March 29, 2024 - Baltimore Key Bridge collapse

It could be days before the first piece of the massive wreckage of the Key Bridge can be cut and lifted out of the way, according to the Commanding General of the US Army Corps of Engineers.   

More than 1,100 engineers in Baltimore and across the country are studying the wreckage piece by piece to figure out how to remove it. 

“I believe it will be several more days of this type of analysis before we can start cutting and lifting members,” Scott A. Spellmon told CNN in a phone interview Friday.    

“There is a massive steel truss bridge going across that channel and at the bottom, 50 feet down there is possibly some containers and other heavy debris that we have to get off the floor,” Spellmon said.

He compared the twisted steel to a stretched rubber band that could snap when cut and said that engineers must figure out how to safely separate it into manageable pieces before cranes can get to work.   

“We are going over these bridge spans, these members piece by piece,” he said. “This part of the bridge twisted when it came down … just like a rubber band if you cut it is going to snap. We are going through member by member to find out which ones have that kind of energy.”

An immigrant advocacy group stressed the dangers construction workers face after several men died when the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed this week.

CASA Executive Director Gustavo Torres called it a “somber moment” Friday in honoring the workers. He said essential workers, like the men on the bridge, perform dangerous yet critical construction industry work at significant personal risk so people can live their lives. 

“These workers who make it possible to get to work … who work at night and it in the cold and throughout the pandemic — so our lives are made easier,” Torres said. 

The six people presumed dead were from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. The bodies of Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes from Mexico and Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera from Guatemala have been recovered, officials said earlier this week. They were filling potholes on the bridge when it was hit by a container ship on Tuesday.

The goal of the CASA is to improve “the quality of life in work-class” minority and immigrant communities, according to its website.

Two of the workers whose bodies have not yet been recovered were part of the organization — Miguel Luna and Maynor Suazo Sandoval. The CASA said it set up a donation to help their families, as well as the other four victims who passed away in the bridge collapse.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said the recovery effort after the collapse of Baltimore’s Key Bridge will take time, and he was reluctant to provide a timeline.

“I can tell you it is not going to be days or weeks or months,” he said Friday at a news conference. “This is going to take time.”

Moore said officials have to prioritize the safety of those doing the work as well as environmental impacts and completion. 

He noted officials are “focusing on moving speedily and getting it done quickly.”

“I want this done quickly. I want it done right,” he said. “We are committed to getting it done and you can bet on it we are going to get this done. But this is going to be a long road.” 

Col. Estee Pinchasin of the US Army Corps of Engineers said progress is being made. 

“I know right now everyone wants to see things moving, you need to know, you need to trust that behind the scenes, it’s moving.”

The post was updated with more information from Gov. Moore and Col. Estee Pinchasin.

President Joe Biden told reporters at Joint Base Andrews on Friday that he will travel to Baltimore next week. 

Maryland State Police divers are on standby to return to the wreck site to continue to look for the bodies of the workers who are presumed dead, the superintendent said Friday.

Col. Roland L. Butler Jr. said the divers will “examine what’s beneath the wreckage and recover any of these individuals that perished in this unfortunate incident” once conditions are safe.

The bodies of two people were recovered Wednesday. Authorities then paused recovery efforts for the four other workers because concrete and other debris made it unsafe for divers.

The post has been updated with more details on the recovery effort.

Coast Guard Rear Adm. Shannon Gilreath detailed the progress made so far on authorities’ number 1 priority — reopening the channel that was affected by the collapse of Baltimore’s Key Bridge.

There are three phases in this task, Gilreath said Friday:

There has been progress in Phase 1, Gilreath noted.

“We talked about that we need to do the assessments of the bridge, both above the waterline and beneath the water. Those assessments continue,” he said.
“We were out there today, and we can see the engineers and the divers and the survey boats out there on the water in these difficult wind conditions, doing their job, doing their work to assess that bridge, to figure out how we can cut it up into the pieces we need to be able to lift,” he said.

Remember: Gov. Wes Moore said the bridge part sitting on top of the ship will need to be cut up in pieces to be removed by cranes because it weighs 3,000 tons to 4,000 tons, which is far greater than what the biggest crane available right now can lift.

Clearing the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge from the waterway is a high priority because it has local and national economic impacts, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said Friday.

“Our economy depends on the Port of Baltimore and the Port of Baltimore depends on vessel traffic,” he said.

Closer to the Midwest than any other port on the East Coast, Baltimore is a major hub for vehicles, containers and commodities. Baltimore ranks first among US ports for autos and light trucks, handling a record 850,000 vehicles last year.

Baltimore is also the leading US port for farming and construction machinery, as well as imports of sugar and gypsum, and the second in the country for exporting coal.

“Maryland’s economy and Maryland’s workers rely on us to move quickly but that’s not just Maryland. The nation’s economy and the nation’s workers are requiring us to move quickly,” Moore said.

The post was updated with more details on the importance of Baltimore’s port to the US economy.

The Chesapeake 1000, the largest crane on the East Coast that is currently docked near the Francis Scott Key Bridge, can lift about 1,000 tons — but the challenge is that the part of the bridge sitting on the top of the vessel is between 3,000 to 4,000 tons, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said Friday.

“So our team needs to cut that truss into sections in a safe, in a responsible, and in an efficient way, before it can lift those pieces out of the water,” he said.

To help with this massive task, the Navy will supply Maryland with four heavy-lift cranes, Moore added. “Two have already arrived, one arrives tonight, and the fourth is arriving on Monday.”

“In the coming weeks We expect to have the following entities inside of the water: seven floating cranes, 10 tugs, nine barges, eight salvage vessels and five Coast Guard boats,” he added.

Seeing the wreckage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge up close underscored to officials how difficult it will be to clear the channel, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said on Friday.

He called the cleanup efforts a “remarkably complex operation.”

He said teams from various agencies and the Coast Guard went to survey the damage and view the ship, which “is nearly the size of the Eiffel Tower.”

He said crews will have to navigate obstacles like high wind and electrical wires. The governor explained that officials need to reassess the operation with every piece of bridge debris that is moved.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and other officials are providing an update on the ongoing clean-up efforts of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge.

The news conference comes as a massive crane inches closer to the site of the bridge collapse to help clear debris.

CASA, an organization that provides critical services to working-class and immigrant families, is also holding a separate event at this time with construction workers to honor the bridge collapse victims.

Mexican national Carlos Hernández, 24, is one of the construction workers presumed dead after the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed on Tuesday, his family told CNN affiliate Univision.

“I wake up, I want to think I am dreaming, but wake up and I know this is reality – that my son was there,” Hernández’s mother, Lucia Zambrano, told Univision, adding that she’s asking for help getting a humanitarian visa so she can travel to Maryland, be with her son and put pressure to keep searching for him.

Hernandez’s girlfriend, Jazmin Alvarez, who lives in Mexico, also spoke with Univision during the interview and recounted how she found out about the incident. 

“I have the GPS tracking on his cellphone, so I looked, and it showed he was by the water, but I figured since he was on the bridge, that’s why it showed him being near the water. He didn’t answer,” Alvarez said.

“By 4 a.m., his aunt, Mariela, had called me. She told me they had an accident, but I never imagined it was this bad, I thought it was a car accident,” Alvarez added and shared a voice message Hernandez sent her minutes before the bridge collapsed.

“Yes, my love, we just poured the cement and we’re just waiting for it to dry,” Hernández told Alvarez in the voice note. 

The massive cargo ship crash into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge will likely lead to billions of dollars in liability claims. Marine insurance companies will be on the hook for much of the costs.

With various owners and companies involved – and with some maritime laws predating even the Titanic sinking – untangling the web, figuring out who owes what, and addressing the damages from both lives lost and to physical structures will be complex.

“This claim has the potential to be north of a billion dollars,” said John Miklus, the president of the American Institute of Marine Underwriters. “Litigation will run years.”

How much will the rebuilding cost? It’s still too early to know the final bill for damages and rebuilding. The bridge alone could be worth more than $1.2 billion, said Loretta Worters, a spokesperson for the Insurance Information Institute.

Then there will almost certainly be large liability suits, medical costs for survivors, clean-up costs, and more, she added. Damage and losses to cars and clean-up from the debris and reconstruction will also factor into the total, Worters said.

The potential cost of insurance claims from the bridge collapse could be between $1 billion and $3 billion, analysts at Barclays wrote in a note Wednesday.

Claims for damage to the bridge alone could be some $1.2 billion, Barclays’ analysts said in a note Wednesday, with wrongful death liabilities likely totaling between $350 to $700 million. The analysts also expected some to-be-determined business interruption claims.

Read more about why paying for the collapse will be complicated.

A massive crane is getting closer to Baltimore’s scene of destruction Friday, tasked with clearing up to 4,000 tons of precarious debris that has hampered search crews after this week’s catastrophic collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.

The crane – the largest on the East Coast – was headed to the site in the Patapsco River where a 984-foot cargo vessel slammed into the bridge Tuesday. Six people were killed, but four of their bodies remain missing.

The crane will help expedite the monumental challenge of moving dangerous debris so crews can resume their search for the missing victims and reopen a cargo channel that’s vital to the local and national economy.

In addition to the crane, three heavy lift vessels are expected to start arriving Friday, US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told CNN. But workers at the scene still face “an incredibly complex job,” Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said Thursday.

“When you have a chance to see that wreckage up close, you fully understand the enormity of the challenge,” the governor said. “Our timeline will be long.”

High above the Patapsco River early Tuesday, a group of men fixed potholes on the Key Bridge, which is used by 30,000 motorists every day.

They were fathers, husbands and sons who had traveled far from poor villages in Honduras, El Salvador, Mexico and Guatemala.

Now they were the centerpiece of a global disaster, with loved ones left wondering what they must have felt in those terrifying final moments before tumbling several stories into the cold river.

One of the people pulled out alive from the water was a worker from the Mexican state of Michoacan, which said in a statement the three Mexican bridge workers were related.

Authorities have told the families they haven’t given up on recovering their loved ones from the twisted wreckage in the waters of the Patapsco, but they aren’t sure when that process will begin. Debris must be removed from the water before more bodies can be recovered.

“We know our people are involved,” Rafael Laveaga, chief of the Mexican Embassy in Washington’s consular section, said of the immigrants who died working for a living.

On Friday, a massive crane was being moved to the scene of the collapse. It will be part of the massive effort to clear up to 4,000 tons of debris that has hampered search crews.

Sigue nuestra cobertura en Español del colapso aquí.

Maryland officials are moving at “full speed” to accomplish four main priorities in the days following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, Gov. Wes Moore said Thursday.

Here are the directives mandated by Moore:

Continue to keep a focus on recovery efforts. Moore said it is “our obligation to bring a sense of closure to these families.” Officials said they recovered the bodies of two people on Wednesday, but recovery efforts for the four other workers were paused because of unsafe diving conditions. Open the channel and restart traffic to the port. The governor stressed minimizing economic impacts where possible, saying “the health of the Maryland economy and the national economy depends on it.” Take care of all the people who have been affected by the crisis. This means families of the people presumed dead, the workers, first responders — “that means everybody,” Moore said. Rebuilding the Key Bridge.

The governor promised to give regular updates on all of these directives but said they will take a long time to accomplish.

“This work will not take hours. This work will not take days. This work will not just take weeks. We have a very long road ahead of us,” Moore said.

They worked the overnight shift fixing potholes on a famed bridge that 30,000 Marylanders relied on every day. But their work ended in tragedy Tuesday morning when a 213-million-pound cargo vessel crashed into the bridge, plunging the construction workers into the dangerously cold water below.

After a daylong search, officials called off the rescue mission and said six workers were presumed dead. The six construction workers were immigrants from four countries – Honduras, El Salvador, Mexico and Guatemala.

Two bodies – those of Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes from Mexico and Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera from Guatemala – have since been recovered from a pickup truck in the water, Maryland State Police said Wednesday.

These are some of the victims’ stories:

Read more about the victims and their stories. Sigue nuestra cobertura en Español del colapso aquí.

A massive effort to clean-up after the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge is underway, and crews working to clear the steel frame of the bridge and the 984-foot cargo ship that felled it face “an incredibly complex job,” Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said Thursday.

The clean-up efforts are is essential to reopening the Port of Baltimore and recovering the remains that may lie under the wreckage, Moore said, adding that “We have a very long road ahead of us.”

How long will it take? Demolition workers may be able to clear a channel large enough for ships to pass through as soon as a month after the required equipment arrives on scene, according to an expert in the field familiar with ongoing discussions.

The expert, who spoke to CNN on condition that his name not be used, said it will likely take longer than that to remove all the debris, but clearing the 1,200-foot area between the two pillars that supported the bridge’s main span will be enough to reopen the port to traffic.

As salvage efforts are underway, the National Transportation Safety Board has been gathering evidence at the scene of the Baltimore bridge crash, interviewing witnesses and analyzing the ship’s data recordings.

Two pilots who were tasked with guiding the ship out of port were expected to be interviewed by authorities Thursday. The vessel’s captain, his mate, the chief engineer and another engineer have already spoken to investigators, said NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy.

Investigators have used audio and data from the 213-million-pound ship’s voyage data recorder to extract clues as to what happened in the moments leading up to the collision.

Within a minute, police officers on both ends of the bridge were ordered to stop traffic crossing the bridge, said Marcel Muise, the NTSB investigator in charge of the collapse inquiry. Officials have credited this swift action for saving lives.

During their first full day at the scene Wednesday, investigators saw the “utter devastation” of the mangled bridge – pieces of which are still draped over the ship’s bow, Homendy said.

The Dali, a Singaporean-flagged container vessel, had 23 people on board – 21 crew members and two pilots. Of the crew members, 20 are Indian nationals who are “in good shape” following the crash, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said Thursday.

Only one member was slightly injured and required some stitches, said spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal. All crew members were still onboard the cargo ship as of Thursday, said an Indian Ministry of External Affairs senior official familiar with the matter.

Officials working to remove the collapsed Key Bridge from the channel are conducting a full assessment of all pieces of debris before they can lift them out of the water, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Shannon Gilreath.

This assessment is critical in figuring out how to cut the bridge into the right size pieces so cranes can lift them out, he said.

“We are doing those assessments right now with underwater surveys, with engineering teams back in unified command,” Gilreath said, adding that the assessment is in coordination with several other partners, including the US Army Corp of Engineers.

“That is our number one priority is to reopen the Port of Baltimore as fast as we can, and do it safely,” he added.

A crane has arrived in Baltimore to help clear the wreckage from the channel following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge on Tuesday.

The largest crane in the Eastern Seaboard was expected to arrive Thursday evening to help clear the wreckage, Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen said, though it wasn’t yet on site as of early Friday. Additionally, three heavy lift vessels should begin arriving Friday, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told CNN.

Maryland officials are working “full speed” to reopen the vital shipping channel and revive traffic through the port – the largest in the US for autos and light trucks, handling a record 850,000 vehicles last year, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said Thursday. Nonetheless, he said, “We have a very long road ahead of us.”

Baltimore’s mayor said he is still “hopeful” the bodies of the other workers presumed dead will be recovered.

Authorities announced on Wednesday they were pausing search and recovery efforts for the four other workers presumed dead because debris made it unsafe for divers to continue. Once this next phase of salvage operations is complete and the debris is cleared, divers will search for more remains.

Mayor Brandon Scott said that during the salvage operation, he hopes “we are able to recover those who remain missing and bring them home to their families.

The mayor said he directed his administration to work with the governor’s office “on any and every effort that must be taken.”

There have been over 2,400 feet of boom deployed to contain any leaks of pollution in the aftermath of the collapse of the Key Bridge, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said Thursday.

He said he personally did not see any sheen on the water when he went to assess the situation on site.

Remember: 56 containers with hazardous materials were found on the vessel.

There are 14 containers on the ship were impacted, and they contained items like soap and perfume, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Shannon Gilreath said at the briefing, adding that he did not have information on whether any of those materials went overboard.

Air monitors are in place to track any potential threats and they have not picked up any threats so far, Gilreath added.