A giant crane arrives in Baltimore and leaders have a lot of work to do
The Collapse of the Frederick Scott Key Bridge: Anyons Are Not Ready for Today’s Large Ships, or Does The Bridge Really Need To Be Built?
The National Transportation Safety Board wants to look at the current rules to see if there are better ways to protect the nation’s bridges. “The first thing that we learn as an engineer is that public safety is the number one issue,” Azizinamini says.
The collapse of the Key Bridge will likely lead some cities to reevaluate the safeguards their bridges have in place. Last year, New Castle, Delaware, kicked off a $93 million project to install dolphins surrounding the piers of the Delaware Memorial Bridge. The city took the initiative to reinforce the bridge, and federal agencies may be able to force other cities to do the same.
For years now, civil engineers have understood that bridges have a problem: many of them are not designed to withstand a blow from the kinds of cargo ships that routinely pass through their waters. Those concerns came to a head on Tuesday with the devastating collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland. It is the type of failure engineers have been trying to stop for decades, and even now, they are not sure if the available solutions are enough.
There are also risks for larger ships. Ever Given was trapped in the Suez Canal for a week after it ran aground. Ports have had to make adjustments to accommodate ships’ increased sizes. In 2017, the Panama Canal expansion project was completed to “meet the growing demand of maritime trade using larger vessels.” The bridge connecting New York and New Jersey was raised 64 feet so ships could fit underneath.
Over the past two decades, the average size of cargo ships has grown enormously as shipping companies contend with global demand for goods. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development says that 90 percent of traded goods travel by water and maritime trade is expected to triple in the next 40 years. The larger the ship, the more items it can fit in a single trip from retailers like Amazon, Target, and Walmart.
The Key Bridge was only half filled when it struck theMV Dali. It weighs about 95,000 tons, and that’s not including the 4,700 containers it had on board. The ship, which is chartered by the shipping company Maersk, is nearly the same length as the Eiffel Tower — and it’s far from the only one of that size.
The cost of replacing a critical bridge is going to be very long before it gets fixed, or will it take three years before it becomes effective?
However, Schmucker notes that these new rules typically take a few years before they’re adopted. Schmucker says that it could’ve been into the 2000s before you saw the bridge. “That’s because of that lengthy process we use for significant bridges over navigable waterways. They are expensive and can be challenging to integrate with the environment.
“The 3-span continuous nature means that when the main span’s pier was destroyed by the ship, the two directly affected spans lost one of their primary supports,” Douglas Schmucker, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Utah, tells The Verge. The middle span collapsed, that’s when the third span came with it, because they were designed to function together.
The second-longest continuous bridge in the US is the Key Bridge. A huge cargo ship hit the Key Bridge’s support column and caused a complete collapse within seconds. Four others are presumed dead, and two of them were killed.
The $60 million in emergency funding was directed by the Biden administration. But that’s just a small fraction of what it will cost to remove and replace the bridge.
“You’re talking about 350 million to 600 million to replace the stuff,” said L. Sebastian Bryson in an interview with NPR’s Morning Edition. “I would imagine because it’s such a critical bridge, it will most likely be fast-tracked. So it will take probably about two to three years to rebuild.”
“I expect that any private party that could be found liable will be held accountable,” Buttigieg told NPR. We have to get to work and get this bridge back up because we can’t wait for liability issues to be resolved.
Pete Buttigieg said in an interview with NPR’s All Things Considered that he had a down payment on the project. We still don’t have an idea of the total cost.
Bridge Assessment and Cleanup: A Giant Crane arrives in Baltimore, but leaders see a ‘daunting’ cleanup job ahead
But completing that assessment will be difficult. Moore said that the water around the crash site is so dark that divers can’t see a foot or two of debris.
“Before we can actually engage in lifting, we’ve got to complete the assessment process of the bridge, and the pieces of the bridge that are in the water,” Gilreath said Thursday.
The U.S. Coast Guard is still figuring out how best to use the giant crane at their disposal, says Rear Admiral Shannon Gilreath.
The first step is to “remove that portion of the bridge that is currently draped across the front of the vessel Dali,” Spellmon said. He said that the shipping channel could initially only accommodate one way traffic before it could house two vessels at the same time.
Authorities say their highest priority is to reopen the shipping channel as quickly as possibly. They will have to remove the debris from the river.
The ship is stuck inside the river near the bridge that is resting on the ship’s bow. Some containers that were on the side of the ship were loose from their moorings and have been floating in the water or dangling precariously off the edge.
The Patapsco River Bridge: A giant crane arrives in Baltimore, but leaders see a ‘daunting’ cleanup job ahead
“To go out there and see it up close, you realize just how daunting a task this is,” Maryland Governor Wes Moore said at a news conference near the harbor on Friday, with the enormous crane looming in the background. You know how difficult the work is for us.
For now, thousands of tons of steel and concrete are blocking the main shipping channel in the Patapsco River, three days after a massive cargo ship smashed into the bridge.
Federal money and resources are beginning to flow to Maryland as authorities plan how they will remove the crippled ship, and get the nation’s ninth-largest port back to work. They acknowledge the effort will not be easy, cheap or quick.
“We’re going to have to cut that part of the bridge into four different members, and we’re going to have to get out of the way so we can finish the rest of the job,” Spellmon said.
“That portion of the bridge weighs upwards of 4,000 tons,” said Lieutenant General Scott Spellmon, the head of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in an interview set to air Saturday on NPR’s Weekend Edition.
There is a massive floating crane that is capable of lifting 1000 tons at once that is on its way to the site of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge.
The collapse of the bridge affects supply chains all over the country, as well as communities in Maryland and Baltimore, according to Congressman Mfume. “We’ve got to move swiftly to clear the channel.”
The 56 containers on the ship have hazardous materials in them. The Coast Guard said that some of the 13 containers have been impacted by the bridge strike with contents such as soap products and perfume.
There is a visible sheen on the surface of the water, though Gilreath says that was likely caused by about 20 gallons of oil that leaked from damaged equipment on the front of the ship.
Source: A giant crane arrives in Baltimore, but leaders see a ‘daunting’ cleanup job ahead
NO NO PROPERTIES IN THE AIR CONTAINING DEPENDENCE OF THE COSMOLOGICAL BEAUTY CONSTRAINTS OF THE COST GARDENS
According to the statement from the Coast Guard, no harmful or flammable releases have been found during the air monitoring.
