Long before Key Bridge collapse, Baltimore mariners warned of 'ship strikes' [View all]

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Source: Washington Post

WP EXCLUSIVE
Long before Key Bridge collapse, Baltimore mariners warned of ‘ship strikes’

Members of a Baltimore harbor safety committee repeatedly raised the possibility that an out-of-control vessel could imperil the bridge, records show

By Steve Thompson and Ian Duncan
Updated May 23, 2024 at 10:45 a.m. EDT | Published May 23, 2024 at 8:02 a.m. EDT



The 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. (Michael A. McCoy for The Washington Post)

The warnings came, sometimes in eerily specific terms, years before a giant cargo ship struck Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge: A ship could lose power “in close vicinity to a bridge,” an out-of-control vessel could cause “a bridge collapse,” and the Key Bridge was “not designed to withstand collisions from large vessels.”

After the strike caused the bridge’s collapse in March, horrified officials described the catastrophe as one that couldn’t have been anticipated. But a maritime safety committee, including experts from key government agencies, repeatedly raised the possibility of such a disaster over the past two decades, according to previously unreported records obtained by The Washington Post. For nearly 10 of those years, as ever-larger cargo ships visited Baltimore’s port, the committee included “Recommendations for bridge protection from ship strikes” on a list of its action items. In 2016, that action item stopped appearing in meeting minutes without explanation.

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 errant ships, the records show.

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Alice Crites contributed to this report.

By Steve Thompson
Steve Thompson writes about government and politics in Maryland, D.C. and Virginia. Before joining The Washington Post in 2018, he was an investigative reporter for the Dallas Morning News. He started in journalism as a police reporter at the St. Petersburg Times. Twitter

By Ian Duncan
Ian Duncan is a reporter covering federal transportation agencies and the politics of transportation. He previously worked at the Baltimore Sun for seven years, covering city hall, the military and criminal justice. He was part of the Sun's team covering Freddie Gray's death in 2015 and then-Mayor Catherine Pugh's Healthy Holly books scandal. Twitter

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2024/05/23/key-bridge-warnings-ship-strikes/