A larger temporary shipping channel to the Port of Baltimore will be open by the end of this month, and the larger main channel will reopen by the end of May, according to officials with the Unified Command there.
The main channel to one of the most important ports in the U.S. has been closed since the 984-foot-long container ship Dali lost power and crashed into the 1.6-mile-long Key Bridge over the channel at 1:30 a.m. on March 26, sending it toppling into the Patapsco River below. The crash killed six construction workers filling pot holes on the bridge; the bodies of three of them have been recovered.
The Army Corps of Engineers was able to open two small channels, 11-feet-wide and 14-feet wide, last week so that small barges and other vessels could enter and leave the port. The third channel, 280-feet wide and 35-feet-deep, now is scheduled to open in two weeks; it will allow one-way traffic at a time to service the port, which imports more cars and trucks than any other port in the United States; the port employs 8,000 workers. The regular channel, 700-feet wide and 50-feet deep, is now scheduled to reopen by the end of next month, bringing the port back to normal.
More than 50 salvage divers and 12 cranes have been working to cut sections of the sunken bridge and remove them from the channel. The underwater work is extremely dangerous because of all the twisted metal from the bridge; divers are working in a swift current and near-zero visibility (see the Navy’s underwater sonar picture of the bridge). Other salvage workers are removing containers from Dali’s main deck.
Reconstruction of the Key bridge could take several years. It carried 35 million vehicles a year before the collapse. The Biden Administration has allocated $60 million in emergency highway funds for the initial rebuilding costs.
Read more: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/salvage-crews-have-begun-removing-containers-from-the-ship-that-collapsed-baltimores-key-bridge
