Second channel opened through Baltimore bridge wreckage

UPDATE:
Crews opened a second temporary channel on Tuesday allowing a limited amount of marine traffic to bypass the mangled wreckage of Baltimore’s collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge, which had blocked the vital port’s main shipping channel since its destruction one week ago.

Work is ongoing to open a third channel that will allow larger vessels to pass through the bottleneck and restore more commercial activity, officials announced at a news conference Tuesday afternoon. The channels are open primarily to vessels involved in the cleanup effort, along with some barges and tugs that have been stuck in the Port of Baltimore.

A tugboat pushing a fuel barge was the first vessel to use an alternate channel late Monday. It was supplying jet fuel to Delaware’s Dover Air Force Base.

Gov. Wes Moore said rough weather over the past two days has made the challenging salvage effort even more daunting. Conditions have been unsafe for divers trying to recover the bodies of the four construction workers believed trapped underwater in the wreckage.

In Annapolis, lawmakers held a hearing Tuesday afternoon for a bill authorizing use of the state’s rainy day fund to help port employees who are out of work and aren’t covered under unemployment insurance while the port is closed or partially closed. The bill also would let the governor use state reserves to help some small businesses avoid laying people off and to encourage companies that relocate to other ports to return to Baltimore when it reopens.

Lawmakers are working to pass the bill quickly in the last week of their legislative session, which ends Monday. The Maryland Senate Finance Committee voted 11-0 in favor Tuesday; it could be on the Senate floor as soon as Wednesday.

Meanwhile, crews are undertaking the complicated work of removing steel and concrete at the site of the collapse after a container ship lost power and crashed into one of the bridge’s supporting columns. Crews have described the mangled steel girders as “chaotic wreckage.”

U.S Army Corps of Engineers Col. Estee Pinchasin said the underwater conditions are “extremely unforgiving” for divers.

“The magnitude of this is enormous,” she said.

To open the second channel, crews used a large crane to lift wreckage out of the way.

Other vessels are also stuck in Baltimore’s harbor until shipping traffic can resume through the port, which is one of the largest on the East Coast and a symbol of the city’s maritime culture. It handles more cars and farm equipment than any other U.S. port.



ORIGINAL STORY:
The U.S. Coast Guard opened a temporary, alternate channel for vessels involved in clearing debris from the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, part of a phased approach to opening the main shipping channel leading to the vital port, officials said Monday.

Crews used a large crane to lift a 200-ton span of the bridge, a task that took 10 hours. He said the piece was considered a “relatively small lift” in the grand scheme of the recovery effort, which he called enormous. They planned to lift another 350-ton piece from the bridge later Monday.

Crews are undertaking the complicated work of removing steel and concrete at the site of the bridge’s deadly collapse after a container ship lost power and crashed into a supporting column. On Sunday, dive teams surveyed parts of the bridge and checked the ship, and workers in lifts used torches to cut above-water parts of the twisted steel superstructure.

Officials said the temporary channel is open primarily to vessels that are helping with the cleanup effort. Some barges and tugs that have been stuck in the Port of Baltimore since the collapse are also scheduled to pass through the channel.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said at a Monday afternoon news conference that his top priority is recovering the four remaining bodies, followed by reopening shipping channels to the port. He said he understands the urgency but that the risks are significant. He said crews have described the mangled steel girders of the fallen bridge as “chaotic wreckage.”



(AP Photo)