• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Key Bridge Collapse in Baltimore

ShadowNate

Member
Hope the casualties are minimal.

Is this a frequently used bridge?

Looks like the US time was 2 am in the morning, so maybe traffic was very low or non-existent. Hopefully.
 

LQX

Member
This is one of those things that looks so unreal you don't even know how to react to it initially, but then you take it all in and its nightmare fuel. Falling nearly 200 feet into pitch black freezing water. Fuck. It was past 2AM in the morning so hopefully there were not a lot of people driving.

Also, I read it is modern ship so it's crazy it did not have the means to stop.
 

FunkMiller

Gold Member
Ugh. This is horrible. And the way it collapsed like a child’s toy was incredible. Good job it was early morning… although there were construction crew on the bridge apparently. Absolutely awful.
 
Last edited:

winjer

Gold Member
What a major screw up.



The cargo ship that hit Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge was a Singaporean-flagged container ship, the DALI, according to data from a maritime monitoring site and a Coast Guard officer.

Maritime tracking website, MarineTraffic, showed the Singapore-flagged ship stopped in Baltimore, where it was departing with a destination of Colombo, Sri Lanka. It appeared stopped around 1:30 a.m. ET and was surrounded by first response boats, per the website.

It is the same time local agencies reported they received 911 calls that a large ship traveling outbound from Baltimore had struck a column on the bridge, Kevin Cartwright, spokesperson for the Baltimore Fire Department told AP.

Matthew West, a petty officer first class for the Coast Guard in Baltimore, also told the New York Times it was the DALI that struck the bridge.

The ship is around 300 meters (984 feet) long with a width of around 48 meters (157 feet), according to MarineTraffic data.
 
Last edited:
Reminds me of the Sunshine Skyway disaster in Tampa bay when I was a kid. Except that happened when a lot more traffic was on the bridge.
 

Thaedolus

Gold Member
Can’t find it now but I saw a video pointing out the ship lost and regained power twice as it was turning toward the bridge…looks like mechanical failure was a key factor

CNN says seven people are still missing 😑
 
Last edited:

Valedix

Member


Thoughts are with the people, crew & rescue workers, that shit must've been terrifying to witness.

edit: sorry didn't see thread already on this, have asked for it to be removed.
 
Last edited:

Rival

Gold Member
Truly terrifying and will cause a lot of problems for transit and commerce. This closes a major port for a long time. Hopefully people that were on the bridge can be rescued but damn that doesn’t look good.
 

Ownage

Member
The port is going to be shut down for weeks. All traffic in and out are now paused until it gets cleaned up.

This will have an economic impact on the area for a bit.

Fun fact: while Baltimore gets a bad rep for all of the shenanigans that go on there, there are both some very nice, chill people as well as some very hot ones who live there. An underrated city with some hidden gems.
 
Last edited:

navii

My fantasy is that my girlfriend was actually a young high school girl.
That's a bad day at work. Sorry for all the people who lost their lives 😔
 

GladiusFrog

Member
The port is going to be shut down for weeks. All traffic in and out are now paused until it gets cleaned up.

This will have an economic impact on the area for a bit.

Fun fact: while Baltimore gets a bad rep for all of the shenanigans that go on there, there are both some very nice, chill people as well as some very hot ones who live there. An underrated city with some hidden gems.
You ain't fooling me, Born and raised in East Baltimore, it's a shit show that city.
 

Ecotic

Member
I watch this 'Mighty Ships' show on the Smithsonian channel that details the journey of cruise ships, container ships, medical ships, aircraft carriers, and so on. And it's made me realize just how tenuous getting in and out of a port can be. Harbors and ports can be oddly shaped or shallow (sometimes both), and ships keep getting bigger and bigger with less clearance room above and below the ship. Oftentimes, such complicated maneuvers are needed to get in and out of a port that the bridge and engineering crews have to rehearse it for days ahead of time because, for example, if just one maneuvering propeller doesn't fire at just the right time then the whole ship could slam into a major shipping port, and then the company will be mired in a litigation and insurance nightmare for years. In the show, the captains will usually detail what will happen if something goes wrong, and it's crazy to see that worst-case scenario playing out on t.v. right now.
 
The Wire Reaction GIF

Damn
 

DaciaJC

Gold Member
When I read "collapse" I figured just part of the bridge was brought low, not that the entire thing crumpled like a house of cards. Absolutely terrifying. I dearly hope everyone on the bridge survived.
 

Ownage

Member
I hope this isn't an "Orion Hammer" incident. This tech exists.


Operation Orion Hammer, the Navy tasking to investigate potential cyber interference in the operation of the guided-missile destroyer, has not uncovered any indications that a cyber attack affected the ship’s control systems just prior to the crash, three Navy officials confirmed to USNI News on Thursday. McCain reportedly lost control of its steering just moments before the collision with tanker Alnic MC in a busy shipping channel.
 
Last edited:

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.

Damn, the fact that this video is 30 seconds long and goes from "the bridge is fine" to "the bridge isn't there anymore" is crazy.
 

NickFire

Member
This is one of those things that looks so unreal you don't even know how to react to it initially, but then you take it all in and its nightmare fuel. Falling nearly 200 feet into pitch black freezing water. Fuck. It was past 2AM in the morning so hopefully there were not a lot of people driving.

Also, I read it is modern ship so it's crazy it did not have the means to stop.
I don't know the ins and outs of modern cargo ships but I do have some experience on coastal waters. If a boat loses power / propulsion there isn't much you can do to stop it without external intervention. Inertia, wind, and currents take over.
 

DKehoe

Member
I don't know the ins and outs of modern cargo ships but I do have some experience on coastal waters. If a boat loses power / propulsion there isn't much you can do to stop it without external intervention. Inertia, wind, and currents take over.
That's gotta be a pretty terrifying moment to suddenly lose that control and know you can't do anything but watch. Especially so when it's that kind of weight.
 

NickFire

Member
That's gotta be a pretty terrifying moment to suddenly lose that control and know you can't do anything but watch. Especially so when it's that kind of weight.
Especially in the middle of night. I don't know how quickly people could get into position to try to avert a disaster in the daytime when something like this happens, but I have to believe there's less people ready to go at that hour.
 

Cyberpunkd

Member
Maybe the bridge has structural damage before the collision?
From Wikipedia:
It is generally impossible for a bridge support to withstand the direct impact of a large ship, and this is what directly brought down the spans supported by the impacted pillar.[32] Furthermore, as a continuous truss bridge which relies on its overall structure to maintain integrity, when the south and central span collapsed the northern component (the third span) soon followed.[16] Each failure sequence took seconds, and within thirty seconds the entirety of the central span was in the river.[33]
 

hyperbertha

Member
I hope this isn't an "Orion Hammer" incident. This tech exists.


Operation Orion Hammer, the Navy tasking to investigate potential cyber interference in the operation of the guided-missile destroyer, has not uncovered any indications that a cyber attack affected the ship’s control systems just prior to the crash, three Navy officials confirmed to USNI News on Thursday. McCain reportedly lost control of its steering just moments before the collision with tanker Alnic MC in a busy shipping channel.
Sigh There a conspiracy theory for everything isn't there?
 
I have driven over that bridges many, many times. I am absolutely stunned.

When the”everyday things” we take for granted stop working for us, it causes our greatest disruptions.

Yes, economically, the east coast and honestly the whole North America will be impacted for quite some time. Ships from all over the world will have to be rerouted to other ports For years? I am not sure how long to rebuild a bridge of this magnitude.

Hopefully terrorism can be ruled out.

The world needs to look at the sad state of our infrastructure. Stop warmongering and rebuild our world infrastructure.
 

Thaedolus

Gold Member
I have driven over that bridges many, many times. I am absolutely stunned.

When the”everyday things” we take for granted stop working for us, it causes our greatest disruptions.

Yes, economically, the east coast and honestly the whole North America will be impacted for quite some time. Ships from all over the world will have to be rerouted to other ports For years? I am not sure how long to rebuild a bridge of this magnitude.

Hopefully terrorism can be ruled out.

The world needs to look at the sad state of our infrastructure. Stop warmongering and rebuild our world infrastructure.
I don’t disagree that we should spend more on building things than destroying them, but you’re not going to infrastructure your way out of a cargo ship bullseying the support like that
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom