Maryland's Key Bridge collapses after being struck by a container ship

Luckily AM not PM

Ha! Imagine that captain’s face seconds before impact.

Holy fuck. That's terrifying and the casualties are going to be awfulmn

Unforgivable accident

This is a live stream of the Port of Baltimore. If you toggle back to about 1:23 AM, you'll see the ship floating into the left side of the frame. It was clearly having some kind of problem, because all the power went out twice before it struck the bridge at 1:28 AM

Terrifying.

That's scary as hell and I can't believe it still happens in 2024.

Shocking, cars, trucks, buses in the water. What a sad shit show. Feel for family and friends of the victims.

Some of those trucks narrowly escaped ruin. It did seem fortunate that few vehicles appeared to have been crossing the bridge at the moment of impact. I feel for the construction/road-work workers though.

Were there Mothman sightings in the days leading up to this?

Why is that I get a breaking news alert from Microsoft every time Trump scratches his balls or someone says something scandalous on Twitter, but this I hear about from DL? Ridiculous.

Besides the potential horrific casualties, this is going to screw up Baltimore travel and commerce for years to come. I hope Mink Stole is okay.

I don’t think there were many, if any cars on the bridge when it broke apart. Gave word to close it when they hit.

Container ships are evil. Like Boeing.

I blame Divine.

Dont go a-changin Baltimore.

This is why you don't put a hillbilly from South Bend in charge of transportation.

What exactly could Pete or any Transportation Secretary done to have prevented this, R16?

It had a hot arch, but it couldn't suspend forever.

You’re an idiot, R16.

Damn...watch it collapse!

The Francis Scott Key Bridge is an insatiable bottom.

The only blessing is that this was 1 am, with not a huge number of cars on the bridge vs what it might have been during the day.

[quote] This is why you don't put a hillbilly from South Bend in charge of transportation.

🙄🙄🙄 Congrats, R16! Among the many stupid things posted on DL over the last 29 years, this has to be one of the most idiotic. A container ship crashed into the bridge support causing the bridge to collapse. How exactly is this tragedy Pete’s fault? Was he steering the ship? Did Pete overlook something when he was personally inspecting every bridge in the U.S.?

R23 Pete was flexing his muscles at the Singaporean twinks driving the ship, of course.

Or was he presenting hole?

Diddy did it. Bet.

FF R16 for complete stupidity

I need to watch The Wire again

This reminds me of the bridge collapse in south Padre Island years ago. A barge struck the bridge from the island to Matamoras, Mexico. Cars plunged into the water. This one was so early perhaps not many people were on it.

We already have supply chain issues. This is only making matters worse. This is such a strange accident.

Ship Lost Power Before Hitting Key Bridge in Baltimore

Baah-din did it!

Your only post, r16?

R16 Hillbilly? He was the smartest and thinnest one there.

The ship was able to put out a Mayday before it hit so they were able to stop almost all of the traffic. There were just a few unlucky ones that were stuck. (They must have worked really quickly in order to stop traffic that fast)

Fall Down, Go Boom!

Baltimore bridge collapse, port closure sends companies scrambling to reroute cargo

Six workers at collapse presumed dead, construction exec says

There was construction being performed overnight and several workers were killed in the accident

Yes, there's maritime schools for cargo ship captains. There is one near me that's part of TX A&M in Galveston.

Why didn’t the construction workers leave the bridge? I thought there was a mayday minutes in advance?

R40: I'm guessing that they didn't get the message? I've been watching the Baltimore NBC affiliate online today. (I find local news broadcasts more informative during disasters).

They interviewed an employee of the road construction company, who was not on last night's crew, but had rushed to the scene because he was friends with all the guys who were & he'd worked that shift on the bridge before. He said it was a 9pm - 5am shift, so the crew would have been on their regular 30 minute "lunch" break when the ship struck (or issued the mayday call). They would have been sitting inside the company trucks having something to eat, or just resting.

I would imagine that even if one of them had glanced out their truck window & noticed the ship, they might not have been able to tell it was off-course from their vantage point. But it does make you wonder. Didn't anyone have the crew foreman's cell phone number?? Or some type of radio contact? I mean, Highway Patrol (or whatever its called in Maryland) must have been in some type of contact with them....because there were lane closures on the bridge for the pothole repair, which were to be reopened for morning commute.

R41 an alarm should have been at the bridge and gone off.

Could they have made it off the bridge in 2-3 minutes, running to a vehicle and then speeding off? Maybe they were fleeing. Its an incredibly long bridge.

[bold] Baltimore is about to learn Buttigieg isn't great at disasters[/bold]....LINK......Sadly Maryland probably won't see Pete again. Just like the Ohio train disaster when Pete promised he would return and hasn't been seen since.

Even USA Today has mopped up Pete. The way Biden and Pete handled the East Palestine mess turned Ohio redder.

R43: In video of the collapse, the company's trucks were parked/stationary the entire time. If they were fleeing right before impact, they were doing so on foot.

[quote] Why didn’t the construction workers leave the bridge?

A Maryland State Trooper said that immediately after they were able to stop traffic he was about to drive out to the workers, and that was when the bridge collapsed. Now why someone didn’t call the workers, who knows. It might not have mattered because everything happened so quickly. They might not have had enough time to start their cars and drive off this very long bridge. But they might have, if someone could have contacted them quickly enough.

When you look at the size of the ship relative to what’s left of the bridge you can see that the bridge didn’t stand a chance against that behemoth.

Expert says Baltimore bridge collapse will have painful impact on supply chain

Hazmat trucks severely impacted by bridge collapse

NTSB to brief public on Baltimore bridge collapse

I watched the end of the NTSB news conference.

The ship has power but can't be moved.

The ship carried hazardous materials including lithium-ion batteries.

Another YouTube video reported the remains of two additional victims have been recovered.

>>Brawner Builders' owner Jack Murphy stated on the company's website.

"Highway workers are engaged in one of the most dangerous occupations in the United States and yet they go out every day on our highways to make things better for everyone," he said.

He added the company had taken "every step necessary" to ensure the workers' safety.

"Unfortunately, this tragic event was completely unforeseen and was not something that we could imagine would happen," he said.

BUT:

>>The question came just seconds before a cargo ship slammed into a bridge in the US city of Baltimore in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

"Is there a crew at work on the bridge right now?"

"Just want to make sure no one's on the bridge right now," dispatchers could be heard saying over their radios.

There was a crew on the bridge – eight men, working the night shift in Baltimore's freezing temperatures, repairing potholes on a bridge used by tens of thousands every day.

"I'm not sure whether there's a crew up there," another voice over the radio said.

OKAY, it happened too quickly to warn the workers, but the despatch crew not being sure if there was even a crew working up there was a big fail on behalf of at least one party.

The dead bridge workers were Latino immigrants who have been sending money home for years to their families in poverty back home. Univisión has detailed each man. I don't wanna be the immigration troll, but they were working nights doing work nobody else wants for us and now who will care for their families? Maybe nobody was around to tell them in Spanish to save themselves? I had to say a prayer when I saw their weeping mamas.

[quote]they were working nights doing work nobody else wants for us

How do you know “nobody else wants?”

And the families will have to cope just like any other family who loses a loved one or breadwinner. Don’t make them out to be some heroes who sacrificed their lives for the USA. You make them sound like they have no agency.

They fell off a fucking bridge into the water. Wtf are you on about agency for? You think they choose that death? You fucking bigot. They sacrificed for their families and I respect that just like I do any good man.

Exactly my point—ANY good man regardless of race, class, color would have been a sacrifice for their family. The poster I was responding to was making a point that it’s sadder for them just because they’re immigrants. They are no different than anyone else trying to make a living.

It would be tragic for any person to die on the job and I never said they deserved it.

Four people remain"missing"