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Protesters In Baltimore Pulled Down A Statue Of Christopher Columbus And Threw It Into The Harbor

The statue is the latest in a list of monuments depicting enslavers and colonizers that have been torn down amid Black Lives Matter protests.

Stephanie K. Baer BuzzFeed News Reporter

Posted on July 4, 2020,

Protesters tore down a statue of Christopher Columbus and tossed it into the harbor in Baltimore Saturday night in what is the latest monument depicting enslavers and colonizers in the US to topple.

Videos showed demonstrators cheering as they pulled down the statue near the city's Little Italy neighborhood with rope, and later pushing it into the water.



spencer compton@spencercompton
Baltimore just tore down the Columbus statue ✊🏿✊🏾✊🏽✊🏼✊🏻 #blacklivesmatter12:54 AM - 05 Jul 2020
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Dedicated in 1984, the marble statue is one of three monuments to Columbus in the city, according to the Baltimore Sun. This week, the city council introduced a bill to rename one of the Columbus statues in honor of victims of police brutality.



J. M. Giordano photo@jmgpix
Baltimore’s Columbus statue gets dumped in the harbor01:03 AM - 05 Jul 2020
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Amid a global reckoning over police brutality and violence against Black and Indigenous people, protesters have been tearing down statues of Confederacy leaders, enslavers, and colonizers.

Last month, protesters brought down a bronze statue of Confederate president Jefferson Davis in Richmond, Virginia, and demonstrators in Boston beheaded a statue of Columbus.


MORE ON THIS
Protesters Tore Down A Statue Of Confederate President Jefferson Davis In VirginiaAmber Jamieson · June 11, 2020

Statues In The US And Around The World Are Being Beheaded And Torn Down Amid Black Lives Matter ProtestsAde Onibada · June 10, 2020

Stephanie Baer is a reporter with BuzzFeed News and is based in Los Angeles.

Columbus statue toppled by Baltimore protesters

In this Monday, Oct. 9, 1984, file photo, President Ronald Reagan addresses a ceremony in Baltimore, to unveil a statue of Christopher Columbus. Baltimore protesters pulled down the statue of Christopher Columbus and threw it into the city's Inner Harbor, Saturday, July 4, 2020. (AP Photo/Lana Harris, File)
BALTIMORE (AP) — Baltimore protesters pulled down a statue of Christopher Columbus and threw it into the city’s Inner Harbor on Saturday night.

Demonstrators used ropes to topple the monument near the Little Italy neighborhood, news outlets reported.

Protesters mobilized by the death of George Floyd at the hands of police have called for the removal of statues of Columbus, Confederate figures and others. They say the Italian explorer is responsible for the genocide and exploitation of native peoples in the Americas.

According to The Baltimore Sun, the statue was owned by the city and dedicated in 1984 by former Mayor William Donald Schaefer and President Ronald Reagan.

A spokesman for Baltimore Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young told The Sun the toppling of the statue is a part of a national and global reexamination over monuments “that may represent different things to different people.”

“We understand the dynamics that are playing out in Baltimore are part of a national narrative,” Lester Davis said.

Statues of Columbus have also been toppled or vandalized in cities such as Miami; Richmond, Virginia; St. Paul, Minnesota; and Boston, where one was decapitated.

The Latest: Confederate statue in Maryland toppled
yesterday

The Latest on protests over racial inequality:

(AP) LOTHIAN, Md. — A privately owned Confederate statue at a Maryland church has been toppled and vandalized, according to police.

The Capital Gazette reports that photos provided by Anne Arundel County police show that the statue at Mt. Calvary Anglican Church in Lothian was ripped off its concrete platform.

The word “racist” was written in red spray paint on the platform and descriptive plaque for the statue of Private Benjamin Welch Owens, who served in a Confederate Maryland artillery unit during the Civil War.

Police said the statue was last seen undamaged late Thursday. No suspects were immediately identified.

 

The Biggest Crane Barge on the Baltimore Bridge Project Has a CIA Past

Chesapeake 1000 in Baltimore, March 30 (USN)

PUBLISHED MAR 31, 2024 11:15 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

The largest crane barge on the U.S. East Coast has arrived in Baltimore to help remove the wreckage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge - and its past may come as a surprise. 

The Chesapeake 1000 (ex name Sun 800) is a floating derrick with a capacity of 1,000 short tons. The venerable crane barge was built at Sun Shipbuilding in 1972, the same year as the famed CIA spy ship Glomar Explorer. This was not a coincidence: the barge was constructed by Sun Ship for use in its own yard, specifically for installing super-heavy components for the Glomar Explorer project. 

The Glomar Explorer was one of the most remarkable covert projects of the Cold War era, with a cover story worthy of a spy novel. In the early 1970s, the CIA decided to build a ship that could retrieve a lost Soviet ballistic missile submarine from the seafloor off Hawaii. This unique ship would have a massive grab claw, which would scoop the submarine up and retrieve it (hopefully) in one piece. 

In order to make sure that Moscow didn't learn of this plan, CIA leaders asked reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes to help out with a pretext for the operation. The future Glomar Explorer would be billed to the press as a Hughes-led expedition to prospect for deep-sea minerals in the Pacific - the first deep-sea mining project of its kind. Even Sun Shipbuilding, which won the contract for construction, did not appear to be in on the real mission. 

When the real story leaked out in 1975, government sources told journalists that the mission was a partial success: Glomar Explorer arrived on site, deployed its claw, and retrieved the forward third of the submarine. The true mission objectives - the sub's code books and missiles - were lost when the other two-thirds of the sub slipped back down to the bottom. 

The Sun 800 wasn't along for this deep-sea mission, but played an essential role in making it happen. The heavy derrick barge lifted the Glomar Explorer's 630-ton gimbal onto the ship during construction. (The vessel had a fully-gimbaled, heave-compensated derrick platform designed to damp out ship motion in the swells of the open Pacific.)

After the project, Sun Shipbuilding kept the Sun 800 on hand for other yard work, as well as marine construction and civil engineering projects. It was eventually sold on to another shipyard, then to salvor Donjon Marine, which operates it today as the Chesapeake 1000. It is expected to play a high-profile role in removing the wrecked bridge truss from the bow of the boxship Dali, which is currently pinned in place by the weight of the span.

For more on the infamous Glomar Explorer, be sure to read The Maritime Executive's two-part history of the project: https://maritime-executive.com/features/grand-finale-for-infamous-glomar-explorer

Salvage Operation Focuses on Temporary Channels for Baltimore Harbor

Plans call for three temporary channels to begin to restore vessel movement in Baltimore (Unified Command)

PUBLISHED APR 1, 2024 1:02 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

 

The U.S. Coast Guard leading the Unified Command and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are focusing on the opening of temporary alternative channels as they respond to the bridge collapse in Baltimore. They outlined the phased approach highlighting that they expect to open three successively larger channels to begin to resume some ship movements in Baltimore Harbor.

The first of the three channels is planned for the north side and teams from the command were already seen yesterday, March 31, placing the first buoys in the water around the debris from the Francis Scott Key Bridge. Officials were hoping to open the channel today, April 1, noting that it will be in place quickly for smaller, essential vessels.

The first temporary channel, however, will just have a depth of 11 feet limiting the vessels that will be able to use it. It will have a 264-foot horizontal clearance and a vertical clearance of 96 feet. Officially are describing its use for response vessels and those participating in the salvage operation.

“This will mark an important first step along the road to reopening the port of Baltimore,” said Capt. David O’Connell, Federal On-Scene Coordinator, Key Bridge Response 2024. “By opening this alternate route, we will support the flow of marine traffic into Baltimore.”

 

USCG teams began placing markers on Sunday for the first temporary channel (Unified Command)

 

Within a few days, they also expect to add a second channel Captain O’Connell described during an interview with CBS News. He said that some of the debris will have to be cleared first but they would then add a channel to the south with a depth of about 14 feet.  He called it a start in the plans to restore vessel movement saying it should be able to accommodate some smaller tugs.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers outlined the phases saying that they are focusing on clearing the federal channel. To achieve this, they are working on establishing a consolidation point for the wreckage. They will also focus on removing the roadway and bridge span on the bow of the Dali.

O’Connell told CBS News this would permit them to open a third channel with a depth of 20 to 25 feet. He said that was in the works saying it would permit “a lot more commercial vessels,” to resume sailing into and out of Baltimore harbor.

The Army Corps said they were also focusing on objectives to stabilize the Dali and analyze the internal bridge truss structure. On Sunday, in addition to the cutting teams working on the north side of the collapsed bridge truss, three dive teams were surveying sections of the bridge and the Dali. The Army Corps wants to prevent the ship from pivoting and then prepare for the removal first of the bridge structure and then damaged or destabilized containers as necessary.

As the work progresses, they said they would position assets for repositioning and then refloating the Dali. In the second phase, they look to remove the ship before the final phase which will complete clearing all the wreckage.

Demolition Contractors Remove First Piece of Baltimore Bridge's Wreckage

Courtesy USCG

PUBLISHED MAR 31, 2024 2:35 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

On Saturday, contractors for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began removing the first piece of the wrecked Francis Scott Key Bridge, launching a carefully-planned process to clear a channel and reopen the Port of Baltimore. The work will proceed around the clock, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said at a press conference Saturday. 

The demolition teams are beginning work to the north of the main span, and their first task will be to open up an auxiliary shallow-draft channel. 

"We'll continue planning efforts for once we open that up for tug and barge traffic to come into the Port of Baltimore," said Coast Guard 5th District Commander Rear Adm. Shannon Gilreath at a press conference Saturday. "Even if it's not the deep draft [channel], we want to take advantage of that opportunity." 

After the debris is cleared, the auxiliary channel will be carefully surveyed to determine draft restrictions. The Coast Guard will place buoys to outline the safe fairway for tug operators. Traffic may be subject to restrictions in order to ensure that it does not interfere with the work to clear the rest of the bridge, Gilreath said. 

As predicted by many shipping analysts, other East Coast ports are absorbing Baltimore's containerized cargo without much difficulty, Virginia Port Authority's Steve Edwards told CBS. "I think the economic shock is local," he said. "It's not across the region, and it's not across the nation." Port of Baltimore is on many of the same service strings as the much larger Port of New York and New Jersey and the Port of Virginia, so Baltimore-bound boxes can be offloaded at earlier or later port calls and then trucked to their final destinations. With the late-pandemic import boom long over, other East Coast ports have spare capacity to accept extra cargo.

The alternative arrangements for offloading ro/ro cargo - cars and rolling equipment - are less clear; Baltimore leads the nation in these cargo categories, and only one of its ro/ro terminals is still functioning. "This is the No. 1 auto port in the entire United States, so there will absolutely be some disruption when you have both import and export vehicles. But we don't know the extent of disruption because companies are working on ways to reroute things," said Alliance for Automotive Innovation CEO John Bozzella. 

In the meantime, Port of Baltimore's land-side operations remain open, and longshore workers continue to send import cargo out the gates for final-mile delivery. The port is also exploring other opportunities to bring longshoremen back to work until shipping resumes. 

As the bridge is dismantled, the wreckage will be transported to a scrapping site at nearby Tradepoint Atlantic, Dredging Contractors of America CEO Bill Doyle told The Maritime Executive. He could not give an exact timeline for the work's completion, but said that it would be faster than many observers might think, thanks to an abundance of available private-sector resources. 

Workers at the bridge site have two barge cranes on scene to assist, one rated at 650 tons and one at 330 tons. The East Coast's heaviest crane barge, the Chesapeake 1,000, is standing by to assist when needed. In addition to the resources of the Army Corps of Engineers and its contractors, the U.S. Navy's Supervisor of Diving and Salvage has chartered additional barges to carry wreckage and is mobilizing 12 support vessels to Baltimore, according to Navy Times.

In Baltimore, Ship Strike "Never Occurred to Anybody"; In Delaware, It Did

Two former Maryland transport officials told the Washington Post that the state didn't consider the risk of an allision at the Key Bridge

Courtesy NTSB

PUBLISHED MAR 29, 2024 3:45 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

Nine years ago, in 2015, Delaware's bridge transport authority set aside $2.5 million to design new protective fenders for the Delaware Memorial Bridge. Tankers and boxships on the Delaware River were getting bigger, and the New Panama Canal would be bringing even larger ships to the Port of Wilmington soon. 

In the unlikely event that one of these ships hit the Delaware Memorial Bridge's piers, it could potentially collapse the bridge, a Delaware River and Bay Authority spokesman told local media at the time. About 100,000 vehicles cross the eight-lane bridge every day, and it is vital to the region's economy.

This was too much risk for the DRBA. The agency hired consultants to design new protective bumpers of steel and rock (dolphins), and won a federal grant for $22 million to help pay for construction. The design spec for the new dolphins was intended to defend against a ship of up to 156,000 tonnes, moving at a speed of up to seven knots.

Illustration courtesy DRBA

“[We've] come to the conclusion that these are the kind of protections that our bridges need,” Shekhar Scindia, a DRBA structural engineer, told Delaware Online in 2017. “Our complete preliminary design has been based on the calculations directed by the current code.”

They bundled the dolphin project into a large package of renovations, secured a permit from the Corps of Engineers, raised tolls on motorists, convinced two state governors to sign off on the cost, and issued bonds to raise funds. (This was not easy: New Jersey's governor initially vetoed the toll hikes, and DRBA had to negotiate to get the funding.)

Construction started on the eight protective steel-and-rock dolphins last year and should be done by 2025. The final cost will come to about $93 million.

“It never occurred to anybody”

On Tuesday, Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge was struck by the Dali, a 10,000 TEU boxship. According to NTSB, she displaced (weighed) about 112,000 tonnes that day, including cargo, fuel and ballast - about 35,000 tonnes less than her maximum load. At about 0130, she slipped past the small dolphin on the bridge's southwest side, making about eight knots. When she hit the pier on the main span's support, the bridge collapsed within about 30 seconds, killing six and shutting down the ship channel with wreckage. The estimated cost of the casualty is in the range of $2-4 billion. 

Four decades ago, the risk of a pier strike like this was on the minds of Maryland's highway engineers. In 1980, after a tanker struck and collapsed Florida's Sunshine Skyway Bridge, the Baltimore Sun quoted Maryland's top transport engineer saying that "a direct hit - it would knock [the Key Bridge] down."

But that hazard appears to have been forgotten in Maryland in recent years, two former highway agency officials told the Washington Post - even though the Key Bridge faced a similar threat as the Delaware Memorial Bridge, just 60 miles away on the same freeway system. 

The idea of a ship hitting a pier on Baltimore's Key Bridge “never occurred to anybody," a former senior transport official told the Post. In recent years, risk-management conversations about the Key Bridge focused on acts of terror, like truck bombs, reflecting the post-9/11 security planning of the era, the official said.

The Dali allision involved approximately the same ship size, speed and outcome that Delaware authorities have been working to defend against at the Delaware Memorial Bridge since 2015. But even if Maryland transport officials had followed Delaware's lead, it is not clear that they could have done anything, engineering experts told the Washington Post. The center span on the Key Bridge is narrow, and installing protective dolphins or fenders would make it even narrower. 

"That’s a pretty tight channel,” a former state transport official told the Post. "You might actually create a hazard rather than mitigate one."

Cost is also a factor. Engineers have to work within a budget, and the outside risk of a vessel strike has to compete with all the other risks and costs in the transport system, like traffic safety improvements and roadway repairs. 

The National Transportation Safety Board - which first warned about the need for bridge pier protection in 1981 - is looking at the fender arrangements of the Key Bridge as part of its investigation.  

The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.

 

Penn State professor to lead field campaign to study climate in Baltimore area

Kenneth Davis will spearhead the DOE-funded project to investigate influence of surface-atmosphere interactions

Grant and Award Announcement

PENN STATE

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Kenneth Davis, professor of atmospheric and climate science at Penn State, will lead a team of 23 investigators from 13 research institutions in a new field campaign supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to study surface-atmosphere interactions around Baltimore, Maryland, to see how they influence the city’s climate. The new campaign, called the Coast-Urban-Rural Atmospheric Gradient Experiment (CoURAGE), is expected to start in October 2024 and run through September 2025.

CoURAGE will contribute to the Baltimore Social-Environmental Collaborative (BSEC), one of four recently funded DOE Urban Integrated Field Laboratories. BSEC and the three other urban laboratories, located in Arizona, Texas and Illinois, will expand the understanding of climate and weather events and their impact on urban systems.

Davis is the principal investigator for Penn State’s portion of the multi-institutional BSEC laboratory, led by Johns Hopkins University. The CoURAGE science team includes Benjamin Zaitchik, Johns Hopkins professor and BSEC’s principal investigator, along with nine BSEC co-investigators.

With its aging infrastructure, growing susceptibility to heat and flooding, and ongoing issues with air and water pollution, Baltimore is characteristic of many large industrial cities in the Eastern United States. This was a motivating factor in deciding to propose an urban laboratory in Baltimore, Davis said.

“It’s a city that needs to adapt to thrive in a changing climate,” Davis said. “The city also needs sound evidence regarding options for climate change mitigation — options like urban greening. We also need to partner to generate climate science that addresses the priorities of people and neighborhoods in the city that historically have been neglected. Many of our cities face these challenges.”

BSEC will collect long-term data on the urban atmosphere and land-atmosphere interactions. However, it does not have enough resources to observe all the important variables within the city, nor can it cover “the neighbors,” as Davis put it — the atmospheric environments upwind of Baltimore that affect the city’s climate.

DOE’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility will provide instruments and infrastructure for CoURAGE. During CoURAGE, ARM instruments will help provide coverage where BSEC cannot, forming much of what the campaign’s science team calls “a four-node regional atmospheric observatory network.”

CoURAGE is expected to include three ARM nodes. The primary node will be located in Baltimore at Morgan State University’s Clifton Park site, where ARM will operate a portable observatory consisting of instruments, shelters and data and communications systems.

Two nodes will be smaller observational arrays located at key sites outside the city. One will be located in a rural area northwest of Baltimore, on land typical of the plains found between the coast and the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Air at this this rural site is often carried into Baltimore by the prevailing winds. The other site will be on an island in the Chesapeake Bay designed to sample atmospheric conditions representative of the bay, the southeastern boundary of the Baltimore metropolitan area.

The fourth node will be an existing long-term observatory operated in Beltsville, Maryland, by Howard University and the Maryland Department of the Environment. Located north of Washington D.C., the observatory will measure the air that is carried into Baltimore when the winds come from the southwest, traveling across the nation’s capital.

With data from multiple sites, CoURAGE will be able to document the degree to which different surface conditions around the region can change Baltimore’s atmospheric environment, according to Davis.

“The CoURAGE campaign will be an important contribution to BER’s urban initiative,” said DOE ARM Program Manager Sally McFarlane. “The ARM observations will help improve understanding of atmospheric processes in urban regions, the surface and environmental conditions that drive them, and how our models of urban systems need to be improved.”

The team will collect what it calls impact and process measurements. Impact measurements are tied to conditions that directly affect residents, such as microclimate, air quality or street flooding in a particular area.

“Those are the properties we want to get right in order to understand the environment people live in,” Davis said. “Most of ARM’s data will be process measurements. These measurements will help scientists determine whether they are getting the right answers in models for the right reasons.”

Davis said his BSEC colleagues have found that wealthier neighborhoods have more existing climate and air quality measurements, so they are focused on putting instruments in lower-income parts of Baltimore. The plan could evolve as the BSEC team hears more from stakeholders in the city.

The project’s community engagement team, led by Tonya Sanders Thach and Samia Kirchner, professors  at Morgan State University; Genee Smith, professor at Johns Hopkins University; and Lisa Iulo, associate professor of architecture at Penn State, has gathered a steering committee that includes a broad array of community members and representatives of city government to guide the scientific effort. The steering committee, in turn, connects BSEC, and now CoURAGE, with a diverse cross-section of Baltimore residents to engage in knowledge co-generation, citizen science activities and educational programs.

Other Penn State faculty who are part of CoURAGE are Kelly Lombardo, Natasha Miles, Ying Pan, John Peters, and Scott Richardson, all faculty in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences’ Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science.

ARM’s last urban campaign, the TRacking Aerosol Convection interactions ExpeRiment (TRACER), took place around Houston, Texas, from October 2021 through September 2022. Led by Penn State alum Michael Jensen, a meteorologist at Brookhaven Lab in New York, TRACER studied the effects of aerosols on storms in the Houston area. Jensen is now a co-investigator for CoURAGE.

The other institutions whose investigators will contribute to CoURAGE include Brookhaven National Laboratory, City College of New York, Columbia University, Howard University, Johns Hopkins University, Morgan State University, NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory, Princeton University, University at Albany, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, University of Maryland, College Park and University of Texas at Austin.

A livestream caught the moment a massive ship crashed into Maryland's Francis Scott Key Bridge and caused it to collapse

Matthew Loh
Tue, March 26, 2024 


A YouTube livestream captured when a large ship rammed into a support beam of the Francis Scott Key Bridge on Tuesday.

Screenshot/YouTube/StreamTime Live

• A large ship crashed into a bridge in Maryland early Tuesday morning, causing it to collapse.

• A livestream captured the moment at 1:28 a.m. when the vessel struck what appeared to be a bridge support beam.

• Per ship tracking data, the vessel is Singapore-flagged and is listed at 984 feet long.

A YouTube livestream captured when a large ship struck a bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, causing it to collapse in the water early Tuesday.

The vessel appears to approach a support beam of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which serves the I-695, at around 1:24 a.m. local time, according to video from StreamTime Live. The stream of the shipping channel is funded by Bay Area Mechanical Services.

Per the video, the ship's lights turn off minutes before striking the bridge. As the vessel nears the bridge, the lights then turn back on.

The ship impacts the beam at around 1:28 a.m. local time, and the bridge collapses in less than 10 seconds, with debris falling on top of the ship.

When BI reviewed ship tracking data of the area at around 2.50 a.m. local time, a Singapore-flagged container ship, the Dali, was broadcasting its signal from beneath the bridge, surrounded by several Coast Guard-listed vessels.

The Dali's owner is listed as Grace Ocean, a Singapore-based firm, and its manager is listed as Synergy Marine Group, which is also headquartered in Singapore.

The ship is also listed as 300 meters long, or about 984 feet.

A Grace Ocean staff declined a request for comment from BI when reached on the phone. Synergy Marine Group did not respond to calls from BI.

The bridge has been closed off because of a "collapse due to a ship strike," the Maryland Transportation Authority wrote in a statement on X on Tuesday morning.

The Baltimore Police Department told ABC News that it was "notified of a partial bridge collapse, with workers possibly in the water."

Representatives for the Maryland Transportation Authority did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider

Baltimore's Key Bridge collapses after ship collision; rescue effort underway

Charles Ventura and Thao Nguyen, USA TODAY
Updated Tue, March 26, 2024 at 3:45 AM MDT·

BALTIMORE − The Francis Scott Key Bridge − a major span critical to East Coast shipping − collapsed early Tuesday after it was struck by a large cargo ship, prompting a massive emergency response for at least seven people in the water.

The Baltimore City Fire Department described the collapse as a mass-casualty incident. "We received several 911 calls at around 1:30 a.m., that a vessel struck the Key Bridge in Baltimore, causing the collapse." Kevin Cartwright, director of communications for the Baltimore Fire Department, told Reuters. "This is currently a mass casualty incident and we are searching for seven people who are in the river."

The Associated Press reported that several vehicles had plunged into the river below and said the ship had caught fire. “This is a dire emergency,” Kevin Cartwright, director of communications for the Baltimore Fire Department, told AP. “Our focus right now is trying to rescue and recover these people.”

Baltimore Mayor Brendon Scott said on X that he was aware of the incident and was en route to the bridge. "Emergency personnel are on scene, and efforts are underway," he said.

What happened in the bridge collapse in Baltimore?

Ship tracking data from LSEG shows a Singapore-flagged container ship, the Dali, at the location along the Key Bridge where the accident occurred. Reuters, citing LSEG data show, reported that the registered owner of the ship is Grace Ocean Pte Ltd. and is managed by Synergy Marine Group.

Synergy Marine Corp said the Dali collided with one of the pillars of the bridge and that all its crew members, including two pilots, have been accounted for and there were no reports of any injuries.

USA TODAY contacted the U.S. Coast Guard for comment early Tuesday.

"All lanes closed both directions for incident on I-695 Key Bridge," the Maryland Transportation Authority (MDTA) said on X early Tuesday. "Traffic is being detoured."
How vital is the Francis Scott Key Bridge?

The Francis Scott Key Bridge, named for the author of the "Star Spangled Banner," is a 1.6-mile, 4-lane bridge that crosses over the Patapsco River, according to the MDTA. It opened in 1977.

The port’s private and public terminals handled 847,158 autos and light trucks in 2023, the most of any U.S. port. The port also handles farm and construction machinery, sugar, gypsum and coal, according to a Maryland government website.

Contributing: Reuters

Baltimore bridge collapse sends authorities scrambling to rescue people from river

Euronews
Tue, March 26, 2024

A major bridge in Baltimore snapped and collapsed after a container ship rammed into it early Tuesday, sending several vehicles plummeting into the river below.

The vessel appears to have hit one of the supports of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, causing the roadway to break apart in several places and plunge into the water, according to a video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. The ship caught fire and appeared to sink.

Rescuers are now searching for anyone in the water.


"This is a dire emergency," Kevin Cartwright, director of communications for the Baltimore Fire Department, told The Associated Press. "Our focus right now is trying to rescue and recover these people."

He added that some cargo appeared to be dangling from the bridge.

Emergency responders were searching for at least seven people believed to be in the water, Cartwright said, though he said it's too early to know how many people were affected. He called the collapse a "developing mass casualty event."

The bridge, which opened in 1977, spans the Patapsco River, a vital artery that along with the Port of Baltimore is a hub for shipping on the East Coast. It is named for the writer of "The Star-Spangled Banner."

He said agencies received 911 calls around 1:30am reporting that a ship leaving Baltimore had struck a column on the bridge. Several vehicles were on the bridge at the time, including one the size of a tractor-trailer truck.

Mayor Brandon M. Scott and Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr. posted that emergency personnel were responding and rescue efforts were underway.

What is the economic impact of the Baltimore bridge collapse?


By AFP

March 27, 2024

The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge will bring an economic hit 

but analysts say it is unlikely to make a broad-based impact 

- Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File Anna Moneymaker

Beiyi SEOW with Elodie MAZEIN in New York

Diverted cargo and supply chain disruptions — businesses are rushing to avoid an economic hit following the collapse of a major bridge in Baltimore as a cargo ship slammed into it this week.

With vessel traffic at the Port of Baltimore suspended until further notice since Tuesday’s accident, experts warn of knock-on effects but say these should be manageable in the near term.

Baltimore is the biggest vehicle-handling port in the country, including cars and heavy farm equipment, US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg noted in a CBS interview.

“Right now you’ve got ocean shippers, the other ports and the cargo owners all working to figure out where to divert the ships that were headed that way,” he said.

Besides the hit to thousands of Baltimore port workers, Maryland Governor Wes Moore warned in a CNN interview that more than 140,000 people could be indirectly impacted by disruptions.

“The Port of Baltimore has such a significant economic impact, not just on my state,” he said, adding that the port handles over 50 million tons of foreign cargo last year.

“We’re talking about, you know, cars, heavy trucks, agricultural equipment,” Moore said.

“This is the impact it’s going to have on our country’s economy.”

– Diverted cargo –

Cargo bound for Baltimore will likely be partially diverted to the Port of New York and New Jersey, analysts say.

While this involves rerouting, the port “has the capacity to handle whatever will come their way,” a shipping industry source told AFP.

This is because the Port of New York and New Jersey is the second or third busiest in the country, and handles the equivalent of Baltimore’s year-long container volume in a much shorter period, the source said.

Bethann Rooney, port director at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, added that it is “proactively working with our industry partners to respond as needed and ensure supply chain continuity along the East Coast.”

While there will be “noticeable headaches” in the next several months, economist Ryan Sweet at Oxford Economics expects businesses will be able to adapt.

There will be supply chain disruptions, but he said: “I don’t think it’s going to have a macroeconomic effect because there are so many large ports within close proximity.”

These ports can likely handle a rise in cargo volumes, Sweet noted.

He added that there will probably not be a “broad-based supply shock” that will impact US inflation for consumer goods or GDP.

– Autos –

Certain sectors will be more impacted than others, such as automobiles, noted logistics platform Container xChange.

According to official figures, the Baltimore port’s private and public terminals handled over 840,000 autos and light trucks in 2023, the most among US ports.

“The port is a crucial gateway for specialized cargo and bulk handling, serving as a key link in many supply chains,” said Container xChange.

It warned that delays in cargo movement “could lead to inventory shortages, affecting businesses that rely on timely deliveries, like the automotive industry.”

Companies seeking alternative routes could also face higher transportation costs.

Among key auto companies importing through Baltimore are carmaker Mazda, which told AFP that the Baltimore port is “a vital part of Mazda’s logistics chain in the United States.”

“Mazda is currently assessing the potential impacts of a prolonged closure of the Port of Baltimore to ensure minimal disruption to operations,” a spokesperson said.

“At this time, no alternative plans have been finalized,” Mazda added.

Another major automaker Stellantis said it is starting talks with transportation providers for “contingency plans to ensure an uninterrupted flow of vehicles” to customers.

But Sweet of Oxford Economics there will unlikely be broad-based shortages in the autos sector, with weaker demand for new vehicles and companies having higher inventories these days.

“The issues could be more isolated to certain companies that rely on the Port of Baltimore to bring in their inventory,” he said.

 

East Coast Container Rates Are Getting Cheaper Despite Baltimore Shutdown

Salvors unload undamaged boxes from the bow of the container ship Dali (USACE)

PUBLISHED APR 8, 2024 7:41 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

 

As predicted by many shipping analysts, the shutdown of the Port of Baltimore has not significantly affected container rates to the U.S. East Coast, and other nearby seaports have had adequate handling capacity to pick up the slack. Far from a pandemic-like price spike, the rates on core Asia-USEC routes have actually declined since Baltimore's inner harbor shut down, according to freight intelligence firm Xeneta. 

On March 26, the boxship Dali struck a pier on the Francis Scott Key Bridge, collapsing the through-truss span and killing six road workers. The wreckage closed the harbor to deep-draft traffic, including container ships. All terminals are shut to water-side commerce, with the exception of Tradepoint Atlantic, a ro/ro and breakbulk port located seaward of the bridge. 

After the collapse, multiple public officials warned of national economic disruption from the shutdown of the harbor. While the local effects are serious - thousands of Baltimore longshoremen are out of work - and shippers with diverted containers have to pay more for trucking, there appears to be no systemic effect on freight transport to and from the East Coast, based on Xeneta's data. 

"Spot rates have not reacted but that doesn’t mean shippers with cargo heading to Baltimore are not affected – on the contrary they are seeing containers arriving at ports they were not expecting," said Xeneta chief analyst Peter Sand. “The majority of containers will now be handled at New York / New Jersey because many of the ships originally bound for Baltimore would have been stopping there anyway, which is perhaps why we haven’t seen an upwards impact on rates."

Spot rates from the Far East to the U.S. Northeast are down by about one percent since the bridge collapsed, according to Xeneta, and are running at $5,400 per forty-foot box. (This is approximately half of the late-pandemic peak.) From Europe to the U.S. Northeast, spot rates are down eight percent.  

The changes in container rates are unrelated to any changes in pricing for ro/ro shippers. The Port of Baltimore is the busiest hub for shipping autos and rolling equipment in the United States, and these ro/ro cargoes have no direct connection to containerized freight. 

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is working on reopening Baltimore's shipping channel, with support from commercial contractors and the U.S. Navy Supervisor of Diving and Salvage. USACE's objective is to clear a 35-foot-deep channel for ro/ro traffic by the end of the month, and fully clear the 50-foot channel for deep sea shipping by the end of May. The reconstruction of the bridge will take far longer, and a political debate is well underway on how to fund it.

2024 is Set to be a Year of Supply Chain Disruption on U.S. East Coast

Xeneta Chief Analyst Peter Sand

PUBLISHED APR 8, 2024 1:44 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

[By: Xeneta]

The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore has caused supply chain disruption on the US East Coast but, so far, it has not seen an increase in ocean freight container shipping rates.

Data released today, Monday, by Xeneta, the ocean freight rate benchmarking and intelligence platform, reveals average spot rates from the Far East into the US North East Coast (including Baltimore) have fallen slightly (-1%) since the bridge collapse on 26 March to stand at USD 5421 per FEU (40ft shipping container).

When including other US East Coast ports such as New York / New Jersey, rates from the Far East have decreased by 3% in the same period.

Average spot rates from North Europe to the US North East Coast have fallen by a larger 8% in the same period to stand at USD 2357 per FEU. When including other US East Coast ports, rates have decreased by 4%.

Peter Sand, Xeneta Chief Analyst, said: “Spot rates have not reacted but that doesn’t mean shippers with cargo heading to Baltimore are not affected – on the contrary they are seeing containers arriving at ports they were not expecting.

“The majority of containers will now be handled at New York / New Jersey because many of the ships originally bound for Baltimore would have been stopping there anyway, which is perhaps why we haven’t seen an upwards impact on rates.

“Ocean freight container shipping rates may not have increased following the bridge collapse, but this incident is yet another problem for shippers to handle on top of all the other disruptions impacting supply chains at the moment, including the ongoing diversions in the Red Sea region and drought in the Panama Canal.”

On Friday, 5 April, the Port of Baltimore issued an update stating it expects to open a 280-feet wide and 35-feet deep federal navigation channel by the end of April, followed by a reopening of the permanent 700-feet wide and 50-feet deep channel by the end of May, restoring port access to normal capacity.

While shippers will welcome a timeline for the reopening of maritime lanes into Baltimore, Sand believes importers into the US East Coast could be set for further disruptions in 2024 due to labor negotiations.

The International Longshoremen’s Association’s six-year contract with the United States Maritime Alliance, which represents port terminal operators and ocean carriers on the East Coast, expires on 31 September – and no new agreement has yet been reached.

Sand said: “The threat of labor strikes on the East Coast has the potential to cause far more disruption to ocean freight shipping than the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.

“The clock is ticking and if no agreement is reached then the implications will be significant and widespread disruption at US East Coast ports. This would almost certainly see rates increase for ocean freight container services and could see some shippers choosing to head back to the US West Coats or Mexico for imports.”

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