Baltimore bridge fucked

[Mobius]

Massive bridge has just got destroyed by a big boat.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2024/mar/26/baltimore-bridge-collapse-ship-collision-francis-scott-key-updates

Footage of it there. Just collapses.

[Mobius]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83a7h3kkgPg

livestream of fucked bridge

[shiftwork2]

You're correct - it is fucked.

[Buelligan]

Bummer for the people in the cars really.  It looked fine.

[buttgammon]

The speed with which it just buckled is frightening. It sounds like the ship caught fire and sank too - does anyone know what was on it and if that may have made this worse?

Looking forward to Buzby's contributions in this thread.

[buzby]

Unfortunately the ship hit it at exactly the worst point - one of the piers that forms the abutment of  the arch in the longest span of the truss. After that side of the truss dropped and broke off, the other side went out of balance which took it off the undamaged support. It was basically the worst place the ship could hit it.

The piers of the central span don't have much to protect them from collisions at all - there are small concrete anti-collision 'bumpers' about 50m in front of the piers on either side, but there is basically nothing around the bases of the piers - you would have thought they would have joined the bumpers up on each side to form artifical islands around the piers to protect against collisions. Those bumpers probably did very little to stop a fully laden 95000 ton container ship.

When the bridge was built in the mid 70s, the biggest container ships had capacities of about 3000 40ft containers. The ship that struck the bridge, Dali, was built in 2015 and could carry 10000 40ft containers (which isn't especially big as modern container ships go), so the Port Authority and Maryland DOT should probably  have been looking at increasing the collision protection on the bridge piers in line with modern shipping, but who is gouing to pay for something with no appreciable benefit.

It should have been under the control of a local pilot at the time (to enter or leave the port of Baltimore ships have to be under the control of a pilot from the mouth of Chesapeake Bay) so it's unlikely to be the ship's crew whov were at fault. It could be that the ship's steering gear failed, which would have been an incredible stroke of bad luck to happen at that point.

[steve98]

[BlodwynPig]

I was just on the phone with Indrid Cold...

[Alberon]

To properly protect the supports from a ship with that mass going straight into it would need some seriously strong defences. Even some sort of deflection barriers would need to be very substantial.

[Butchers Blind]

See ya bridge mate.

[Jim_MacLaine]

From that live stream video it looks like the ship lost power twice (all the lights go out) before it hit the bridge.

[Des Wigwam]

If you roll back to between 1.24am and 1.30am (top left clock in the live stream) you can see the lights on and then off and then back on again as if there's a power issue.

The first 4 episodes of my podcast on this drop this afternoon.

Edit - See I've been scooped by @Jim_MacLaine
 

[Wonderful Butternut]

If watching shit like Seconds from Disaster has thought me anything, then the cause from this will be along the lines of:

- There will have been multiple safety issues with the boat's electrical systems which caused the power, and presumably navigation / steering gear, failure. With redundancies either not working or not installed to save money.
- The crew or pilot will have been somehow deficient. Not able to read radar distances properly or something.
- The bridge could've been made stronger with the addition of a 5c washer on every bolt or something like that. This was not done to save money.
- At some point the city would've been required by law to increase collision protection around the central spans but hadn't done it, and the law hadn't been enforced cos the relevant body is massively underfunded.

[shoulders]

Insane how fucked that bridge is.

How's a brother going to recoup from that?

If the ship captain has survived then there's bad news, I'm afraid, mate - SACKED.

Has Russia snarkily pointed out that it warned the US about those inadequate collision barriers?

[shoulders]

Authorities don't declare an incident to be a mass casualty event unless it is extremely serious.

Some "senior reporting" from the BBC.

The BBC don't assign a story to senior reporter Simon Jones unless it requires someone extremely senior.

Full Journalist Simon Jones there.

[shoulders]

Fortunately the city wanted the bridge - and some of the humans gone.

Mayor of Baltimore Brandon Scott described it as a "result" and "the best thing for everyone all round".

[Wonderful Butternut]

If you roll back to between 1.24am and 1.30am (top left clock in the live stream) you can see the lights on and then off and then back on again as if there's a power issue.

The first 4 episodes of my podcast on this drop this afternoon.

Also looks a bit like it steers into the pillar from the angle of ship towards the camera. It gives off a big load of smoke between the two failures (as if someone's saying "Power's back! Gun it!"), but the ship seems to turn towards the span instead of away from it.

Jammed rudder maybe?

OR TERRORISTS?!!!?!!?!!?!?!?!!?!?!?!!?!? /s

[shoulders]

Ships don't melt steel beams

[shoulders]

Who here can honestly say they haven't driven a large ship into a bridge?

[Wonderful Butternut]

Ships don't melt steel beams

"Here's a video of a much smaller boat crashing into an entirely different bridge and it didn't collapse?!?! Check MATE!"

[sevendaughters]

all the bridge experts have logged on, who is to say that bridge isn't perfectly fine. honestly.

[Des Wigwam]

Is McNulty still with the river police?

[Dex Sawash]

* Dex Sawash marked safe from absolutely fucked bridge

[shoulders]

It isn't about how many punches you throw, it's about how many large ships hit you and you still get up off the mat.

[Brian Freeze]

Is it your part of your particular part of the world then Dex?

[Dex Sawash]

Is it your part of your particular part of the world then Dex?

A scant 300 miles

[Dex Sawash]

I'm gonna say harbor pilot got lanyard caught on helm

[Alberon]

[shoulders]

Looking forward to the billion dollar inquest and lawsuit that deflects any level of corporate or civil responsibility for this disaster and nails it all on some bystander called Puggle who was supposed to yell "there's a bridge there!" at the vessel.

[Senior Baiano]

Feel for the fiends of B'more, if the Greeks can't get they product out of that bay, there only be that stepped on new york shit for sale