Well, there’s still hope that no one was killed, or even hurt. We’ll see.
That’s the obvious answer, I suppose. I naively assumed that some bridges have an isolated structure around the supports (concrete pylons or whatever) to keep this from happening. But perhaps it’s impossible, given the immense momentum of a container ship.
The good news is that traffic is extremely light at that hour but there was apparently a crew working on the bridge and they are looking for them.
I think it’s not about the roads, it’s the fact that bridge debris in the water means that ships will not be able to travel between the port and the open ocean. Port workers will have no problem driving to their jobs, but there will be nothing for them to do until ships are able to move to and fro.
However…
I think this is pessimistic. As soon as all of the victims’ bodies have been accounted for, given the economic importance of the port, demolition crews will be removing debris as fast as possible to clear a navigable path for ships. I suppose two weeks counts as “weeks if not longer”, but I’d be surprised if it takes longer than that.
“Baltimore City Fire Chief James Wallace said in a news conference early Tuesday that officials were searching for at least seven people and that two people had already been pulled from the water. One person refused medical service and the other was transported to a trauma center in serious condition.” – NY Times
I did a google maps and dropped the little guy on the bridge. It’s got (had) 6 lanes of traffic.
OH - MY - GOD! The entire darn bridge is gone! I’m not a civil engineer, but my gut feeling is that the bridge was already compromised if its entire existence hinged on just one support. Was it a collapse waiting to happen, or did the ship hit the support so hard that it literally swept it out from under the bridge?
IANAE either, but I’m pretty sure this is incorrect. The integrity of the whole structure of any tension-compression construction will be jeopardized if any big part of it is wrecked. I doubt there were any major preexisting problems.
A container ship is about as close as you can get to an irresistible force. Even moving at just a few MPH, when you see them hitting anything other than a solid concrete wall, they just don’t stop. Even assuming the ~50-year-old bridge was reasonably healthy, I think it just wasn’t going to survive the destruction of one of its main support points like that.
Dumb question perhaps, but are the supports illuminated at night for navigation purposes?
Doesn’t look that way, but illuminated buoys mark each side of the channel that passes under the main span. “Red right returning” — red light on the starboard side as you enter the harbor (green on the port/left.)
I’m looking at the “before” picture taken just moments before impact, and the supports don’t seem to have any meaningful lighting, and the ship is behaving as if the navigator didn’t know it was there. Of course, he could have been compromised by ill health or alcohol, or there could have been some kind of navigational failure. I’m sure this will all come out in the investigation.
Zoom in here: six “Dol” lighted buoys, three on each side of the channel — two (one on each side) right under the bridge.
https://www.charts.noaa.gov/OnLineViewer/12281.shtml
Note the “Pilot Boarding Area” on the bay side of the bridge. This implies you must have a local pilot (guide) board the ship before it passes under the bridge. Do they also have to be on board when exiting the harbor? I would think so, but maybe not — you’d think the news might have mentioned that by now.
What a disaster. Wow. I wonder about the ship and circumstances – was the captain awake? Was it an automation error? If it was a technical/engineering malfunction, what went wrong, and why? Was this a result of cutting corners, cutting costs, or something else? Just unbelievable.
The cloud of smoke seen near the ship in the moments before impact suggests that they may have suffered an engine failure. If that’s the case, then the ship is basically an unguided slow-motion missile, and there would have been little they could do except lay on the horn (for whatever good that might have done).
Oh, wow, how bad does your luck have to be for you to have an engine failure at that key moment?! Even if it happened sooner, could they have dropped their anchor and “dragged” the ship to a stop?
I was just going to suggest this. Even without the cloud of smoke, this seems most probable – a navigational error of that magnitude, especially in the GPS era, is quite unlikely.
I’ve never served on a merchant ship, but in the Navy, we definitely could drop the anchor as a last-ditch way to slow/stop the ship from moving. I presume a merchant ship could do the same.
If the ship was well out to sea at night, the bridge would be sparsely occupied. Coming into port, however, is a big deal. I would think you’d have a full compliment on the bridge. Were I the captain, there’s no way I wouldn’t be on the bridge for that.
Reading more about it online, it appears the ship was actually leaving the harbor, not coming in, which means it would just been underway for a matter of minutes (or a few hours at the most), in my understanding. That means pre-departure inspections may have been skipped, if there was a malfunction or engine failure.