Francis Scott Key bridge collapse (Baltimore)

[Bazza]

It had not even occurred to me that the port is blocked. I was thinking more in terms of how trucks are going to get to the port. It was awful in Memphis when the Hernando DeSoto bridge across the Mississippi River was closed down. Traffic to get through Memphis and across the older bridge was horrible.

This is a several layers worse. The old bridge wreckage will have to be removed before the port can even become usable. I don't know if they'll drag it out to sea and sink it or cut it up into manageable pieces. Then, a whole new bridge will have to be designed and built. This could take years.

I'm no expert, Joe......but given the transportation and shipping significance of the situation I bet it gets opened up pretty quickly. Especially if Mayor Pete gets involved. He seems to be very efficient at resolving our transportation issues.....

 

[Go Bama]

I'm no expert, Joe......but given the transportation and shipping significance of the situation I bet it gets opened up pretty quickly. Especially if Mayor Pete gets involved. He seems to be very efficient at resolving our transportation issues.....

I agree, they will get the bridge moved out of the way quickly, but it will be a major traffic issue getting to and from the port until the bridge is rebuilt. All those shipping containers have to be trucked.

 

[Bazza]

I agree, they will get the bridge moved out of the way quickly, but it will be a major traffic issue getting to and from the port until the bridge is rebuilt. All those shipping containers have to be trucked.

The American Trucking Association estimates 4,900 trucks per day carrying an annual average of $28 billion worth of goods would have to be re-rerouted as a result of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse — at a cost to shippers and ultimately consumers.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1772700200433274924

 

[UAH]

The American Trucking Association estimates 4,900 trucks per day carrying an annual average of $28 billion worth of goods would have to be re-rerouted as a result of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse — at a cost to shippers and ultimately consumers.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1772700200433274924

After being involved to some degree in international shipping I don't expect it to affect goods availability significantly. It is fairly easy to reroute to Portland, Boston, NYC, Virginia, Charleston, Savannah and Jacksonville. It is all picked up by trucks as already stated and it is no huge matter to reroute trucks.

 

[92tide]

After being involved to some degree in international shipping I don't expect it to affect goods availability significantly. It is fairly easy to reroute to Portland, Boston, NYC, Virginia, Charleston, Savannah and Jacksonville. It is all picked up by trucks as already stated and it is no huge matter to reroute trucks.

brunswick moves a lot of autos. but i don't know what their capacity is.

 

[Bazza]

After being involved to some degree in international shipping I don't expect it to affect goods availability significantly. It is fairly easy to reroute to Portland, Boston, NYC, Virginia, Charleston, Savannah and Jacksonville. It is all picked up by trucks as already stated and it is no huge matter to reroute trucks.

Thanks and agree!

Yellow line is the now missing bridge. All the red dots are shipping ports. Baltimore is largest roll on roll off facility on the east coast. The ports handle containers, cars, trucks, coal as well as sugar (Domino is one of the top left hand dots) and cruise ships. Everything will divert to Norfolk, NJ, and NY ports. Much larger for container freight.

Would think the channel will be cleared relatively quickly as they can cut and pull the steel structure. That would get the port back open and functioning.

Fortunately the road traffic over the bridge is probably less than 10% of the total traffic moving north-south in that area. Most of the vehicle traffic uses the two tunnels that you can see slightly above the yellow line crossing the water (I95 and I895 tunnels). Bridge only has 11 million crossings a year (30K a day).

 

[Bamaro]

The pothole repair crew was apparently on break and in their cars, parked on the bridge, when this happened. They are all unaccounted for and probably still in their cars at the bottom of the harbor which is 50' deep here.

 

[Bamaro]

brunswick moves a lot of autos. but i don't know what their capacity is.

Cars are a little different since there is a larg temporary storeage facility here.

 

[92tide]

Cars are a little different since there is a larg temporary storeage facility here.

apparently, brunswick is the #2 roro facility behind baltimore

Port of Brunswick - Georgia Ports Authority

The fastest growing port

gaports.com

 

[TIDE-HSV]

Something's fishy. Black smoke is pouring out of the funnel. When diesels aren't working, they don't pour out smoke...

 

[TIDE-HSV]

I'll see if I can raise Tug Tide...

 

[Bazza]

Something's fishy. Black smoke is pouring out of the funnel. When diesels aren't working, they don't pour out smoke...

A captain just interviewed said that's probably when they got the engines going again and slammed it full power into reverse. (paraphrasing)

 

[JDCrimson]

I wonder if they could use a couple if these container ships to operate as a swinging bridge until this section is replaced?

 

[Tug Tide]

Been a long day here on the boat. Obviously when we saw the initial reports it was like a gut punch knowing that lives were lost.

Here’s a few thoughts from my perspective and experience, mixed in with some of the reported facts.

1. From everything I’ve seen and read, the pilot and bridge team SAVED lives. They were able to communicate a MAYDAY to the coast guard in time for GC to notify local police/EMS. The police were able to stop traffic on one side of the bridge.

2. Don’t listen to any nuts talking about conspiracy theories, Capt being from Ukraine, nonsense. This was mechanical failure in the engine room IMO. You can see the exterior deck lights go out for about about 10 seconds and then come back on. Then go out again before impact. This is 95% probability of being generator failure related.

3. Actions taken in the wheelhouse will be revealed when the investigation gets moving and the VDR (voyage data recorder or black box) is reviewed.
Based on what you can see, I believe the ship lost steering completely. when the generator failure happened. Some systems take more time than others for backup steering to come online.

3.When you see the large amount of black smoke, that’s the ship being put full astern IMO. Trust me they were burning some fuel trying to slow that baby down.

4. You will see the port anchor is down, that likely didn’t help them or hurt them, but you if you decide slowing down is the best option you have to try it. I’m amazed at the reports of no injuries/fatalities to crew considering the amount of steel that came down on the bow. At least two crew would have been on the bow to drop the hook.

5. Arm chair Captaining will be all over the place. Here’s mine: Maybe, just maybe depending on the actual facts on scene, maybe backing down and dropping the hook . Watch closely and soon after you see the black smoke you will see the bow sheer to starboard towards the bridge abutment. This happens to a right turning prop smile screw boat when put astern. Normal it will be gradual and subtle but not full astern at 8 or so knots. This will be dissected by better boatmen than me for years. Depending on the angle of the rudder, if/when steering was restored maybe they should have gone full ahead scraped it along the length of the side of the ship.

6. The AIS data shows that the ship was STBD side to at the dock and turned around off the dock to head outbound. Once they got it turned and pointed south, the tugs were released and both started to head to either another job or a dock to tie up. At some point you see the closer of the two tugs rip a 180 and race south. Even had the tugs been left secured to the ship, at that speed they would have only been putting their own crew in danger by trying to work the ship.


I’m actually scheduled for an Advanced Shiphandling course this summer. It’s a course with 1/25 scale manned models of mostly single screw ships (I work on twin screw tugs) Several of the practice maneuvers are emergency steering/ anchor drop moves. I’m looking forward to the experience and I’m certain there will be some lessons taken away from it.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

Been a long day here on the boat. Obviously when we saw the initial reports it was like a gut punch knowing that lives were lost.

Here’s a few thoughts from my perspective and experience, mixed in with some of the reported facts.

1. From everything I’ve seen and read, the pilot and bridge team SAVED lives. They were able to communicate a MAYDAY to the coast guard in time for GC to notify local police/EMS. The police were able to stop traffic on one side of the bridge.

2. Don’t listen to any nuts talking about conspiracy theories, Capt being from Ukraine, nonsense. This was mechanical failure in the engine room IMO. You can see the exterior deck lights go out for about about 10 seconds and then come back on. Then go out again before impact. This is 95% probability of being generator failure related.

3. Actions taken in the wheelhouse will be revealed when the investigation gets moving and the VDR (voyage data recorder or black box) is reviewed.
Based on what you can see, I believe the ship lost steering completely. when the generator failure happened. Some systems take more time than others for backup steering to come online.

3.When you see the large amount of black smoke, that’s the ship being put full astern IMO. Trust me they were burning some fuel trying to slow that baby down.

4. You will see the port anchor is down, that likely didn’t help them or hurt them, but you if you decide slowing down is the best option you have to try it. I’m amazed at the reports of no injuries/fatalities to crew considering the amount of steel that came down on the bow. At least two crew would have been on the bow to drop the hook.

5. Arm chair Captaining will be all over the place. Here’s mine: Maybe, just maybe depending on the actual facts on scene, maybe backing down and dropping the hook . Watch closely and soon after you see the black smoke you will see the bow sheer to starboard towards the bridge abutment. This happens to a right turning prop smile screw boat when put astern. Normal it will be gradual and subtle but not full astern at 8 or so knots. This will be dissected by better boatmen than me for years. Depending on the angle of the rudder, if/when steering was restored maybe they should have gone full ahead scraped it along the length of the side of the ship.

6. The AIS data shows that the ship was STBD side to at the dock and turned around off the dock to head outbound. Once they got it turned and pointed south, the tugs were released and both started to head to either another job or a dock to tie up. At some point you see the closer of the two tugs rip a 180 and race south. Even had the tugs been left secured to the ship, at that speed they would have only been putting their own crew in danger by trying to work the ship.


I’m actually scheduled for an Advanced Shiphandling course this summer. It’s a course with 1/25 scale manned models of mostly single screw ships (I work on twin screw tugs) Several of the practice maneuvers are emergency steering/ anchor drop moves. I’m looking forward to the experience and I’m certain there will be some lessons taken away from it.

TT, I've since seen a close water-level video. The ship was going to miss and go through the channel when the lights blink and it appears to take a hard starboard turn into the support, black smoke pouring out. Could there have been a current at that point, steering him into the pier? Speaking of current , they said it was doing 9 knots...

 

[TIDE-HSV]

Been a long day here on the boat. Obviously when we saw the initial reports it was like a gut punch knowing that lives were lost.

Here’s a few thoughts from my perspective and experience, mixed in with some of the reported facts.

1. From everything I’ve seen and read, the pilot and bridge team SAVED lives. They were able to communicate a MAYDAY to the coast guard in time for GC to notify local police/EMS. The police were able to stop traffic on one side of the bridge.

2. Don’t listen to any nuts talking about conspiracy theories, Capt being from Ukraine, nonsense. This was mechanical failure in the engine room IMO. You can see the exterior deck lights go out for about about 10 seconds and then come back on. Then go out again before impact. This is 95% probability of being generator failure related.

3. Actions taken in the wheelhouse will be revealed when the investigation gets moving and the VDR (voyage data recorder or black box) is reviewed.
Based on what you can see, I believe the ship lost steering completely. when the generator failure happened. Some systems take more time than others for backup steering to come online.

3.When you see the large amount of black smoke, that’s the ship being put full astern IMO. Trust me they were burning some fuel trying to slow that baby down.

4. You will see the port anchor is down, that likely didn’t help them or hurt them, but you if you decide slowing down is the best option you have to try it. I’m amazed at the reports of no injuries/fatalities to crew considering the amount of steel that came down on the bow. At least two crew would have been on the bow to drop the hook.

5. Arm chair Captaining will be all over the place. Here’s mine: Maybe, just maybe depending on the actual facts on scene, maybe backing down and dropping the hook . Watch closely and soon after you see the black smoke you will see the bow sheer to starboard towards the bridge abutment. This happens to a right turning prop smile screw boat when put astern. Normal it will be gradual and subtle but not full astern at 8 or so knots. This will be dissected by better boatmen than me for years. Depending on the angle of the rudder, if/when steering was restored maybe they should have gone full ahead scraped it along the length of the side of the ship.

6. The AIS data shows that the ship was STBD side to at the dock and turned around off the dock to head outbound. Once they got it turned and pointed south, the tugs were released and both started to head to either another job or a dock to tie up. At some point you see the closer of the two tugs rip a 180 and race south. Even had the tugs been left secured to the ship, at that speed they would have only been putting their own crew in danger by trying to work the ship.


I’m actually scheduled for an Advanced Shiphandling course this summer. It’s a course with 1/25 scale manned models of mostly single screw ships (I work on twin screw tugs) Several of the practice maneuvers are emergency steering/ anchor drop moves. I’m looking forward to the experience and I’m certain there will be some lessons taken away from it.

I had to take a phone call and I see you've covered part of my questions. They've said it was 9 knots, appx, but it appeared to me that it was hauling ass. I've watched hundreds from the point there at VA Beach. They didn't appear to be going that much faster entering the Atlantic...

 

[CrimsonNagus]

This was interesting. He says trying to “back down” causes single prop ships to turn and may have done more harm than help, if that’s what they tried to do. He thinks not backing down and letting her coast forward may have been a better option. Of course it is all just educated guessing right now.

 

[Elefantman]

 

[Tug Tide]

I had to take a phone call and I see you've covered part of my questions. They've said it was 9 knots, appx, but it appeared to me that it was hauling ass. I've watched hundreds from the point there at VA Beach. They didn't appear to be going that much faster entering the Atlantic...

The apparent speed on ships that size is deceiving. Another mile or so down the bay and they would have been up to around 13 kts.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

Hopefully they can clear the channel ASAP, even while salvage/removal operations are still going on. However, vehicle traffic over the harbor will suffer for years. There are two tunnels just north of this bridge under the harbor (I 95 and I 895) but they will require a significant detour.

And - SIAP - those tunnels can't carry hazmat...