OT Key Bridge collapse - seems surreal

[fourflys]

Originally Posted by m_sasso

A warning system and the limited access highway should be immediately closed to limit vehicle and pedestrian traffic on the bridge. Especially in places that see frequent shipping traffic traveling underneath the bridges.

yeah, um.. that happens when SSBNs (missile subs) transit in and out of their base in Bangor, WA (my previous unit did the escorts), they close the Hood Canal Bridge (since they have to open it).. that causes SO much hate and discontent that I can't imagine a more major bridge (like the one in Baltimore) closing and the chaos that would cause..

[Spaghetti Legs]

Originally Posted by fourflys

I was wondering about that as well.. do these ships have a special sea detail while transiting? we always had a full crew forward and aft, in the emergency steering room, etc.. I do wonder how long they would have had to drop the anchor, it catch, etc.. I do imagine they have a LOT of anchor chain though..

I saw a brief mention somewhere today, but not repeated, that they dropped an anchor. Clearly to no effect though

Originally Posted by m_sasso

What about the unlucky people that kept driving part way over that bridge and then fell?

Seems to me this has happened frequently enough that there should be some sort of prevention system in place when these ships lose power near a well traveled bridge. A warning system and the limited access highway should be immediately closed to limit vehicle and pedestrian traffic on the bridge. Especially in places that see frequent shipping traffic traveling underneath the bridges.

Apparently they got warning the ship was adrift and actually did close the bridge right before the collision.

[rounder]

I live north of Baltimore and was driving south today to Bethesda. There are three ways to go across Baltimore harbor. One way is the Ft. McHenry tunnel on I-95. Another is the old Harbor Tunnel on I-895 (that is the way I go). The third way is over the Francis Scott Key bridge that was struck by the container ship. Traffic going south today was bad, but not as bad as I expected. It will probably be bad for a long time.

I heard on the news that the ship was slow moving and, because it was so slow, they were able to notify the authorities so that they could stop cars from going over the bridge to avoid the accident. But there were construction workers on the bridge who fell into the water.

[weisan]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...ing-rcna145134

The frantic phone calls jolted Earl Schneider awake.

A friend who works at a hospital wanted to make sure Schneider, a structural foreman for Brawner Builders, was not on the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore when it was struck by a cargo ship and collapsed early Tuesday morning.

He was not, and he had not worked on the bridge, a major part of the busy Port of Baltimore, for about two weeks. But he knew every person who had been assigned that morning to fix potholes on the bridge’s roadway, directly above where the ship hit.

One by one, he called his colleagues, including some who had recently had babies. Each call went to voicemail.

“I know everybody on that crew personally. They’re all great people,” Schneider said, declining to name them. “It’s tough. It’s been a rough morning.”

At least six people are missing after the cargo ship notified authorities of a “power issue” and issued a mayday moments before slamming into the bridge a little after 1 a.m., authorities said.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said an unknown number of workers were doing repairs on the bridge when the ship hit a support pillar.

About three or four of them had welcomed newborns within the last year, according to Schneider, 33.

The Dali was on its way to Sri Lanka when it struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge.Tasos Katopodis / Getty Images


“Folks had their lives changed in a blink of an eye,” he said. “You don’t know how much time you’ve got.”

The crash is under investigation. The governor said it was likely the result of an accident and not an act of terrorism. The bridge, which is about a mile-and-a-half long, was “fully up to code," he said.

Two people were rescued from the water, Baltimore Fire Chief James Wallace said. One was in good condition, and the other was seriously injured. It's unclear if they are construction workers.

One of the missing workers is Maynor Suazo, a father of two, who is originally from Honduras, his brother said. Suazo’s family were informed of his disappearance between 3 and 4 a.m. but had not heard any updates Tuesday evening.

“The hope we have is to be able to see the body,” Suazo’s brother said. “We want to see him, find him, know whether he is dead, because we don’t know anything.”


Schneider last worked on the bridge about two weeks ago, leaving him grappling with some guilt over feeling grateful.

“It’s tragic in a sense of like, it’s a blessing I wasn’t on there, but it comes at the cost of somebody else,” he said.

James Krutzfeldt, 34, another foreman for Brawner Builders, was also recently moved off bridge repairs — a project that he said has been ongoing for about four years. He also last worked on the bridge two weeks ago.

“We all bounce around,” he said. “It’s sad. I haven’t really realized it yet. I’m still kind of in shock.”

One of the workers who is unaccounted for is another foreman whom Krutzfeldt considers his mentor and “work dad.”

That worker “brought me up through Brawner’s ranks to become a foreman,” Krutzfeldt said, declining to name his colleagues.

“We’re all just waiting for a phone call,” he said. “It’s all up in the air."

[bicycletricycle]

Originally Posted by bikinchris

When people complain about government oversight of business and cry that they want less "interference" I always think that business will cut corners to the detriment of safety. This is a perfect example.

Ya, government doesn’t cut corners

[Mr.Appa]

Originally Posted by yarg

If you look at the picture OtayBW posted you can see the power line poles are protected. I cannot imagine why pier protection for bridges in maritime environments like this is not mandated. As a civil engineer this just boggles my mind.

It boggles my mind, too, but the scale of it is eye watering. That's a lot of potential energy going into a pretty tiny chunk of concrete in comparison, and I can't imagine the boat blocker on the transmission tower would've fared any better.

I agree that if its not part of AASHTO bridge design manual or not required by an outside regulator for CEII/CUI (which this bridge probably isn't, although it may make sense to include it now?) then it won't be mandated. And it still probably won't because 1) unfunded mandates aren't particularly popular (and we can already not keep thousands of bridges structurally competent without a boat ramming into it) and 2) in a risk framework this is way less than it just being deficient due to age or seismic risk (remember that EQ in 2011 that this bridge wasn't designed for?)

It's the talk of the office in my design group full of a bunch of Civils on how this will play out. None of us are sure. But we hope that the whatever lessons and information we learn from this is worth the 6 lives it cost (as of 20:36 PST)

[Louis]

Originally Posted by Mr.Appa

It boggles my mind, too, but the scale of it is eye watering. That's a lot of potential energy going into a pretty tiny chunk of concrete in comparison, and I can't imagine the boat blocker on the transmission tower would've fared any better.

Not to be pedantic, but that was kinetic energy, not potential (although those containers are stacked pretty high up there).

[bigbill]

Lots of whizzing in the wind on this thread.

I was an Officer of the Deck on a Nimitz Class carrier during OIF and OEF. We were doing combat ops, so the 1100-foot ship routinely weighed 104,000 tons with a full weapons and aviation fuel load. There are minimum speeds for steerage, usually around five knots. Below that speed, the rudder is not effective. There are no brakes, only astern propulsion, which further takes the rudders out of play. I drove the ship into Souda Bay, Crete, Koper, Slovenia, and anchored off Cartagena (the original one in Spain. I also drove in and out of Norfolk several times.

In my submarine days, once I was selected for commissioning, the Captain would let me connect the sub on the surface, including the Hood Canal Bridge, a few times, as mentioned by Fly.

It appears from the video and reports that the ship lost power and went dead in the water, which means they had no propulsion, steering, or instrumentation. The radios would have batteries which is why they could broadcast a mayday. Dropping the anchor is an action in narrow channels to avoid a collision or groundings. The ship still have forward way and no means to steer. I doubt the approach to the bridge is a straight line and there might have been tides or winds in play. A container ship is a big sail and at slow speeds, can get pushed around. In the Mediterranean, we backed down and stopped the carrier to recover a man overboard. I turned the ship to create a lee to launch a RHIB (rigid hull inflatable boat) to recover the guy about a mile away. By the time the RHIB reached the guy, we were only about 500 yards away due to the wind pushing the 104K ton carrier sideways.

There is a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking going around, but the NTSB, Coast Guard, and other organizations will investigate the incident which will likely come down a root cause for the loss of power. It could be human error, material failure, sucking a bunch of crap into the seawater system, or lack of supervision. No one here is an expert on modern container ships. I know they have small crews and quite a bit of automation, but not when transiting in and out of port, everyone is on the job.

[Mr.Appa]

Originally Posted by Louis

Not to be pedantic

Proceeds to be pedantic

[572cv]

Originally Posted by bigbill

Lots of whizzing in the wind on this thread.

I was an Officer of the Deck on a Nimitz Class carrier during OIF and OEF. We were doing combat ops, so the 1100-foot ship routinely weighed 104,000 tons with a full weapons and aviation fuel load. There are minimum speeds for steerage, usually around five knots. Below that speed, the rudder is not effective. There are no brakes, only astern propulsion, which further takes the rudders out of play. I drove the ship into Souda Bay, Crete, Koper, Slovenia, and anchored off Cartagena (the original one in Spain. I also drove in and out of Norfolk several times.

In my submarine days, once I was selected for commissioning, the Captain would let me connect the sub on the surface, including the Hood Canal Bridge, a few times, as mentioned by Fly.
It appears from the video and reports that the ship lost power and went dead in the water, which means they had no propulsion, steering, or instrumentation. The radios would have batteries which is why they could broadcast a mayday. Dropping the anchor is an action in narrow channels to avoid a collision or groundings. The ship still have forward way and no means to steer. I doubt the approach to the bridge is a straight line and there might have been tides or winds in play. A container ship is a big sail and at slow speeds, can get pushed around. In the Mediterranean, we backed down and stopped the carrier to recover a man overboard. I turned the ship to create a lee to launch a RHIB (rigid hull inflatable boat) to recover the guy about a mile away. By the time the RHIB reached the guy, we were only about 500 yards away due to the wind pushing the 104K ton carrier sideways.

There is a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking going around, but the NTSB, Coast Guard, and other organizations will investigate the incident which will likely come down a root cause for the loss of power. It could be human error, material failure, sucking a bunch of crap into the seawater system, or lack of supervision. No one here is an expert on modern container ships. I know they have small crews and quite a bit of automation, but not when transiting in and out of port, everyone is on the job.

Thanks for the clarity on operational considerations, and the vivid situational example. Very helpful in understanding. Working at/in different scales than the quotidien pretty much requires experience to get it right. Although trained in engineering, it’s always taken time to get the hang of the statics and dynamics of larger or smaller situations. This is big stuff. My brother in law deals with muons.

[Peter P.]

Originally Posted by benb

And yet here we are and it was a Maersk chartered vessel that caused this catastrophe.

It was a subersive Russian terrrorist attack, I tell ya', to sabotage the upcoming election!

[yarg]

Originally Posted by Mr.Appa

It boggles my mind, too, but the scale of it is eye watering. That's a lot of potential energy going into a pretty tiny chunk of concrete in comparison, and I can't imagine the boat blocker on the transmission tower would've fared any better.

I agree that if its not part of AASHTO bridge design manual or not required by an outside regulator for CEII/CUI (which this bridge probably isn't, although it may make sense to include it now?) then it won't be mandated. And it still probably won't because 1) unfunded mandates aren't particularly popular (and we can already not keep thousands of bridges structurally competent without a boat ramming into it) and 2) in a risk framework this is way less than it just being deficient due to age or seismic risk (remember that EQ in 2011 that this bridge wasn't designed for?)

It's the talk of the office in my design group full of a bunch of Civils on how this will play out. None of us are sure. But we hope that the whatever lessons and information we learn from this is worth the 6 lives it cost (as of 20:36 PST)

I realize that the protection of the power line was limited, but none the less, the owners thought it provided some protection against risk. There the risk is loss of power to customers and their infrastructure, not much chance of loss of life. The bridge is entirely different, much larger economic costs of a failed bridge and most important the almost certain loss of life. This could have been so much worse if occurred during rush hour. Risks like this are not acceptable.

I spent most of my career building bridges and roads not designing them. However, I am sure a that for the new bridge will either have a fender system designed and built to prevent this or the new bridge will not have its piers placed in a such a vulnerable position. For existing bridges in this environment this will become a hot topic for retrofit much like the Schoharie bridge collapse caused bridges to be evaluated for scour risk.

[weisan]

.https://www.npr.org/2024/03/27/12411...%20that%20year.

https://www.npr.org/2024/03/27/12411...%20that%20year.

The structure was built between 1972 and 1977, opening to the public on March 23 of that year. But its history goes much deeper than that, according to the Maryland Transportation Authority.

Scholars believe it stood within 100 yards of the site where its namesake, Francis Scott Key, witnessed the failed British bombardment of Fort McHenry in September 1814.

The bombardment was a key turning point in the War of 1812, forcing the British to abandon the land assault on the crucial port city of Baltimore. The two sides went on to reach a peace agreement later that year.

British warships fired thousands of exploding mortar shells, cannonballs and rockets at the fort for more than 25 hours, but inflicted only minor damage because it was so heavily fortified. The Americans raised their 30-by-42-foot garrison flag the next morning.

Key, an American lawyer, witnessed the battle from the British warship he had boarded to negotiate the release of a detained American civilian.

The awe he felt at seeing the flag rise the next morning inspired him to write "Defense of Fort McHenry," which was renamed "The Star-Spangled Banner" and became the U.S. national anthem in 1931.

[unterhausen]

There is a big traffic jam of ships outside the harbor while they figure out where else to go. Not all that many ships that can't leave, but that must be a pretty helpless feeling right now.

This guy must have had his channel really take off:
https://youtu.be/N39w6aQFKSQ?si=Fpu1EydakCJQNF3f

[tuxbailey]

It was such a terrifying event, straight from a disaster movie. And it confirms my anxiety every time I drive over the Bay Bridge.

Only silver lining is that this happened middle of the night and the ship was able to alert the authority to stop the traffic prior to the collision. I feel so bad for the working crew. They need add some kind of alert system on the bridge so they blast siren/text to notify people that are on that imminent danger would happen, just to give them a chance (just thinking out loud.)