this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2024
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A portion of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore has collapsed after a large boat collided with it early on Tuesday morning, sending multiple vehicles into the water.

At about 1.30am, a vessel crashed into the bridge, catching fire before sinking and causing multiple vehicles to fall into the water below, according to a video posted on X.

“All lanes closed both directions for incident on I-695 Key Bridge. Traffic is being detoured,” the Maryland Transportation Authority posted on X.

Matthew West, a petty officer first class for the coastguard in Baltimore, told the New York Times that the coastguard received a report of an impact at 1.27am ET. West said the Dali, a 948ft (29 metres) Singapore-flagged cargo ship, had hit the bridge, which is part of Interstate 695.

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[–] [email protected] 195 points 1 year ago (1 children)

All lanes closed both directions for incident on I-695 Key Bridge

All lanes no longer in existence on I-695 Key Bridge.

[–] [email protected] 153 points 1 year ago (31 children)

Seven people likely dead so far. What a horrible, terrifying way to go.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago

I've heard it was construction workers filling pot holes.

The bridge at crest is around 185 ft off the water, and footage shows the collapse took about 6 seconds where the cars were.

Imagine doing a mind numbing job in the dead of night and then all of a sudden the floor starts dipping below you. The street lights go out a second or two later, and not long after you're falling for close to 2 seconds. Then either crashing hard into the concrete below you that just parted the water, having a flood of water hit you shortly after. or just jetting directly into freezing cold water.

How the fuck did this happen?

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[–] [email protected] 144 points 1 year ago (17 children)

The investigation report is going to be interesting. While bridges can only take so much punishment, they are usually designed to survive some collisions with their pylons. I wonder what the state of the bridge was, prior to the collapse. If it's anything like the rest of the infrastructure in the US, it was probably not good. Though, this may also be a case that the designers in the 70's planned for a collision with a cargo vessel of the times, which were tiny bath tub boats compared to the super container ships we have now. The Dali was built in 2015 she is a 300m ship capable of carrying 116851 tons. That's a lot of mass for the pylon and it's barriers to stop.

[–] [email protected] 135 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm pretty sure no bridge is designed to survive a collision with a large cargo ship, even a brand new one. It would balloon the cost so much nobody would be willing to pay it.

[–] [email protected] 65 points 1 year ago (11 children)

New bridges are built with protections such as pylons to prevent ships from even getting close to bumping into the bridge after the sunshine skyway bridge collapse of 1980.

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[–] [email protected] 123 points 1 year ago (8 children)

I live not five minutes away from the Key bridge and the sound of this woke me up last night. My GF takes this bridge to work every day. Driving through the city now for her every morning is going to be fucking awful.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I watched it on the news last night all the way from Australia and I said 'man they just fucked that whole cities traffic up for a long time'.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago

Yeah, IIRC it is the route for hazmat trucks. Gonna fuck with a lot of businesses down the line for a bit too.

As an aside, they used to have a rave down in the park under the west side of the bridge a decade or so ago, and it was always awesome being on the beach stage looking at that bridge at night and as the sun would come up.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The construction workers that died is fucking awful. The traffic situation won't be great, but at least she's alive with a job to go to.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Most people would take that as a given. He was just pointing out the effect on his own personal life.

It would be pretty annoying if everyone shared their own effect but had to precede it with a standard "I know it's more awful for those with lives lost, but this affects me because..."

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[–] [email protected] 70 points 1 year ago (8 children)

I'm just glad it happened in the dead of night and that the ship sent a mayday several minutes before it happened. State Police were apparently able to close the bridge and clear most of the traffic (it's 1.6 miles/ 2.6 kilometers long) off of it before it collapsed. It's sad that there were still construction workers and some cars still left on it, though.

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[–] [email protected] 59 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That’s the ship that hit the bridge. It’s still there as I write this, but there are a bunch of tugs on scene right now.

Marine traffic can show you all the active AIS contacts in real time.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago

Found a photo of the bridge on it.

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 year ago (1 children)

At least it happened in the very early AM hours when traffic was low and there were no visibility problems, unlike the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That sounds like a traffic armageddon around Baltimore for the next few years...

[–] [email protected] 60 points 1 year ago (30 children)

Not just Baltimore. This is also a major cargo port. That harbor will be blocked for a long time. Get ready for supply chain disruptions and more rising prices.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (1 children)

holy shit. I've been getting alerts about it, but that video is so much worse than I imagined.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

There was a live-stream where you can scrub to the minute where the bridge is gone (1:28:43 by the time-stamp inside of the video, not the YT timestamp). The Ship apparently lost all the lights 2-3 times shortly before impact. Maybe it was a problem with that. We also noticed a lot of hacking activities in the last weeks. Maybe it was that.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Better to wait for more details to come out than to speculate wildly.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago

Idk I'm going with space lasers and you can't convince me otherwise.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A guy at work showed me the footage on his phone. Whatever shit news site he was pulling from had the headline, "DEI focus by The transportation department under Pete buttigiege results in bridge collapse".

They didn't even wait half a day to start lying.

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago

Police audio from the event:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/03/26/baltimore-key-bridge-collapse-maryland/#link-SG74QTQZKNCI7CT3KCUCWYEZYQ

It sounds like police got their just in time to stop traffic. One of the officers says that as soon as backup arrives to take over stopping traffic he would go and evacuate the workers; when we get the report that the bridge is gone.

If you watch the stream of the crash, you can see that traffic was flowing just moments before it fell.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Wow, damn. Unfortunately similar to the Tasman Bridge collapse

May all involved find peace, that's so tragic.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A portion? That looks like the entire thing dropped.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (12 children)

Time for a redundant array of inexpensive bridges?

(computer joke about backups and resilience.)

Or on a more serious note, maybe a tunnel?

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