Salvage crews race against the clock to remove massive chunks of fallen Baltimore bridge https://t.co/7NDFM11Fpx
— The Associated Press (@AP) April 16, 2024
Three weeks! Time flies… Per the Associated Press, “Salvage crews race against the clock to remove massive chunks of fallen Baltimore bridge”:
Nearly three weeks since Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed under the impact of a wayward cargo ship, crews are using the largest crane on the Eastern Seaboard to haul the wreckage to a nearby salvage yard.
The heaviest section so far weighed about 450 tons (408 metric tons). In the salvage yard Monday morning, workers disassembled the metal trusses by attacking them with propane torches and a pair of giant shears that sliced them into more manageable pieces. Rising from the water nearby was the Chesapeake 1000, a floating crane with a storied history that includes helping the CIA retrieve part of a sunken Soviet submarine…
Salvage crews are hoping to recover the two remaining bodies once more of the debris has been removed. They’re also working toward their goal of opening a temporary channel later this month that would allow more commercial traffic to resume through the Port of Baltimore, which has remained largely closed since the March 26 collapse. Officials plan to reopen the port’s main channel by the end of May.
So far, over 1,000 tons (907 metric tons) of steel have been removed from the waterway. But the work is tedious, dangerous and incredibly complex, leaders of the operation said Monday during a visit to the salvage yard at Tradepoint Atlantic, the only maritime shipping terminal currently operating in the Port of Baltimore…
In the meantime, state leaders are echoing calls by President Joe Biden for Congress to authorize the federal government to pay for 100% of the cleanup and reconstruction. That would require bipartisan support, and some hard-line congressional Republicans have already suggested controversial demands to offset the funding…
Wednesday Evening Open Thread: Baltimore Bridge UpdatesPost + Comments (55)