There’s lots of news from Baltimore this week.
A new, wide channel that’s 35-feet deep just opened, allowing some commercial ships to leave the harbor for the first time since a container ship hit the Key Bridge on March 26, sending its center span into the channel below.
The Army Corps of Engineers removed a huge 56-ton steel section of the bridge, and a massive 200-ton hydraulic claw arrived on a barge from Galveston to remove more. The claw has a 1,000-ton lifting capacity.
And the City of Baltimore sued the owners and operators of the Dali, the 984-foot-long container ship that hit the bridge, for negligence, and charged that the 21-man crew was “incompetent.”
The new 35-foot deep channel is temporary. It will stay open until April 29 or 30, depending on weather. Then it will close until about May 10, to allow for what the captain of the port calls “critical and high dynamic salvage operations” involved in clearing the channel. Two smaller channels have already been opened for low-draft vessels.
Ships using the new channel need a state pilot and two escort tugs, one ahead and one astern, and transits are allowed only when the winds are less than 15 knots. There are now seven international commercial ships stuck in the harbor because of the wrecked bridge; six of them have drafts of less than 35 feet. Baltimore is a busy commercial port, and it handles more imported vehicles than any other port in the U.S.
The main channel is expected to be open again by the end of May.
The Dali left its dock in Baltimore at about 12:45 a.m., and it subsequently lost power and hit the bridge at 1:30. The collision sent the center section of the 1.6-mile-long bridge tumbling into the Patapsco River below, killing six construction workers and closing the port.
The City of Baltimore filed suit in U.S. District court against the Dali’s owner, Grace Ocean Private Ltd., and its operator. Synergy Marine Group, both in Singapore. It says the bridge collapse was caused by the owner’s “carelessness, negligence, gross negligence and recklessness and as a result of the unseaworthiness” of the Dali. It says that alarms indicating an inconsistent power supply sounded before the ship left the dock. It charges that the crew “failed to comply with local navigation customs” and lacked proper skills and training.
The suit also says “there were no high winds, visual obstructions or any reason to believe disaster was about to occur” when the ship hit the bridge.
Representatives from Grace Ocean said they would not comment, pending the current investigation by the NTSB, the Coast Guard and the FBI.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/23/baltimore-bridge-collapse-ship-lawsuit
