Baltimore Bridge Collapse: An Alternate Route to Open for Shipping

Officials of the US city Baltimore have announced on Monday that an alternate route for shipping is going to be opened temporarily around the wreckage formed due to the Baltimore bridge collapse last week.

Last Tuesday, six people lost their lives when the Dali cargo ship hit the Francis Scott Key Bridge. This tragic incident has led to the suspension of shipments to and from one of the busiest ports in the country. The wreckage of the bridge has been blocking an important shipping route into the Baltimore port since then causing huge financial loss to the port.

The port is really important for Maryland’s economy. It’s like a vital artery for US imports and exports as well as global trades.

Meanwhile, the city authority has been trying to remove debris from the river. Big cranes are now up at the place to lift stuff off the bridge. One of them is the Chesapeake 1000, the biggest crane along the eastern US coast. 

The people cleaning up are slicing up the stuff from the bridge into smaller bits so they can take it away and dump it safely. A 200-tonne piece of the Baltimore bridge was lifted from the river-water on Sunday.

According to a statement from the key bridge response, after the accident, a special task force was formed. Port officials are getting ready to open a temporary path on the northeast side of the main route close to the collapsed bridge. This path will be for ‘Commercially essential vessels’. This will be part of a “phased approach to opening the main channel.”

Capt. David O’Connell, who’s been working to organize the response, mentioned that the new route “will mark an important first step along the road to reopening the port of Baltimore.”

“By opening this alternate route, we will support the flow of marine traffic into Baltimore”, Capt. O’Connell said.

Right now, there’s a safety zone of about 2,000 yards (1,828 meters) around the wreck. This means no boats or people can go into that area without permission from the port officials.

The announcement also provided the dimensions of the new channel. The channel will have a controlling depth of 11 feet, with a 264-foot horizontal clearance and a 96-foot vertical one.

Officials in charge of managing the Baltimore Bridge collapse didn’t get back to the reporters right away when they reached out for a comment after work hours on Monday.

Salvage Experts mentioned that it’s going to take a few weeks to clear all the stuff around the broken bridge in the Patapsco River. It is unclear how much longer it will be until shipping goes back to normal.

Last week, the US government agreed to give Maryland $60 million in emergency money to help.

Experts opined that It might take about a month before an alternate route for shipping  and subsequently the Baltimore port opens again. They also estimated that it could take years to reconstruct the Baltimore bridge. They think an investigation into the Baltimore bridge collapse might also take years to get completed.

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