In the early hours of Tuesday, March 26, a container ship struck a support on Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, causing the bridge to collapse into the river.
WASHINGTON — Federal inspectors found no significant issues with the Francis Scott Key Bridge during its most recent inspection in 2022, according to data from the Federal Highway Administration.
None of the 22 people aboard the ship at the time of the collision were reported injured. Rescue efforts were quickly mounted to locate at least eight Maryland Department of Transportation contractors who were working construction on the bridge at the time it collapsed. As of Tuesday afternoon,The bridge, which at more than 1.6 miles was the third-longest continuous truss bridge in the world, had been in use since it first opened to the public in March 1977.
Noting the economic impact of the bridge’s collapse in a statement Tuesday, President Joe Biden said his administration was committed to getting the bridge “up and running against as soon as possible.” Biden said 15,000 jobs depend directly on transportation over the bridge. The number of jobs that indirectly depend upon transportation over the bridge is likely to be much higher.
As of Tuesday afternoon, data from the ship-tracking service Marine Traffic showed at least four other cargo ships stuck in the Port of Baltimore without the ability to leave, including a vehicle transport ship with a capacity of 7,800. A dozen other cargo ships destined for Baltimore were anchored in the Chesapeake Bay near Kent Island, with dozens more already underway from ports around the world.
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