Over the past two decades, a Baltimore harbor safety committee repeatedly discussed the risks that ever-larger cargo ships posed to local bridges, according to previously unreported records obtained by The Washington Post.
By Steve Thompson and Ian Duncan, The Washington PostThe remains of the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26, 2024, in Baltimore. Six construction workers were killed and Baltimore’s port was crippled when the 985-foot-long cargo ship Dali hit the bridge, bringing it down in seconds. MUST CREDIT: Michael A. McCoy for The Washington Post
The group, known as the Baltimore Harbor Safety and Coordination Committee, discussed the Key and Chesapeake Bay bridges, among others. Maryland pilots - specialists who board large vessels and then guide them safely in and out of port - in particular sounded alarm about local bridges needing more protection from errantSix construction workers were killed and Baltimore’s port was crippled when the 984-foot-long cargo ship the Dali lost power and hit the bridge, bringing it down in seconds.
Officials board the Dali on April 15, 2024, after the FBI opened a criminal investigation into the circumstances surrounding the collapse of the Key Bridge. MUST CREDIT: Jonathan Newton for The Washington Post Spokesmen for several entities represented on the committee, including the Association of Maryland Pilots andExperts disagree about whether any protection could have saved the Key Bridge from the Dali given the ship’s size and speed. But they generally agree that bridge-protection standards have not kept pace with the risk posed by the huge container ships that now regularly call on Baltimore and other East Coast ports.
People gather in September at Fort Armistead Park to see the giant ship Zhen Hua arrive from China and navigate under the Key Bridge. “I still feel that way, that we should support the bridges,” Smith said in a brief interview outside his home, 10 miles from the stricken bridge. But he added that the protections he’s advocated for are expensive. He said the pilots, wary of litigation over the bridge collapse, had agreed not to talk publicly, and he declined to comment further.Smith’s concerns about communication foreshadowed a key element of the Dali disaster: the challenge of warning bridge users of impending danger.
Then Hamons, who had helped start the safety committee, inquired specifically about the level of protection for the Key Bridge, meeting minutes show.Alqasem declined to comment. 1980, a 609-foot ship hit Florida’s Sunshine Skyway Bridge, triggering the bridge’s collapse and killing 35 people. In the decades since, cargo ships have become longer, broader and heavier.
The minutes do not make clear what the recommendations were but explain that they were developed following a 2003 studyunder Maryland’s public records law, also reiterated the question he had posed in 2004 about how to stop vehicle traffic on the Key Bridge, Umesh Murthy, an engineer representing the Maryland Transportation Authority, asked about the action item in 2010. Smith explained it “was developed based on Pilots concern for a bridge collapse as a result of ship strikes.” Murthy told the committee it would cost $65 million to protect the Bay Bridge against an accidental collision, saying the cost of retrofitting existing bridges was much higher than building protections into newly constructed bridges.
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