction workers have any warning? I take it the bridge is a mile long, so if they were in the middle of the bridge when warning came, they’d probably need 5-10 minutes to sprint to safety.
I don’t know the exact timing, but I saw a report that said that a call for police to block the entrances to the bridge went out seemingly as soon as the incident happened.
The ship managed to send out a Mayday before impact. That would have triggered emergency responses among every agency in the region. Since few vehicles, maybe a half dozen, went down with the crash, this was luckily a very low-traffic time. I haven’t heard that any other vehicles went down after the bridge collapsed. It should have been very apparent to any drivers: the route is a huge interstate and a bridge like that would be well lit up to the end.
Good point - I had neglected to take into account that it was the middle of the night, so not many cars. Had it happened during a high-traffic period, the logistics might have been far more difficult.
It’s an Interstate highway, and is divided. New vehicles could easily be prevented from getting on the bridge without trapping ones already on it with a gate/arm at the north end of the southbound lanes and at the south end of the northbound lanes (actually known as the inner and outer loops, respectively, since it’s a beltway).
As far as I know it does not have these, but the concept would work. The Bay Bridge does have some gates (since the middle lanes can change direction to account for more traffic in one direction or another) but I don’t know if they can be activated quickly, or if they can close off all lanes.
Not just in case they need to stop people from driving over the bridge, but I know a couple of bridges with basically a police station on the approach. I think it’s to inspect trucks carrying hazardous materials.
The workers didn’t walk from land to the job site. They wouldn’t need time to sprint off the bridge, just enough to jump into one of the vehicles that they drove to the site and drive off which would be significantly less than. Obviously, they didn’t have even that much time. On the police radio recording, there was maybe 90 seconds from the “ship has a problem, shut down bridge traffic and warn the construction crew” call to “the bridge is gone”.
The Maryland Transportation Authority is at the northeast end of the bridge along with (I believe) the toll booths, so yes, there are state troopers everywhere.
Perhaps they used traffic lights? When lanes are closed in Europe they often show a big red X. I am a bit surprised that the drivers heeded the warning, if it was done this way at all. All lanes suddenly closed is not what you expect, it is easy to suspect a malfunction and just keep on driving. Glad they did stop!
It happened at almost 1:30am so relatively light traffic. There happened to be a cop at either end of the bridge when the call came in. The bridge is only two lanes each direction so it’s easy for one cop car to block it in each direction. There was also construction / pothole repairs happening on the bridge; I would expect it to be coned down to one lane but haven’t heard specifics of if that was the case nor where the lane restrictions began. There’s always a cop there when they’re doing construction on an interstate.
I’ve seen politicians calling the cops heros; not to belittle them but they just put their emergency lights on & blocked the road; whomever told the dispatcher to have them do this is the real hero here; I’m guessing it’s the pilot, if so, someone relayed his instrux to PD dispatch immediately.
There’s a toll plaza on the southbound lanes, before (north of) the bridge, which could display red X lane closure signals. There’s no northbound toll, but there is an electronic sign board south of the bridge that could display a message like “STOP - ROAD CLOSED”.
But as others have mentioned, based on the radio recording it doesn’t sound like these were used. Two separate guys stated “I’m holding the northbound traffic” and “I’m holding the southbound traffic” (or something like that) which sounds like they probably pulled a police car with flashing lights across each chunk of road to block traffic (and maybe also set out some flares).
Good point, assuming the vehicles can be parked on the bridge. Which seems more likely to be realistic in the middle of the night. There is now a report saying two bodies have been recovered from a pick-up truck, so they probably were trying to drive away.
There is a long view film footage, in the dark, from across the river, it runs a few minutes, you can see the lights of cars crossing as the ship is slowly approaching the bridge support. Even knowing the ship calls in before impact and that traffic gets stopped it’s nerve wracking to watch. The cars are crossing, ship is getting closer, you think they must have got the call by now…but no, there’s another set of car lights coming, yikes. They def saved a lot of lives by making that call when they did. No matter how responsibility plays out, they deserve big credit for making that call. And, based on the film footage I saw, there was at least one vehicle, the last to do so, barely making it across, in time.
I’m impressed that there was a protocol in place that enabled that mayday the pilot sent out to almost immediately get to that dispatcher, and it was followed successfully in time. I got the impression that everybody already knew this was necessary, even given the rarity of the event. Whoever came up with this system in the first place, and made sure it was well-oiled, and worked when needed, they’re the hero(es).
Can anybody illuminate how the mayday call got to the police dispatcher, and how proper training was maintained so everybody knew what to do immediately?
I’d expect Maryland Transportation Authority Police to have a presence at or direct channel to the Port’s emergency center and someone monitoring their emergency frequencies.
Yeah, it’s easy to set up a system where the messages would get to the right people. It’s tough to set it up where the messages would get to the right people that quickly.
My guess is that there wasn’t even time for them to block the lanes with their cars. I’m guessing that they stopped traffic by just running out into the road and waving their arms.
How would you have liked to have been the first car or two the cop stopped, sitting there for a second or two wondering what the heck is going on, then seeing the whole bridge collapse behind him?
Somewhere out there are a few people who had that experience.
A woman was interviewed and said she was stopped by the police before entering the bridge, but was far enough back that she did not hear or see anything as she had her windows up. She was mystified and surprised when she was told what had just occurred.
I agree whomever planned the police response and trained/audited everyone has a system prepared to act when the right conditions are met. Say what you will about “onerous” regulations, policies and procedures, and practice drills, but sometimes all that hassle is worthwhile when it comes to execution in real-time.
I doubt there is a protocol for this given how rare it is to occur. I haven’t heard the communication yet but either the pilot specifically asked for it or the Pilot association dispatcher understood the message & was able to interpret it & in a great display of CRM (crew resource management) thought to act on it.
George Orwell taught us that some pigs are more equal than others; the guys with the radios & the guys with the direct phone # of the dispatchers are more equal pigs. In most places, the 911 call taker is not the dispatcher so if you can talk directly to the dispatcher you are a trusted professional party with more knowledge than the general public about what you’re reporting; a first responder, or in this case a dispatcher from another organization.
Oh Hells no! A vehicle is much bigger (& brighter) than a person & noticeable sooner. A cop car has multiple lights on it; the cop would have a reflective vest in his vehicle but I don’t know that dept’s policy & whether they wear them at all times. Even if the vehicle is at a 90° angle to the road so only the end of the light bar is visible I’m guessing there’s active side/corner emergency lighting to make it visible 360° on the vehicle rather than just the passive reflectivity of a vest.