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The Legendary Troll Kingdom
BALTIMORE—A containership plowed into and destroyed a major Baltimore bridge Tuesday, killing six people and disrupting one of America’s busiest ports. The U.S. Coast Guard and other authorities led a search-and-rescue effort throughout the day, but those efforts were suspended in the early evening.
“At this point, we do not believe that we’re going to find any of these individuals still alive,” Coast Guard Rear Adm. Shannon Gilreath said.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge, named after the poet whose lyrics became “The Star-Spangled Banner,” collapsed Tuesday after a large containership plowed into it, prompting the search and disrupting one of America’s busiest ports.
The Singaporean ship, called the Dali, lost propulsion as it was leaving a nearby port, according to an unclassified report from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The strike sent large sections of the steel truss bridge tumbling into the Patapsco River below. The collapse severed a part of Interstate 695. Debris from the collapsed bridge made for a chaotic rescue effort Tuesday, and the dangerous scene and frigid water conditions made finding survivors unlikely. The six now-presumed-dead people were part of a construction crew repairing potholes in the bridge when the disabled ship rammed into a supporting pillar. Two others on the bridge were already accounted for after the incident. Col. Roland Butler, secretary of the Maryland State Police, said the search couldn’t go on further Tuesday evening without putting divers and other rescue personnel in danger. He added that inclement weather on Wednesday could hamper the continued recovery effort. “At this point, we do not know where they are, but we intend to give it our best effort to help these families find closure,” Butler said. Earlier in the day, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and other officials said the collision was an accident, and federal officials said there was no evidence of terrorism. The bridge collapse stands to snarl shipping along the East Coast for months. Companies that transport cars and coal, two of the key cargoes that run through Baltimore, are already looking for alternative destinations. “There’s no question that this will be a major and protracted impact to supply chains,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said. He also said that he had no knowledge of “a bridge that has been constructed to withstand a direct impact from a vessel of this size.”
Declaring the bridge collapse “a terrible accident,” President Biden said he intended for the federal government to pay the entire cost of reconstruction. “We’re not leaving until this job gets done,” he said, adding that he would travel to Baltimore soon.
The U.S. can tap in to an emergency-relief fund that is administered by the Federal Highway Administration and automatically supplied with $100 million each year. That money could go toward purposes such as cleaning up debris. Congress would need to appropriate money for a replacement bridge.
The National Transportation Safety Board sent 24 people to investigate the incident, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said.
The ship was moving at about 9.2 mph around the time it struck the bridge, according to authorities. The speed is typical for vessels traveling in the area. The Dali picked up its anchor and began to move at 12:28 a.m., according to Coast Guard officials. At 1:24 a.m., the vessel’s lights flickered on and off as it traveled, and then at 1:26 a.m., the ship began to change course. It struck the bridge at 1:27 a.m. One official said the ship issued a mayday call shortly before it hit the bridge. It wasn’t clear how the Dali malfunctioned.
Video from the incident shows the ship slamming into one of the bridge’s support pillars and much of its span collapsing rapidly into the river. The governor said the ship’s warning helped officials stop cars from going over the bridge. He also said it would take a “long term build” to replace the bridge. “The vessel notified MD Department of Transportation (MDOT) that they had lost control of the vessel and a collision with the bridge was possible,” CISA, the federal agency, said in its memo. There were 24 people on the ship: two pilots who are local mariners and 22 crew members from India, said Darrell Wilson, a spokesman for Synergy Marine Group, which manages the ship. Wilson said he had no reports of the ship spilling fuel or oil. All of the crew are safe, the company added. Danish container shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk said it had chartered the ship from Synergy. The ship was on its way to Sri Lanka when it struck the bridge, where it remained stuck Tuesday.
The ship has had more than 20 port state control inspections—reviews of foreign ships in national ports—since it was built, according to data from Equasis, an international shipping database. None of the listed inspections resulted in a detention, which could occur when a ship is deemed unfit to travel. Deficiencies were noted in two such reviews: one done in Belgium in July 2016 that noted hull damage and another in Chile last June that reported an issue with the ship’s propulsion and auxiliary machinery, Equasis data show. The U.S. Coast Guard completed an examination of the vessel last September and didn’t identify any issues.
Workers associated with the construction company Brawner Builders were on the bridge when the ship struck it, the NTSB’s Homendy said. Jesus Campos, a 48-year-old Brawner employee, said he wasn’t there at the time but knows everyone who was on the bridge, including a worker who was rescued from the water. He said all of the missing co-workers were Latino. “I felt sick when they showed me the video. It hurts,” Campos said, adding that he and some other co-workers have tried calling the phones of the missing workers, but no one has responded.
Brawner didn’t respond to several attempts to seek comment.
Authorities believe vehicles that fell into the river belong to the construction workers. It is possible another vehicle could have also fallen, but authorities late Tuesday had no information suggesting that was the case, said Butler, from the state police. Authorities also said they were using sonar and infrared technology to determine how many cars were in the water.
On the bridge’s north side, drivers pulled over to snap photos of the metal wreckage draped over the vessel. The bridge was last inspected in May 2021 and received a “fair” rating, according to federal data viewed by the Journal. That means inspectors determined the bridge was essentially sound, but might have minor issues such as cracks or some concrete erosion.
Some 800,000 vehicles passed through the port in 2023, moving three million tons of cargo. All vessel traffic in and out of the Port of Baltimore is suspended until further notice, the port said Tuesday morning. Ports in Norfolk, Va., and the New York and New Jersey area are expected to pick up most of the diverted ship traffic. The collapsed bridge, built in 1977, spanned a total of 1.6 miles, but the overall structure including its approaches covered almost 11 miles.
“At this point, we do not believe that we’re going to find any of these individuals still alive,” Coast Guard Rear Adm. Shannon Gilreath said.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge, named after the poet whose lyrics became “The Star-Spangled Banner,” collapsed Tuesday after a large containership plowed into it, prompting the search and disrupting one of America’s busiest ports.
The Singaporean ship, called the Dali, lost propulsion as it was leaving a nearby port, according to an unclassified report from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The strike sent large sections of the steel truss bridge tumbling into the Patapsco River below. The collapse severed a part of Interstate 695. Debris from the collapsed bridge made for a chaotic rescue effort Tuesday, and the dangerous scene and frigid water conditions made finding survivors unlikely. The six now-presumed-dead people were part of a construction crew repairing potholes in the bridge when the disabled ship rammed into a supporting pillar. Two others on the bridge were already accounted for after the incident. Col. Roland Butler, secretary of the Maryland State Police, said the search couldn’t go on further Tuesday evening without putting divers and other rescue personnel in danger. He added that inclement weather on Wednesday could hamper the continued recovery effort. “At this point, we do not know where they are, but we intend to give it our best effort to help these families find closure,” Butler said. Earlier in the day, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and other officials said the collision was an accident, and federal officials said there was no evidence of terrorism. The bridge collapse stands to snarl shipping along the East Coast for months. Companies that transport cars and coal, two of the key cargoes that run through Baltimore, are already looking for alternative destinations. “There’s no question that this will be a major and protracted impact to supply chains,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said. He also said that he had no knowledge of “a bridge that has been constructed to withstand a direct impact from a vessel of this size.”
Declaring the bridge collapse “a terrible accident,” President Biden said he intended for the federal government to pay the entire cost of reconstruction. “We’re not leaving until this job gets done,” he said, adding that he would travel to Baltimore soon.
The U.S. can tap in to an emergency-relief fund that is administered by the Federal Highway Administration and automatically supplied with $100 million each year. That money could go toward purposes such as cleaning up debris. Congress would need to appropriate money for a replacement bridge.
The National Transportation Safety Board sent 24 people to investigate the incident, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said.
The ship was moving at about 9.2 mph around the time it struck the bridge, according to authorities. The speed is typical for vessels traveling in the area. The Dali picked up its anchor and began to move at 12:28 a.m., according to Coast Guard officials. At 1:24 a.m., the vessel’s lights flickered on and off as it traveled, and then at 1:26 a.m., the ship began to change course. It struck the bridge at 1:27 a.m. One official said the ship issued a mayday call shortly before it hit the bridge. It wasn’t clear how the Dali malfunctioned.
Video from the incident shows the ship slamming into one of the bridge’s support pillars and much of its span collapsing rapidly into the river. The governor said the ship’s warning helped officials stop cars from going over the bridge. He also said it would take a “long term build” to replace the bridge. “The vessel notified MD Department of Transportation (MDOT) that they had lost control of the vessel and a collision with the bridge was possible,” CISA, the federal agency, said in its memo. There were 24 people on the ship: two pilots who are local mariners and 22 crew members from India, said Darrell Wilson, a spokesman for Synergy Marine Group, which manages the ship. Wilson said he had no reports of the ship spilling fuel or oil. All of the crew are safe, the company added. Danish container shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk said it had chartered the ship from Synergy. The ship was on its way to Sri Lanka when it struck the bridge, where it remained stuck Tuesday.
The ship has had more than 20 port state control inspections—reviews of foreign ships in national ports—since it was built, according to data from Equasis, an international shipping database. None of the listed inspections resulted in a detention, which could occur when a ship is deemed unfit to travel. Deficiencies were noted in two such reviews: one done in Belgium in July 2016 that noted hull damage and another in Chile last June that reported an issue with the ship’s propulsion and auxiliary machinery, Equasis data show. The U.S. Coast Guard completed an examination of the vessel last September and didn’t identify any issues.
Workers associated with the construction company Brawner Builders were on the bridge when the ship struck it, the NTSB’s Homendy said. Jesus Campos, a 48-year-old Brawner employee, said he wasn’t there at the time but knows everyone who was on the bridge, including a worker who was rescued from the water. He said all of the missing co-workers were Latino. “I felt sick when they showed me the video. It hurts,” Campos said, adding that he and some other co-workers have tried calling the phones of the missing workers, but no one has responded.
Brawner didn’t respond to several attempts to seek comment.
Authorities believe vehicles that fell into the river belong to the construction workers. It is possible another vehicle could have also fallen, but authorities late Tuesday had no information suggesting that was the case, said Butler, from the state police. Authorities also said they were using sonar and infrared technology to determine how many cars were in the water.
On the bridge’s north side, drivers pulled over to snap photos of the metal wreckage draped over the vessel. The bridge was last inspected in May 2021 and received a “fair” rating, according to federal data viewed by the Journal. That means inspectors determined the bridge was essentially sound, but might have minor issues such as cracks or some concrete erosion.
Some 800,000 vehicles passed through the port in 2023, moving three million tons of cargo. All vessel traffic in and out of the Port of Baltimore is suspended until further notice, the port said Tuesday morning. Ports in Norfolk, Va., and the New York and New Jersey area are expected to pick up most of the diverted ship traffic. The collapsed bridge, built in 1977, spanned a total of 1.6 miles, but the overall structure including its approaches covered almost 11 miles.
