Baltimore

[Grant Lamontagne]

Bad news in Baltimore this morning.  I hope that our members in the area, and their loved ones are okay.

https://news.sky.com/story/baltimore-bridge-latest-workers-possibly-in-the-water-as-video-shows-moment-of-collapse-13101977

In a nutshell, a cargo ship appears to have had a mechanical failure, followed by a fire, and drifted out of control into the Francis Scott Key Bridge (aka giant bridge and main artery of Baltimore) and destroyed it.

https://x.com/omarjimenez/status/1772527229601251564?s=42&t=e72PotdPBWf-HSallrcR7w

With people on it.

People in their cars were sent into the water.

In the dark.

Baltimore isn't too far from me and I can tell you, the current ocean temperature is not that hospitable

My thoughts and best wishes to everyone in Baltimore.  Given my time in the Marine Industry and the fact that I live in a port city with two bridges that are main arteries, I have some thoughts and insight, but I'd rather people concern themselves with the victims of this tragedy right now.

We can discuss details and argue about it later on. 

Def

[Barry Rowland]

Dear Lord ...those poor people.  I'm about 3 hours from there and this is the first I heard about this.  Thanks Def. 

[SteveC]

Yikes ! 

[Antti Lammi]

Awful accident, i hope they can save many people as possible (hopefully all) who was part of accident.
Did i read right and whole bridge crashed 1.6 miles lenght or was it only partially crashed?

[powernoodle]

[Barry Rowland]

Yes it took out pretty much the whole structure.  That's one busy bridge.  I guess if anything was good about it, it was at 0130 instead of 1330 when that road is really busy.

[Grant Lamontagne]

Yes it took out pretty much the whole structure.  That's one busy bridge.  I guess if anything was good about it, it was at 0130 instead of 1330 when that road is really busy.

Thank the Almighty for small miracles.  As bad as this was, how much worse would it have been had there been a bunch of fully loaded school buses on it?  This was what is called a "Best Case Disaster" in that it is still a major tragedy, but it could have been much, much worse.

I live in a port city that also has major bridge arteries that ships go under every day.  But, we have one failsafe that would keep this from happening here- all commercial traffic comes and goes from Halifax Harbour requires a harbour pilot (which was on board the ship) and also has to be escorted by tugs.

While tugs likely couldn't have stopped that vessel, they could easily have redirected it, and if it lost power (as it appears to have done) then it would have been an inconvenience rather than a mass casualty.  The tugs would have simply dragged it to an open section of the harbour and held it there until it could manage to drop anchor and effect repairs. 

I'm not saying that our situation is infallible, but it does greatly reduce the potential for this kind of incident, which thankfully is quite rare to begin with.

That having been said, I doubt our bridges would have withstood a much more minor impact.  They aren't the greatest.   

Def

[Barry Rowland]

That's what surprised me too Def.  I would have thought they'd have tugs.  You're right though, in that it was about as good as such a thing could be. 

[powernoodle]

A marine guy on Youtube said they only use tugs at that location when the vessel is maneuvering at the dock, and no tugs are used after it is under way.

[AzteCypher]

Read about it this morning.  Horrible to be going through that.

[Grant Lamontagne]

A marine guy on Youtube said they only use tugs at that location when the vessel is maneuvering at the dock, and no tugs are used after it is under way.

Here a vessel stops outside the harbour and is escorted all the way in, then moved onto position by the tugs.  Then when she is done, the tugs take them back out to the open ocean.

I wouldn't be surprised to see most, if not all other porta, at least in NA adopting that policy after this incident.

There has also been a few comments about whether there may have been structural problems with the bridge.  I can't comment on that, but I will say that anyone that thinks that was important is underestimating the sheer force that it was struck with.  Container ships are MASSIVE, and there is a lot of kinetic energy moving it forward.

To put it in perspective, a large train may have a hundred containers on it, and even at low speeds could take almost a mile to stop.

This ship  has a deadweight of around 100,000 tonnes, and carries probably around 8,000-10,000 containers.  Even moving at 5km/hr she has an awful lot of energy. 

There isn't any manmade structure that could withstand that on its best day, so I really don't think any structural flaws on the bridge, especially if it remains open for public use, would have contributed in any significant way.

It's like noticing a small crack in an eggshell and trying to claim that was the reason for its failure when an anvil was dropped on it.

Def

[SteveC]

Protection for the support piers could have possibly  prevented this.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFl412SuWZE&ab_channel=ABC7Chicago

[Grant Lamontagne]

Absolutely.

Our bridges are protected (to some extent) by rock island around them. 

They would certainly have made a difference in Baltimore.  Whether it could prevent it entirely in the face of that much force, who can say?  But it absolutely would have helped, and in a situation like this, any help is good.

Def

[ThundahBeagle]

I wont presume to know more than anyone else what could have prevented this.  However, when the infamous 9/11, authorities and Leo's said "who could have imagined someone would use a plane as a missile?!"  I have the answer to that.  1974, Sam Byck entered the cockpit of an airliner at Baltimore. He shot the pilot.  Himself subsequently mortally wounded by an officer, Byck then shot himself.  Later it emerged he planned to fly the plane into the White House.  Local authorities and the FBI knew this.

No authority took that seriously enough to find a way to prevent entry into cockpits.  And even afterv9/11 we STILL dont.

What does that have to do with the Francis Scott Key bridge strike and collapse?

..1980 Skyway Bridge disaster in Tampa.  Look it up.  In a spate of quick onset terrible weather - fog and wind and rain - which might be called a squall if it was up here in New England and was snow - a cargo ship lost navigational visibility and the pilot aboard decided to keep going.  His junior pilot was not confident enough to direct otherwise.  There were no tugs involved at this stage.

At any rate, the cargo ship hit the bridge support and it all came tumbling down.  35 people lost thier lives, most of whom were aboard a Greyhound bus that went over.

There are two most fortunate stories about the Skyway bridge:
1) a man who was a Navy frog man (precursor to the Seals) at D-Day, whose whole troop was killed but him, well, he went of the bridge in his little Ford truck.  It struck the side of the ship like a pebble off a brick wall, and bounced into the water.  He was able to escape the wreckage of his truck from under water and make his way to the surface relatively unharmed.

2)  some VERY lucky SOB's driving a 1976 Buick on the way to play golf.  The driver had just had the brakes done the day before.  He saw the Greyhound pass him and disappear into the fog and thought he better slow down and stop, if the fog was so thick he couldn't see a bus in front of him.


I urge you to look that up, as the photos of that Buick perched within a foot of doom as it overlooks the cargo ship and bridge wreckage150 feet below will give anyone the willies.

Whatever lessons we learned from 1980 in Tampa were obviously never applied.  If some structural caisson or coffer, or stone breaker could have been put in place to minimize the prospect of impact, it was clearly not done.  Retro, even, since the Key bridge was built before the Tampa bridge disaster.

If the idea was ever realized as I had thought that day and as Def has mentioned happens in his neck of the woods, that tugs could have guided the ship into and out of port. They certainly either never did that, or weren't doing it that night.

I am sorry but this is government at its worst.  They make sure to paint the steel bridges over and over while taking no further steps to prevent a massive collision any more than they did 44 years ago.