The picture above, “sampled” from the Wall Street Journal, is an illustration of the aftermath of a container ship striking the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. Cars and people were thrown into the river; no one on the container ship appears to have been killed.
The collision will have repercussions for weeks or months. Access to the harbor will be impeded. Commuters will need to take alternate routes which may not be easy.
I can’t quite figure out what happened even after reading a half dozen articles on the collision. Apparently, the ship had some sort of malfunction and struck the bridge somehow. I can’t determine whether it struck a support pylon or the bridge itself.
Update
I just saw a video of the event. The container ship collided with the bridge’s support.
The pylon, apparently.
I used to do failure analysis work at the mill. Large, complicated pieces of equipment. At the risk of stating the obvious, best to wait until more evidence is in. Also, it may take a Philadelphia lawyer to sort this one out.
Yeah, that’s what I put in my update yesterday.