Baltimore bridge collapses after ship strike

Be prepared that the new bridge will have to get a new name too.

No way on Gods green earth politicians will show up to re-open it still named after a guy who wrote that racist oppressive song.

Biden's Blunder or Buttigieg's Brownway would be appropriate....

Fox Mike said:

It is absolutely amazing how many posters in this thread are wearing their tinfoil hats way too tight. The Pilot reported a power problem well before they actually struck the bridge. Power did return but too late to turn or stop. That is called an 'accident'.

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I am sure there are some electronics on that ship , and who is to say they cannot be hacked and run by some one remotely . I assume you are referring to me in your " tin foil " comment . And that's just fine , I really don't trust very much the media reports to be accurate. Nothing wrong with being a bit skeptical ...................

While this was most likely a equipment failure of some kind, your skepticism has some merit. It highlights a seriously disruptive vulnerability to anyone who has the capability to act on it, whether a terrorist or a national enemy. And the entire world now knows it.

Reminds me of the Skyway Bridge accident down here in Florida in 1980 or so, when I used to be up there close to Baltimore and traveling around it every weekend. Prayers to all affected.

Just wait a minute. Don't the insurers of the shipping company have some exposure here? And shouldn't the city of Baltimore and the state of Maryland pony up some of the replacement cost as well?



Oh forget it, he's on a roll.

Imho, yes. And the shippers who had cargo/containers aboard are going to insist on reimbursement also. To say nothing of those who died, and financial loss due to disruption of normal shipping schedules for inbound and outbound. The ripples from this will spread far and wide. This is going to buy new BMW's for a battalion of lawyers.

Well, if Biden is going to commit the feds to paying all the costs of replacing the bridge, it'll likely take a minimum of ten years to rebuild it, cost at least five times what it should by the time all the graft gets spread around, and probably end up renamed after some communist or martyred street thug.

Heck, the environmental impact studies will likely take ten years all by themselves.

And in the end the new bridge will probably end up falling down under its own weight, given that minority architects and contractors will be given priority in designing and constructing the new George Floyd Memorial Skyway using the very latest in antiracist DEI ideology and carbon-neutral construction techniques.

Danjet500 said:

Seems to me there should always be tugs at the ready whenever ships are passing infrastructure that could be damaged by the ship. JMO

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Many harbors used to require tugs. Heck, before bow and stern thrusters tugs were necessary to push and pull the ship to it's final position. But after decades of paying for tugs and not using them some places removed the requirement. According to my neighbor, a tug boat hand, tugs are required for some ships depending on size and cargo, but not for others. And remember, ship owners are just as cheap or even cheaper than the US government.

Mobuck said:

I studied the videos for several minutes. Two things I noticed: the lights going off/on twice and the exhaust seems to come from the left exhaust port. If this ship has separate engines and drivelines for left and right, what I see indicates the left drive was going full bore causing the ship to turn right and directly into the bridge support. The exhaust smoke stops again just seconds before impact.
This is armchair quarterbacking to the fullest but is it possible the left side drive came back up to full, was still engaged in forward thrust, and pushed the bow directly into the support?

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A couple of articles I've seen suggest they lost rudder function with the power, and they managed to get enough emergency power back to drop one of the anchors in an attempt to keep the drifting Dali from hitting the bridge . . . but without power the anchor caused the freighter to pivot right into the pillar. You'd think if they managed to get any propulsion back at all, it would have been running in full reverse to keep it off the bridge . . .

Then again, my knowledge of things nautical is limited to Horatio Hornblower and Tom Clancy.

Update: Dali was cited by authorities in Chile last year for propulsion issues, although they appear to be minor and a subsequent inspection by the US Coast Guard turned up no problems.


I'm sure Dali's maintenance history will be front and center in the coming investigation.

According to Clarksons, the M/V Dali is owned by a subsidiary of the Japanese Mitsui & Co, Grace Ocean of Singapore, and operated by Synergy Marine on behalf of Maersk. The incident not only underscores the importance of rigorous maintenance and oversight of maritime vessels but also highlights the potential consequences of operational failures. With cargo from Maersk on board, the implications of the incident extend beyond maritime safety, touching on issues of supply chain reliability and the responsibilities of chartering companies.

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And I'm sure the insurers of all those companies are now sweating bullets.



Fortunately, this happened at oh-dark-thirty in the early morning with half the bridge shut down for pothole patching. As opposed to during morning rush hour.

I watch this guy, he has some good information about ships.

View from my office window this morning…..you can see the ship that hit the bridge….I will miss the sight of that bridge out my window. Especially while drinking my coffee on early mornings when still dark and on days that lasted well until dark…when the traffic started to fade on the bridge it was my time to start the long drive home.

What the heck good is it to have a harbor pilot on the ship? I don't understand why in a close maneuver there weren't tugs running that ship under the bridge. As is plain to see having a harbor pilot on the ship did absolutely no good at all. If the ship had tugs pulling it, it wouldn't matter if the ship lost power or not. Well, I guess someone learned a lesson on this one. Scrimping on the bill for the tugs really cost them this time.

One more thing...that bridge sure looked kind of flimsy to me. Looks like they built it using an "Erector Set".

XUSNORDIE said:

Unfortunately this area, and I'm sitting 500yds from the scene, is saturated with Distribution Centers......Home Depot, Several Amazons, Under Armour, McCormick, Floor & Decor, Niagara Water.....you name a retailer and it's here and more are being built. Today has been an absolute mess with trucking routes to stores and customers. I am an Asset Protection/Security Manager for one of the above retailers. The logistical types and third party carriers have been scrambling to adjust, it will take weeks. The flow of trucks/trains/ships with product has been slowed, same for the empty trucks/trains to be loaded and sent out to whatever destination.

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I understand your concerns - I used to live in a big port city on the West Coast. Everything you mentioned I've seen, including freeways that closely resemble miles long parking lots. Which is why I retired early and moved to a small unincorporated farming community in rural MS, 24 years ago.

That said, this is what you get when you cram a million or 2 people into a small geographic area along with all the stuff they build and turn it into a logistical hub. The least little problem is tremendously magnified, in terms of it's effect, on a much wider scale. It's only been less than 24 hours, and it's already having global effects. Not much different than when the Suez was shut years ago.

We're really not very smart, as a species, in this regard. We build giant cities on earthquake fault lines, and the slopes of active volcanoes (Pompei for example) among other places, and are surprised when it all goes in the crapper.

No big deal saying 'we' will pay for the bridge to be rebuilt if you think about it ... 'we' can then send the bill to who ever we think owes us for it and the reality is 'we' can take the money if we want to.

Morning update. Boy was I ever low-balling the financial impact of this. Preliminary numbers are starting to come in and according to this the value of just the bridge is around $1.2 Trillion (Billion, edited by source after I posted this) .

It's been reported that the value of the bridge itself could be about $1.2 trillion, while there's also been extensive damage to the container ship, which was deporting for Colombo, Sri Lanka.

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"Just wait a minute. Don't the insurers of the shipping company have some exposure here? And shouldn't the city of Baltimore and the state of Maryland pony up some of the replacement cost as well?"
EXCELLENT POINT.

Well you know how insurance works... as long as someone else is going to pay for it.... at that price I say clean it up and put the money into some high speed rail system to get folks into town other than by car....

You know I just realized something .... we Americans love our gas powered cars even more than we love our guns.......

Because both of those are symbols of, and enablers of, freedom. The Left hates freedom, and that's why they're trying to either ban both of those, or failing that lard them with sufficient regulations and restrictions to make them useless.