03/27/2024

How a Cargo Ship Demolished Baltimore’s Key Bridge

Many believe the accident was inevitable

To bridge experts, the collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge after being hit by a heavy cargo ship was as inevitable as it was devastating.

When a vessel as heavy as the Singapore-flagged Dali crashes with such force into one of the span's supercolumns, or piers, the result is the type of catastrophic, and heartbreaking, chain reaction that took place early Tuesday.

"If the column is destroyed, basically the structure will fall down," said Dan Frangopol, a bridge engineering and risk professor at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania who is president of the International Association for Bridge Maintenance and Safety. "It’s not possible to redistribute the loads. It was not designed for these things."

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Washington Post.