In Venice lies the world-renowned Rialto Bridge, a charming and predominantly ornamental structure, spanning a mere 38 meters. Yet, come the break of Tuesday, it, alongside other globally recognised bridges, was overshadowed by the dramatic cessation of the 2.57km industrial stalwart, the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. This occurrence had the worldwide audience focused as the bridge vanished from existence.
The sight of the Dali cargo ship unyieldingly advancing towards the two principal supporting pillars, and consequently toppling the infrastructure as if it were a mere paper mache model, was both startlingly surreal and deeply disturbing. As morning arrived, an immense search and rescue operation launched, aiming to locate the six bridge workers present on the roadway at the time of the calamity.
A duo recovered from the waters in the aftermath, with one requiring hospital treatment. In a subsequent press conference, Maryland’s governor, Wes Moore, expressed resilience by invoking the local ‘Maryland tough’ and ‘Baltimore strong’ adages.
The search concluded on Wednesday with the recovery of two unfortunate souls, Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, 35, and Dorlian Cabrera, 26, located in a partially submerged pickup truck. From then on, the focus shifted to investigating how and why a bridge, firmly part of the city’s skyline since 1977, could abruptly disintegrate. The repair work is expected to span several years and escalate to costs of hundreds of millions of dollars. Currently, the citizens of Baltimore grapple with the stark reality that their iconic Key Bridge has disappeared.
Benjamin Schafer, a professor of civil and systems engineering at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, recounted the disbelief; “It is quite jarring to come to terms with… It felt utterly surreal to watch live footage of the incident, it’s still somewhat disbelieving to acknowledge the bridge’s absence; a crucial part of our infrastructure for so long.”
In response to the sudden surge of curiosity surrounding bridge structures and maritime customs, the university organised a forum on Wednesday, featuring a panel of engineering specialists. As stated by Prof Schafer, the incident involves an interlinking series of factors that warrant thorough inspection.
Rather than merely seeing it as a simple bridge failure, one could argue this was an incident of total infrastructure breakdown. Evidently, a bridge did crumble, however it was a bridge that was obliterated in all sense of the word. This damage implicates a complex system, one that consisted of the dock, daily shipping activity beneath the bridge, and subsequent failures connected to circumstances on the vessel before it even made contact with the bridge.
Post-collision, the wreckage sprawled in the water around the impaired ship. It was observed that the central supports were devoid of any ancillary structures to withstand the impact. Even to a layman, it was clear that the 116,000-tonne container carrier, moving at a slow speed of eight knots towards the bridge, following a mayday alert and a report of full power outage, left the bridge defenceless. The resolution for avoiding such future contact lies in actions designed to steer vessels away from these contact points.
“It seems unlikely that it would be financially viable to assemble a defence system against a cargo ship that’s charging straight on,” speculated Professor Schafer.
“Therefore, this protection system should have deflected the ship from the support pillar, allowing the energy to disperse before coming into direct contact with it. Do we have the capability to erect an impregnable fortress like Fort Knox or a nuclear bunker in front of every bridge? While technically plausible, it’s financially untenable. Even with the most extreme bridge protection measures available currently, I am sceptical about their effectiveness in a similar event.”
The Key Bridge, in the minds of Baltimore residents, was synonymous with “employment,” as expressed succinctly by a past mayor. It represented a tangible emblem of the local economy, bearing the weight of 30,000 vehicles each day. The destruction ceased operations at the 11th largest port in the U.S.A, a critical junction for automobile transport and the second highest for coal.
“This is not just any bridge. It symbolises the mighty edifices of American infrastructure,” Peter Buttigieg, the U.S secretary of transport commented upon his arrival in the city on Tuesday.
The local skyline, for many of us, has been defined by this particular region for as long as we’ve been alive. Resuming normalcy will undoubtedly be a difficult, slow and costly process. However, together we will reconstruct.
By Tuesday night, a briefing was held for the relatives of the six men who were yet to be found. Carlos Suazo, brother of missing crew member Maynor, felt frustrated after the meeting, stating, “We came here with high hopes, but unfortunately no new information has been presented.” He went on to mention their desire for the US to eventually rebuild the damaged bridge, and more pressingly, to recover the bodies of the lost ones.
The loss of these six men is undoubtedly the dominant tragedy arising from this incident, and is underscored by the surprising fact that more lives weren’t claimed. As difficult and time-consuming as the investigation promises to be, a grainy crash footage provides us with the basic facts. The ship lost power and subsequently struck the supporting structure.
Tinglong Dai, an operations management and business analytics specialist at Johns Hopkins, was able to deduce immediately upon watching the video that it would generate worldwide news headlines. “This clip is continuously replayed globally, accompanying images of widespread supply chain issues and images of immobilised ships in Panama – it’s not a national crisis,” he states.
Dai recognises the power of these images to shape public opinion, yet he does not wish to overemphasise their impact. Instead, he reassures all that, owing to the robustness and resilience of the global supply chain, we should ultimately reach a state of normalcy.