In Baltimore, Maryland the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed at 1:28 EDT on March 26th due to a 984-foot DALI cargo ship crashing into it.
This bridge was about a mile and a half long, but still a major bridge for Baltimore and caused the 11th busiest port in the United States to close. About 11.3 million vehicles per year would travel on the bridges and the Port of Baltimore would generate more than 3.3 billion dollars yearly.
There were 22 crewmembers aboard the container ship and they were able to notify authorities when it had lost power. This mayday was not long before the crash, but still helpful in allowing law enforcement to stop allowing more incoming cars from entering the bridge.
The ship did not sink after the crash and even had its lights on still, but five vehicles ended up being found in the water which was suspected to be empty. It was lucky that this happened in the middle of the night and not during rush hour since this bridge gets a lot of traffic which would result in even more chaos.
This vessel only hit this bridge at around 9 miles per hour which is super slow, so that makes us question how well this bridge must have been constructed if it could collapse so easily. The National Transportation Safety Board will be looking into how the bridge was built and if there were any safety violations.
This crash was a completely tragic accident that is heartbreaking for the families who are grieving the loss of their loved ones. Also, people who live near the bridge are devastated since this is the main bridge of town that people take every day, so its collapse will make a huge difference in their neighborhood.
President Biden recently visited the site of the bridge and promised he would use federal funds to cover the total cost of the reconstruction. He also scheduled meetings with the family members of the six workers who died. He promised to not rest until the bridge was running again but did recognize that rebuilding would be a complex time-consuming job.
