Baltimore bridge collapse

[Ekkie Thump]

A large ship has hit the primary bridge in Baltimore causing the entire thing to collapse. Many cars Thankfully it seems like only a few vehicles were on the bridge at the time.

08:20 here:



Francis Scott Key Bridge:

• 3rd longest single span bridge in the world
• 11.5m cars annually (30k per day)
• Forms part of the Interstate 695 Baltimore beltway (ring road).
• Opened in 1977
• Took 5 years to build
• cost $110m at the time

Baltimore port (out of operation for the foreseeable):

• Moves 35bn tonnes of freight a year
• With a total worth of around $75bn.
• 15k direct jobs, 140k indirect jobs affected.

This is what hit it:

• Ship name: Dali
• Type: Container Ship
• Built 2015
• Owner: Stellar Marine LLC
• Managed by Synergy Marine Group
• Time chartered to Maersk
• Singaporean flagged
• 300m long
• Maximum deadweight: 117,000 tons
• Navigational status: Stopped

Traffic situation: fecked.

Spoiler: Looks to be a major part of the ring road

 

[4bars]

A large ship has hit the primary bridge in Baltimore causing the entire thing to collapse. Many cars were on the bridge at the time.

https://www.youtube.com/live/OTzPOMwMJOs?si=33nMjwkFqEEZIt2L

feckin hell

 

[Oldyella]

A large ship has hit the primary bridge in Baltimore causing the entire thing to collapse. Many cars were on the bridge at the time.

08:20 here:

Jeez

 

[4bars]

Cars bumper to bumper. That surely will be 100s of deaths. Thats like a movie. omg. How horrible

 

[Darkhorsez]

That’s crazy. How could this happen? Hope not many casualties.

 

[Salt Bailly]

Feck.

 

[Pexbo]

Worst nightmare, I hope by some miracle those people are ok.

 

[Redlambs]

Christ.

The boat looks to be on fire before hitting the bridge.

 

[Cloud7]

That is insane. My God. I hope that the people in the cars were able to get out/be rescued somehow.

How did the ship directly hit the bridge like that? Surely something must have happened to the crew or controls?

 

[Oranges038]

That is fecking crazy. Not much hope for anyone in cars on the bridge at the time.

 

[Solius]

That’s mental. Hopefully those on the bridge knew what was happening and abandoned their cars.

 

[Redlambs]

Looks like a large construction crew on the bridge too.

 

[Ekkie Thump]

That’s mental. Hopefully those on the bridge knew what was happening and abandoned their cars.

I think you could see some flashing lights like a stationary cop car or something. I'm hoping that implies that they knew something was up and were at least somewhat forewarned.

 

[Oranges038]

Cars bumper to bumper. That surely will be 100s of deaths. Thats like a movie. omg. How horrible

From the BBC, it was 1:30 in the morning, so no chance traffic was bumper to bumper.

At around 01:30am local time (05:30 GMT), a 911 caller reported an incident in the Francis Scott Key Bridge area.

Chief Kevin Cartwright, director of communications for the Baltimore City Fire Department confirmed to us that the bridge had been struck by "a large vessel" causing it to collapse into the Patapsco River.

He also told us that "as many as seven individuals and several vehicles" have fallen into the river.

 

[4bars]

From the BBC, it was 1:30 in the morning, so no chance traffic was bumper to bumper.

On the video I see several cars lights and also in the satellite visualization. But the time you post makes a lot of sense that it will be your take. And I hope so is like that

 

[FireballXL5]

Jesus, if you saw that in a movie you'd think it was far-fetched.

 

[Oranges038]

On the video I see several cars lights and also in the satellite visualization. But the time you post makes a lot of sense that it will be your take. And I hope so is like that

It's not my take, that's what was reported by the Baltimore Fire Dept.

 

[TwoSheds]

That is crazy. Hope most people made it off the bridge.

 

[NotChatGPT]

That is insane. My God. I hope that the people in the cars were able to get out/be rescued somehow.

How did the ship directly hit the bridge like that? Surely something must have happened to the crew or controls?

I would imagine that they have to have a pilot onboard until they clear Chesepeake bay, at least past the bridge they just smacked into. So yeah, loss of controls makes sense.

 

[Pexbo]

That is insane. My God. I hope that the people in the cars were able to get out/be rescued somehow.

How did the ship directly hit the bridge like that? Surely something must have happened to the crew or controls?

I feel like bridges like that should have a trip wire a safe distance back from the bridge, a few metres below the bridge height which sets off huge sirens and flashing lights and shuts entry to the bridge and hurry’s people on the bridge the feck along.

 

[RedDevilQuebecois]

Holy shit.

How can something like that be even possible?

 

[NotChatGPT]

I feel like bridges like that should have a trip wire a safe distance back from the bridge, a few metres below the bridge height which sets off huge sirens and flashing lights and shuts entry to the bridge and hurry’s people on the bridge the feck along.

I have a feeling they were stressed enough about 5 minutes before it happened.

 

[Semper Fudge]

Holy shit.

How can something like that be even possible?

Well a big boat rammed into it.

 

[Ekkie Thump]

You can see vehicles travelling across the bridge prior to impact, but there doesn't appear to be any crossing at the exact moment. Just the stationary flashing vehicles. Don't know if the smoke billowing out of the back of the ship is normal or not.

Tweet

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[RedDevilQuebecois]

Well a big boat rammed into it.

No pilot from the harbor authority at the helm? No emergency engine shutdown? I do not believe that there was absolutely nothing that could stop that ship form carrying on that route.

 

[The Boy]

Surely bridges of that span are engineered so if a part of it goes, it shouldn’t entirely collapse. It’s awful how the whole thing comes tumbling down as soon as one pylon goes.

 

[Beachryan]

I've never seen anything like that. Can't imagine they'll find everyone but let's hope. All on the ship are okay.

 

[Solius]

You can see vehicles travelling across the bridge prior to impact, but there doesn't appear to be any crossing at the exact moment. Just the stationary flashing vehicles. Don't know if the smoke billowing out of the back of the ship is normal or not.

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Looks like the boat actively turns to face the support, no? It doesn't really look like a bad course that they're desperately trying to correct.

 

[Rado_N]

Jesus Christ that’s terrifying

 

[Fortitude]

That’s insane.

Is this an architectural failing, or are bridges simply not built with the factor of something that preposterously heavy hitting them?

You wouldn’t believe that in a movie, the way it fell like someone had tipped a domino.

 

[Fortitude]

The sound that collision made must’ve been absurd.

 

[Ekkie Thump]

Looks like the boat actively turns to face the support, no? It doesn't really look like a bad course that they're desperately trying to correct.

It does look like it, though I guess it's hard to tell. Stuck rudder or something maybe? Are container ships meant to cough up that quantity of black smoke?

Edit: It also looks like it loses power at 33 seconds.

 

[RedDevilQuebecois]

Power was lost on the ship before the collision.

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[Revaulx]

Surely bridges of that span are engineered so if a part of it goes, it shouldn’t entirely collapse. It’s awful how the whole thing comes tumbling down as soon as one pylon goes.

Even if it had been built to cope with a strike when it was built in the ‘70s, the size and weight of container ships has increased massively since then. That’s why London’s docks are no longer functioning as such.

I suppose it would be less likely for the whole bridge to collapse if there were more supports and shorter spans between them. More supports would mean more things to crash into though.

 

[VorZakone]

The way the bridge collapsed is quite something. Hopefully people can be rescued quickly.

 

[Fortitude]

Even if it had been built to cope with a strike when it was built in the ‘70s, the size and weight of container ships has increased massively since then. That’s why London’s docks are no longer functioning as such.

I suppose it would be less likely for the whole bridge to collapse if there were more supports and shorter spans between them. More supports would mean more things to crash into though.

But surely they factor in risk and whether it’s safe for these massive containers to flow through it - that was a health and safety disaster you’d expect to see in a 3rd world country where checks aren’t stringent, not America.

 

[noodlehair]

That’s insane.

Is this an architectural failing, or are bridges simply not built with the factor of something that preposterously heavy hitting them?

You wouldn’t believe that in a movie, the way it fell like someone had tipped a domino.

Bridges generally aren't designed to survive being rammed into by massive cargo ships.

 

[Berbaclass]

Wonder how long it will take to rebuild it

 

[noodlehair]

But surely they factor in risk and whether it’s safe for these massive containers to flow through it - that was a health and safety disaster you’d expect to see in a 3rd world country where checks aren’t stringent, not America.

If the ships need to get up the river and the bridge needs to be there then there's not much really you can do from a design perspective I don't think. Difficult to build a bridge that can withstand impact from any object that might ram into it. The health and safety is in regulating how ships pass under the bridge and who is controlling them, I would think. Obviously something's gone very wrong there.

Don't think any of the construction crew on the bridge would have had much chance unless they saw it coming and were gone before the video

 

[Fortitude]

Bridges generally aren't designed to survive being rammed into by massive cargo ships.

But the whole thing? Not a partial collapse? Which opens up the question of whether this is what can potentially happen every time containers pass through bridges as that’s surely going to put the shits up for everyone. Never given such a thing a moment’s thought before seeing this footage.