March 26, this week, marks the one-year anniversary of the shipping accident that destroyed Baltimore Harbor’s Francis Scott Key bridge with the death of six bridge workers. The people of Maryland and Baltimore, in particular, took time for a moment of remembrance for the six men and their families.
“Everyone working on the scene shared that same priority — those men we lost in the water,” Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said during an anniversary ceremony Wednesday, recalling the horror that followed the collapse.
“While this day is a day of mourning, it is not a day of grief alone,” Scott said. “It is a day to commemorate the strength, resilience and that Baltimore grit that we showed the world in that moment.”
On Tuesday, civic leaders from the city and state invited the families of the victims to take part in a wreath-laying ceremony at the site of the accident. They boarded a boat and steamed out to the channel where the men perished and one by one the families laid wreaths onto the harbor’s waters.
It was at 2am on March 26, 2024 when the container ship Dali lost power in the ship channel north of the bridge and drifted into the eastern support structure. The ship’s massive bulk ripped the bridge’s superstructure apart and the whole bridge began to collapse. The ship’s bow was under the wreckage and the massive hull was hard aground across the channel.
First responders were on scene immediately and the search for the missing men went on all the rest of that day and the week to come.
Now, a year later, the channel into the Port of Baltimore is open and ship traffic is back to normal levels. But, commuters and local automobile traffic has lost the short-cut east of the city and must now drive all the way around Baltimore’s west side to get to BVI airport and the businesses to the city’s south and east.
A new bridge has been designed and will be Maryland’s first cable-supported span similar to the one pictured. It will be higher than the old bridge to accommodate today’s larger ships and the state estimates construction will be finished in 2028. Final demolition of the old structure will begin this spring.
Looking back, it is hard to believe a year has passed since that dramatic day when the Dali destroyed the Key Bridge.
