The cargo ship Dali comes to rest in the water after hitting the Francis Scott Key Bridge and collapsing on March 26, 2024, in Baltimore, Maryland.
Kevin Dickey | Getty Images
Maryland engineers began lifting a section of the Francis Scott Key Bridge out of Baltimore’s waterway on Saturday, the first step in a long process of reopening the city’s shipping port.
“I cannot stress enough how important today and the first movement of this bridge and the wreckage is,” said Governor Wes Moore at a press conference on Saturday. “The complexity of this issue cannot be overstated.”
A container ship hit one of the bridge’s pillars early Tuesday morning, causing the bridge to collapse, leaving several people missing and six of them presumed dead by the U.S. Coast Guard.
“We will never lose sight of the human side of this crisis,” Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said Saturday.
In the days following the collapse, the Port of Baltimore, the 11th largest U.S. port, was suspended until further notice, forcing shipping lines to reroute to other ports.
Government officials at the federal, state and municipal levels have mobilized their teams to begin trying to return the port to normal operations. President Joe Biden is scheduled to visit the city next week and pledge that the federal government will pay for the full cost of bridge restoration and reconstruction.
For the bridge’s first lift on Saturday, engineers cut a section of the bridge so that the crane could easily operate it. Once the cut is complete, engineers will attach straps to it, assemble it and lift it onto a barge to transport it out of the waterway.
If successful, this process could be replicated on other parts of the bridge to clear the channel so that some traffic can resume, both to allow more vessels to assist in restoring the bridge site and for some commercial traffic.
“Once we’re able to reopen the waterway, it’s also possible that it could be repurposed as a commercial asset, but we have to figure that out first and that’s what we’re working on,” U.S. Coast Guard official Shannon Gillies said.
Economists say the Baltimore port closure likely won’t have any significant macroeconomic impact, but it’s still significant damage that complicates shipping supply chains.
“This is not just about Maryland. This is about our state’s economy,” said Governor Moore. “Our economy depends on the Port of Baltimore, and the Port of Baltimore depends on ship traffic.”
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