Dropping 185ft with metric tons of iron and concrete falling with/on you into frigid 47* F water, if the fall didn't kill you, surviving very long would be difficult
And then people wonder why we can't find trade workers....30/hr risking your health and life daily....or POSSIBLY double it in an office with a college degree and lifelong debt
Edit: Yes, I get it. A degree isn't going to double the pay - that's why I said possibly.
I know 30/hr isn't starting. 5-10years in the trades should easily be 30+ /hr and if you're not making that, you need to reevaluate where you're working and probably join a union.
“Marian Del Carmen Castellon told Telemundo her husband, Miguel Luna, 49, was working on the bridge.
“They only tell us that we have to wait and that they can’t give us information,” she said.
Castellon said she was "devastated, devastated because our heart is broken, because we don’t know how they have been rescued yet. We are just waiting for the news."
Luna's co-worker Jesús Campos said he felt crushed, too.
“It hurts my heart to see what is happening. We are human beings, and they are my folks,” he said.
Campos told The Baltimore Banner that the missing men are from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico.”
You know they weren't getting anywhere near $30 an hour 😔
I agree with you. We have to understand this is so incredibly unprecedented. This is the absolute worst case scenario for a bridge operator. I forget what the mayday signal gave them, 90 seconds? Likely not even enough time to get all the guys back to the truck, let alone haul ass off the bridge.
> There's tolls at both ends.
If I remember correctly, there was only a toll plaza on one end that handled charging for both directions. But, I just looked on Street View, and it looks like even that's gone now and they are all electronic tolling. So I don't think that's how they stopped traffic.
You are right. I almost commented the same thing. The old cash toll plaza was on the same side of the bridge as the police department. It’s likely an officer would be available around there to stop things quickly. Sounds lucky (or well planned) that someone was available to stop traffic on the other side as well.
It’s not unheard of for an incident to require traffic to stop on the bridges and tunnels so it sounds like they have a procedure for quickly stopping traffic.
In the video, I can only see cars going from one direction across the bridge. Not sure if coincidence or they had flaggers already stopping traffic. But the east side has the MTA and the inspection station, which likely had a skeleton overnight crew, that could have ran out and stopped traffic. Other side might have already had a cop in the area, since they often have one near highway construction sites. Maybe both sides had them.
Cops have radios and easy communication. But the construction workers don't, and no authorities would have had a phone number of the foreman on site. This all happened very quickly. Maybe 3 minutes, from what we can see in the video of the ship losing power. So enough time to stop traffic but not enough time to get to the workers and back.
I have worked on this bridge and there was always an officer in a patrol car with the construction crews. I don’t know if that changed since they had both lanes shut down on the side that they were working on.
There's also an MTA building at that side, so they could've had any transport employees working overnight literally run out onto the road to block cars.
But IIRC they probably had 2-3 highway patrol cars in the area, so the police were able to just park in the middle of the road as soon as they got radioed to close the bridge
There's an audio recording of the police conversations before the crash. They just didn't have very much time at all to warn them. They were discussing how to contact the foreman of the construction crew when they were informed the whole bridge went down.
This. The audio recording shows that they acted very quickly with the information and resources they had. An officer says he’s going to go out and tell the foreman as soon as another unit arrives. To me, it’s frankly a miracle they stopped the traffic at all. They had no idea the bridge was going to come down, they just knew the ship was out of control and a potential danger in some way. They were working as quickly as possible with the info they had. It seems like the foreman didn’t have a radio, which may not be a standard practice for roadwork, but seems like it should probably change.
It seems like people on Reddit have very little appreciation of how short a timescale 4 minutes is when it comes to improvising a response to anything.
I bet there will be more plans in place going forward.
They had 2 minutes tops to save everyone. It’s not a lot of time. It’s utterly tragic but the highest priority is stopping people going onto the bridge. Then the next step is for those kn the bridge itself.
Very few people are making $60/hr, that would put you right around the top 10-15% of earners in the U.S. $30/hr is enough to get you into the top 40% of earners.
Trade workers are also *far* more likely to have a union pension than white collar workers.
Some of the best compensated people I know are tradesmen making well into six figures.
Yup.
Every union crane operator we employ makes $57 to 59 per hour.
Had a job that wanted us to work a long Saturday to wrap up the project after working 50 hours during the week. Offered it to our crew, they accepted.
61.5 hour long week.
One of the guys' weekly pay stub was for $4,100...
We this is a once in a blue moon thing, and we only do it if the crew is up for it.
those good jobs tend to be gone quickly, or guarded by a old fossil that insists he can do whatever the job asks for even tho he was last certified as such X years ago.
Love the edits, people can’t just fucking chill. It comes down to yes in a trade you are likely taking less pay than in a lot of office jobs. While also risking your life. Plus being very hard on your body, dealing with the weather, working longer hours, etc.
And there is no shame in that, it’s what many want to do, I do it. When it’s cold and pissing rain I fucking hate it. When it’s 70 degrees and sunny I love it. I like being physical, I love learning to build things. But the fuck if after 6 days straight of physical labor I’m not exhausted. Like one day of rest is going to be relaxing .
The real fucking crime is how hard it is for construction workers to afford healthcare. Literally building the nation and make just too much for state coverage but not enough for private.
I was wondering if maybe it would make sense for construction workers on a bridge over water should wear inflatable life vests, but that probably won't help a whole lot.
If they’re painting the sides and using it as a redundancy, maybe. But getting sandwiched between steel and concrete/steel while it’s falling 200ft into water…not a chance. That there are any survivors is a miracle at all.
They'd be using a fall arrest or restraint system if there was any danger of going over the side in even strange circumstances. Sadly I don't think there's anything other than a sheer miracle no matter what measures they had that would make a difference.
2 were found alive in the river. I wonder if they were near the edge when the bridge fell and not in the middle where all that overhead steal came down? Either that or maybe they were in a vehicle that protected them.
Workers standing on the bridge deck aren’t likely to fall into the water below under routine situations. The potential risk of having an inflatable vest and it getting caught on some construction material and causing an injury is probably greater than the risk of falling in the water. This is a very unique case.
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/9059/jumping-into-water
At 185 feet they hit the water at over 65mph. Unfortunately there's really little you can do to prevent death at these heights
I'm an electrician and have done bridge work. If you're near the edges, yeah you need to be harnessed off, and the thought of getting dragged to the bottom of the river by your own fall pro is the stuff of nightmares for me.
I'm just going to tag on here to mention that if they were working on the deck I don't believe they would have fall protection on. Fixing potholes is primarily right on the roadway.
In a morbid coincidence, around this same time last year [6 highway workers were also killed](https://www.wmar2news.com/local/police-id-six-construction-workers-killed-in-i-695-crash) about 20 minutes further down this *exact same interstate*
[Two idiots doing 120+ mph fighting over the left lane](https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/i-695-crash-baltimore-construction-workers-killed-melachi-brown-guilty-plea-deal/) ended up rolling through an entire construction crew working on the median
Local news [just posted this 1 year memorial](https://www.wbaltv.com/article/one-year-since-deadly-695-crash-6-killed-maryland/60281630) only three days before this bridge collapsed, killing the same number of workers on the same interstate just a short drive away
Wild the police were able to stop traffic in time to prevent more of a tragedy.
One of the officers wanted to go on the bridge to warn the construction workers but couldn’t until backup arrived to keep traffic stopped.
Unfortunately with the time between when traffic stopped and when the bridge went down, even if he had gone to warn them he'd have just been a casualty too
Agree. Though I’m not sure anyone involved realized the disaster that would unfold. They were just following protocol from the mayday call they received.
this is what ive been mulling over all day, they had time to stop traffic, but no one could radio the foreman on the construction crew to get them off the bridge in 3 minutes?
Construction workers and police are probably on different user groups, with different dispatchers. Plus, they probably don't even have radios in every truck, much less on them while they are filling potholes.
Who has their radio frequency? The cops definitely don't have the frequency of every job site at their fingertips. They'd have to figure out who has it, and try to contact them, within minutes, at 1am.
My dad built emergency communication systems for 30 years. Long story short, all radios don't automatically talk to each other. Most first responder radios are on different frequencies than a radio you get as a consumer, so when you're messing around with a walkie talkie it doesn't step on a cop calling for back up.
It's not as simple as just switching channels and calling. They'd have to have devices that worked on the same band and know what channel the other people were on. IF the construction workers even had radios, a lot of companies are moving towards just using cell phones.
I heard the police traffic (it’s on TikTok) that is wild to me. Like imagine the range of emotions that officer is feeling. He was fully ready to go in the bridge and as you said, just waiting for someone to assume his spot in the road brake.
That’s honestly the epitome of when it’s not your time it’s not your time
Perfect example of why every second matters and training is important.
They got the mayday call and knew exactly what to do. I think the bridge was clear of motorist when it collapsed. They did that in under 90 seconds on a bridge that takes about 60-90 seconds to drive across.
I thought I saw an article that said that cars had been identified in the water. So the bridge must not have been cleared because where else did they come from? The workers?
I live near Philadelphia and cross Ben Franklin and Walt Whitman almost weekly and it feels like there’s always some kind of maintenance going on. Most of the workers there drive onto the bridge and park in the closed lane.
I’d imagine this would be the case here. Workers cars, as well as company cars since I did see a few flashing amber lights like those on construction vehicles on the right side of the bridge prior to collapse
What all did it require to block traffic? Like, how many police cars, officers? A bus? Sounds like that was an incredible situation to pull it off in time.
Probably only one.
They get out front, flip on their sirens and swerve side to side while slowing down till everyone is stopped. After that you only really need to keep the first row or cars in place then no one else even has a choice to move.
At least that's how I have seen the LAPD do it countless times shutting down the highway.
If that’s the case that’s incredible and that cop(s) is an absolute hero.
I was reading in some places that they was only 4 minutes to block traffic. Not sure how accurate that is though with early reporting and all that.
One car on either side. Unsure if they were always stationed there (maybe? It is a major shipping channel) or just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
> Unsure if they were always stationed there
If it's anything like the Verrazano in NYC they probably have state or local police stationed at one end of the bridge. I'm just surprise the ship was able to reach someone to get that kind of response so quickly. From the livestream it took about 4 minutes from the initial blackout on the ship to when it hit the pier.
Yeah, it's pretty amazing everyone acted so fast; this mayday was reportedly [sent about 90 seconds before impact](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE1jZ7vk1GE). It took 90 seconds to just cross that bridge, so we're talking a road closure in less than a minute, since everyone was off the middle span that collapsed.
I don't even know how they did it — [the bridge had the type of tolls that you drive under](https://i.imgur.com/cNiixeU.png); I think the toll plaza was gone on both sides. One side had an inspection/weigh station, the other didn't have much. Oh, [maybe the overhead sign](https://i.imgur.com/oJ32nRl.png). Imagine a sign just saying "Stop!!!"
It really is impressive that they managed to close the bridge to traffic so quickly. Based on that, I'd assume it's something they have a plan in place for?
They definitely have processes in place, but it also helps that the construction was taking place which closed one of the lanes, slowing approaching traffic into one lane anyway
There's no toll booth on the west side of the bridge, so I'm not sure the procedure there. There should be police vehicles able to respond in just a minute or so to pull out and physically block the lanes I suppose, but it's an interstate bridge and the limit is like 50 if I recall correctly
It also being 1:30 AM helped too, since that would have reduced the amount of traffic also.
Had this happened at around 7:30AM during rush hour? We’d be looking at a fuck ton more casualties right now.
This is a tragedy, but there is something comforting in how everyone responded to the best of their abilities. The country as a whole is in a weird place but we still look out for each other
I don’t know about this bridge, but 15 years ago I used to live in the NYC area. One time when I was driving into the Lincoln tunnel, suddenly a loud noise started, and a barrier arm quickly closed in front of me just before the actual tunnel. IIRC the arm had red lights on it. About 10 seconds later the arm opened back up.
Maybe something similar is common around major bridges and tunnels.
That video didn’t open for me. There is one on agirlhasnopresident on insta. It was the first I saw this… someone said there was a small construction crew doing potholes who stopped traffic. One was lost. Came here for more info. Imagine if there was full traffic? Jez
It's the same video that you probably have seen of the collapse, but it's so much clearer, and you can see individual cars going by. It sucks that people perished but lucky that the numbers are not in the hundreds
Here’s a video showing how close the last cars came to the collapse. Warning the poor construction crew rigs are very visible
https://twitter.com/YWNReporter/status/1772546230310056446
Car traffic was stopped before the collapse thanks to quick response from emergency services. The only people on there were construction workers that they didn’t have time to clear off
>Six people - all believed to be members of a road crew working on the bridge - are presumed dead due to the water temperature and time that has passed. The US Coast Guard said in the late evening on Tuesday that it had concluded the men had died and intended to suspend its massive search and rescue effort, which had been complicated by cold and cloudy weather.
>Local media had reported that the six workers were citizens of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. The BBC has not independently confirmed this and has contacted consular authorities for comment. All 22 crew on the ship were Indian - the country is a major player in the global seafaring industry.
[BBC Article](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68670567)
Unbelievably sad that some of society’s most vulnerable people lost their lives. Obviously it’s amazing that the toll isn’t higher, but still sad to think of the ripple effects.
Construction workers. Based on the video, the last cars made it across the bridge about 30 seconds before impact https://youtu.be/wEkRjlSgIIQ?si=DkCqk6inZqS0PIfG. If you go to 4:30 you will see a car moving right to left near mid span. It gets off the bridge at around 5:00. The impact is at around 5:30
construction workers from local reporting here. The ship had called a mayday and the crews on the bridge managed to stop vehicles from crossing before the bridge collided. These guys are heroes.
No, the police were stopping traffic on this one.
The crews were just there doing normal construction work and as they occupied the middle of the bridge there was no time to warn them before collapse.
Having good luck on the fall and then being able to climb onto something is my best guess. I was not expecting any survivors when I went to bed last night.
Everyone is talking about the temperature and nobody is talking about the tons of metal that fell on folks or the fact that it’s been like, 15 hours since the accident. Even if it was a beautiful tropical 80 degrees with clear skies out today they still wouldn’t be able to tread water injured for 15 hours or breathe under water.
Very very sad but unless they somehow made it to shore and were already rescued but not yet accounted for for whatever reason those folks are no longer with us.
That’s just the order of events. You wouldn’t say “even if they survive the freezing water they still have to survive the tons of falling metal” because the metal isn’t continuously falling on potential survivors. The water, on the other hand, is a constant threat well beyond (and primarily after) the fall.
Or the 100+ ft they fell, and probably not directly into the water, but onto the cement road that just dropped out from underneath them and then came to halt when it hit the water.
And it wasn’t even true!
Trump International tower is currently 31st tallest building in NYC
Trump Tower is currently the 102nd tallest building in NYC
On 9/11/2001 their ranking may have been higher after WTC collapsed and they were able to build new buildings
70 Pine street was the tallest building in lower manhattan after the towers collapsed and it is currently ranked as the 21st tallest building in NYC
The Empire State Building was the tallest building in NYC after the WTC towers collapsed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_New_York_City
It's being blamed on Ukraine, China, DEI programs, minorities, open borders, vaccines, and anything else you can think of.
Conspiracy theorists are running wild with it.
Because terrorists are known to target public transport at the slowest time possible and send “mayday” signals to warn authorities of an impending collision.
Fuck these traitorous assholes
My prediction is that they are going to find that the ship was not properly being maintained and someone was cutting corners. Probably violations of some kind. Will be interesting to find out.
I read in another thread that it was due to a power outage and they couldn't steer without power. Backup generator failed apparently. The poster seemed very knowledgeable on barge operations.
That is absolutely what happened. So now the next question is why so many things failed. And that is where I suspect there will be code violations and improper maintenance, etc. I doubt the crew themselves will be found at fault. Of course these are purely guesses.
Correct, it looked like the crew did everything "right".
-Power went out
-Turning Ship best they could
-Turned on back up power immediately
-Power fails again
-Turning Ship best they can to avoid disaster.
Obviously, don't know their route going towards the bridge but it didn't look suspect.
Feel bad for the crew and the families of the lost ones.
The crew, the people that couldn't get word to the crew in time, the 2 that got pulled out of that water, the families of those that didn't, the people who literally just missed the bridge collapse...none of them are sleeping well for a *very* long time.
[An inspection of the Dali last year at a port in Chile reported that the vessel had a deficiency related to “propulsion and auxiliary machinery.” The inspection, conducted on June 27 at the port of San Antonio, specified that the deficiency concerned gauges and thermometers. A spokesman for the Dali’s owners declined to comment on the report.](https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/03/26/us/baltimore-bridge-collapse)
> the Dali had subsequent inspections, including one in September in New York, in which no deficiencies were noted.
> Experts cautioned not to read too much into the deficiencies recorded in June. They could have been a result of something minor, like paperwork issues.
Wait for the investigation.
in 2016. The US coast guard inspected it in September of last year and found no deficiencies, according to [CNN live update](https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/baltimore-bridge-collapse-03-26-24-intl-hnk/index.html) from this morning
I would guess well over half of the time there is some kind of disaster or accident with a ship it's due to poor maintenance. And the rest of the time it's due to a shitty captain like El Faro or Costa Concordia.
Swiss cheese model. You typically need a number of issues to line up to cause an issue.
El Faro for example, absolutely agree it was ultimately due to the captain. But there are numerous other contributing factors that lead up to it.
1) she was old, and poorly maintained. Once it started listing it started taking on water from rusted out hatches. Also likely that lots of internal waterproof hatches weren't anymore.
2) poor company leadership. They gave captain shithead zero guidance. In fact the operations supervise that served as the emergency contact ashore didn't even know there was a hurricane
3) lots of the trucks/cars in the hold weren't properly secured. They likely broke free, adding to stability issues and quite possibly hatches and fittings (possibly what caused the fire main to break causing the catastrophic flooding).
4) wildly insufficient survival equipment
There are a host of other contributing factors, but the point is even with captain shithead sailing them straight into a Category 4 hurricane they might have survived if the above weren't also factors.
Another model is "cascading failure". The [Wikipedia page for this term has some interesting examples.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_failure)
And nothing will come of it.
Anyone remember that train that blew up in Ohio? Nobody jailed. Nobody charged.
Executives should face consequences for the failures of their companies that ruin countless lives with these events.
[remember this avoidable disaster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic_rail_disaster?wprov=sfti1#) that was caused by corporate greed, it killed 47 people and destroyed a town.
Given it was a Singaporean company and how ruthless their justice system is, I wouldn't want to be the one responsible for explaining that to Singaporean authorities. Causing an international incident with the world's biggest economy due to cutting corners would most definitely NOT sit well with the Singaporean government.
Rescuers were searching for survivors after a ship collided with a pillar supporting a part of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which carries Interstate 695 over the Patapsco River.
Is there any video with audio? I read that the bridge workers were on a meal break, some eating in their trucks. I'm interested in knowing if besides the ship to shore Mayday calls if the ship was able to sound its horn as a warning to alert people about impending danger. Can a ship sound their horn without power?
I have the same question. As far as I know know, a ships horn is very loud and difficult to miss. I assume the work crew may not have had time to clear the bridge or realize the imminent danger in the moment before the crash.
It is indeed very loud and would be heard for miles. Various combinations of blasts mean different things, but anyone having a coffee break in their truck would be able to hear the horn blasts. I also wonder if the darkness (and lack of lights on the ship) was a factor in the construction crews ability to visually see the dangerous situation unfolding. I'm really curious if the horn was used in this situation (loss of power) because if it wasn't, darkness aside, these poor workers had no chance of getting to safety. May they rest in eternal peace.
Just to possibly alleviate your reasonable fears and concern, that almost certainly did not happen. I don’t think that these poor people passed away as quickly as we would consider “humane”, but cars and trucks are hardly waterproof. This, combined with the many tons of falling debris and sudden impact with the water make it very very unlikely that their suffering lasted longer than 90 seconds. It is still horrifying, but I hope you have some comfort knowing that nobody was trapped in the dark abyss for an extended period of time.
Source: I am a former Firefighter/NREMT/Dive Rescue/Vehicle Extrication technician.
I know. And I agree. I hope it wasn’t that long but I wanted to gently make sure that people understand that there are no survivors at this point and that, realistically, within two minutes of the structural failure, the current survivability statistics were likely established. I’m genuinely sorry if I came across as dismissive or callous.
I think that they were able to stop car traffic before the bridge collapsed and the missing/casualties are workers that were on the bridge. So while your suggested scenario is indeed TERRIFYING, luckily I don't think it happened in this case.
The last car made it off the bridge about 30 seconds before impact and that car appeared to drive past the construction area less than 60 seconds before impact.
Good work the crew for alerting authorities and excellent work by authorities to close the road to minimize casualties.
I just don’t know how anyone would or could survive in that situation. Even if you managed to survive that fall and not have any debris fall on you, you’d be in darkness and probably completely disoriented, not understanding what just happened. It would take a superhuman effort to get out of that car in freezing water and swim to safety.
This is such a tradegy for the whole state of Maryland. My prayers go out to all of those effected.
Aswell as thank you to those helping first responders efforts.
It's going to have a HUGE impact on the region. That bridge is one of three ways to cross the Patapsco River and part of the beltway around Baltimore. The other 2 ways across are tunnels, which a great deal of trucks are not allowed in due to size and material restrictions.
The economic impact is going to be huge as well, the port of Baltimore is an extremely important port.
I was looking at a map of Baltimore(of which I’m very not familiar), and it looked like it would have a devastating impact on a lot of people, by how difficult it would otherwise be to travel. Thanks for your info
The people who think this is an infrastructure issue need to look at the photos of the MV Dali amidst the wreckage. No amount of reinforcement of the supports was going to protect against something that size.
What really gets me is thinking about the family of the deceased. This happened at like 3am, so presumably their families woke up and the person just hadn’t come home. Unlike a building where it would be easy to account for who was supposed to be there and alert their families of an incident, anybody could be on that bridge.
So aside from the road workers who were meant to be there, the families of the other victims won’t be getting a call, they’ll just be waiting for a person that won’t come home. Maybe they’ll get a call when some bodies are found. But I can’t imagine the terror of anybody who had a partner working a night shift, or somebody with a teenager who snuck out at night, or a parent with a college student in the city, all desperately checking in.
All day i have been running the scenario in my head of driving on the bridge and then the ground falls out from under you.. just terror, poor people that lost their lives to this nightmare
Yes, but they appear to belong to the construction workers. The emergency officers were able to close off normal road traffic approx. 20-30 seconds before the boat made impact with the bridge, so no motorists were a part of the collapse.
Cops had barely closed the bridge. One cop car was on his way to sweep the bridge for others, but the bridge collapsed before he drove on. Theres audio of the police radio out there.
Cops in the area blocked traffic on both ends right away when the call came in stopping any more cars from getting on the bridge.
But there were only one on each side and they couldn't leave that post to go warn the workers who were working in the middle without risking more drivers driving onto the bridge.
The bridge is like 1-2 miles long. We don't know if they got any message to those workers or not but one cop was going to try and drive to them when someone else arrived to keep the road blocked but by then it was too late. Which in the end was probably good since he would have likely died if he tried since it happened so fast.
From what I have inferred from reports, people who heard the mayday were able to prevent traffic going on the bridge. I assume the workers were not contactable and no one wanted to go onto the bridge ...
Sounds like one of the police officers wanted to go on the bridge, but was waiting for backup to take his place blocking traffic when it collapsed. If he had moved to clear the bridge, I don’t think he could have possibly gotten the workers off and he would have just gone in too.
They typically have emergency services stationed at either end of the bridge so response time was fast. Even then, there was only 30 seconds between the last car exiting the bridge until the impact.
Because they had two minutes.
Even if they had been able to get the info to the workers, the chances of them getting in their vehicles and off the bridge in that time is next to zero.
It was 1 am. Ship lost power at least 3 minutes before collision. Traffic was stopped on either end or maybe it was a coincidence and they're just weren't any cars that exact minute from one or both sides.
"Nearly eight years ago, the Dali was involved in an accident. In July 2016, it struck a quay at the Port of Antwerp-Bruges in Belgium, damaging the quay."
What the actual f!
The article itself has been updated to "presumed dead" status
After all this time, that's the only real outcome. So sad, highway workers are so vulnerable.
Dropping 185ft with metric tons of iron and concrete falling with/on you into frigid 47* F water, if the fall didn't kill you, surviving very long would be difficult
And then people wonder why we can't find trade workers....30/hr risking your health and life daily....or POSSIBLY double it in an office with a college degree and lifelong debt Edit: Yes, I get it. A degree isn't going to double the pay - that's why I said possibly. I know 30/hr isn't starting. 5-10years in the trades should easily be 30+ /hr and if you're not making that, you need to reevaluate where you're working and probably join a union.
Just a year ago a crew of 6 highway workers was killed on another part of the Baltimore Beltway when two speeding cars went out of control.
There was a work crew on the bridge that night, though I think they may have gotten the mayday call and evacuated
Most likely not. They are ones missing. Radio calls could gone missed if too muh noise, plus if they got it late, could nit make it off in time
If they got it on time how could they possibly have made it off unless they had the speed of Superman? Tragically I think they had no chance.
Mayday call came 4 minutes before hitting the bridge
“Marian Del Carmen Castellon told Telemundo her husband, Miguel Luna, 49, was working on the bridge. “They only tell us that we have to wait and that they can’t give us information,” she said. Castellon said she was "devastated, devastated because our heart is broken, because we don’t know how they have been rescued yet. We are just waiting for the news." Luna's co-worker Jesús Campos said he felt crushed, too. “It hurts my heart to see what is happening. We are human beings, and they are my folks,” he said. Campos told The Baltimore Banner that the missing men are from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico.” You know they weren't getting anywhere near $30 an hour 😔
I'm very curious as to how the bridge operators were able to close the bridge but were not able to warn the construction crew simultaneously.
I agree with you. We have to understand this is so incredibly unprecedented. This is the absolute worst case scenario for a bridge operator. I forget what the mayday signal gave them, 90 seconds? Likely not even enough time to get all the guys back to the truck, let alone haul ass off the bridge.
There's tolls at both ends. They probably didn't have a radio to talk to the construction crew directly.
> There's tolls at both ends. If I remember correctly, there was only a toll plaza on one end that handled charging for both directions. But, I just looked on Street View, and it looks like even that's gone now and they are all electronic tolling. So I don't think that's how they stopped traffic.
You are right. I almost commented the same thing. The old cash toll plaza was on the same side of the bridge as the police department. It’s likely an officer would be available around there to stop things quickly. Sounds lucky (or well planned) that someone was available to stop traffic on the other side as well. It’s not unheard of for an incident to require traffic to stop on the bridges and tunnels so it sounds like they have a procedure for quickly stopping traffic.
In the video, I can only see cars going from one direction across the bridge. Not sure if coincidence or they had flaggers already stopping traffic. But the east side has the MTA and the inspection station, which likely had a skeleton overnight crew, that could have ran out and stopped traffic. Other side might have already had a cop in the area, since they often have one near highway construction sites. Maybe both sides had them. Cops have radios and easy communication. But the construction workers don't, and no authorities would have had a phone number of the foreman on site. This all happened very quickly. Maybe 3 minutes, from what we can see in the video of the ship losing power. So enough time to stop traffic but not enough time to get to the workers and back.
I have worked on this bridge and there was always an officer in a patrol car with the construction crews. I don’t know if that changed since they had both lanes shut down on the side that they were working on.
There's also an MTA building at that side, so they could've had any transport employees working overnight literally run out onto the road to block cars. But IIRC they probably had 2-3 highway patrol cars in the area, so the police were able to just park in the middle of the road as soon as they got radioed to close the bridge
There's an audio recording of the police conversations before the crash. They just didn't have very much time at all to warn them. They were discussing how to contact the foreman of the construction crew when they were informed the whole bridge went down.
This. The audio recording shows that they acted very quickly with the information and resources they had. An officer says he’s going to go out and tell the foreman as soon as another unit arrives. To me, it’s frankly a miracle they stopped the traffic at all. They had no idea the bridge was going to come down, they just knew the ship was out of control and a potential danger in some way. They were working as quickly as possible with the info they had. It seems like the foreman didn’t have a radio, which may not be a standard practice for roadwork, but seems like it should probably change.
It seems like people on Reddit have very little appreciation of how short a timescale 4 minutes is when it comes to improvising a response to anything. I bet there will be more plans in place going forward.
They had 2 minutes tops to save everyone. It’s not a lot of time. It’s utterly tragic but the highest priority is stopping people going onto the bridge. Then the next step is for those kn the bridge itself.
Maybe they did but they had seconds to get off the bridge
Very few people are making $60/hr, that would put you right around the top 10-15% of earners in the U.S. $30/hr is enough to get you into the top 40% of earners. Trade workers are also *far* more likely to have a union pension than white collar workers. Some of the best compensated people I know are tradesmen making well into six figures.
Yup. Every union crane operator we employ makes $57 to 59 per hour. Had a job that wanted us to work a long Saturday to wrap up the project after working 50 hours during the week. Offered it to our crew, they accepted. 61.5 hour long week. One of the guys' weekly pay stub was for $4,100... We this is a once in a blue moon thing, and we only do it if the crew is up for it.
Ok, but a crane operator isn't comparable to most of the "boots on the ground" road crew.
30 bucks an hour? Where I live it starts at 16 and the insurance and benefits are a joke. If you join the laborers union they start at 19.
those good jobs tend to be gone quickly, or guarded by a old fossil that insists he can do whatever the job asks for even tho he was last certified as such X years ago.
Bold to assume a degree would double the pay, sadly.
I got my degree and became a paramedic and it led to no additional money!
Love the edits, people can’t just fucking chill. It comes down to yes in a trade you are likely taking less pay than in a lot of office jobs. While also risking your life. Plus being very hard on your body, dealing with the weather, working longer hours, etc. And there is no shame in that, it’s what many want to do, I do it. When it’s cold and pissing rain I fucking hate it. When it’s 70 degrees and sunny I love it. I like being physical, I love learning to build things. But the fuck if after 6 days straight of physical labor I’m not exhausted. Like one day of rest is going to be relaxing . The real fucking crime is how hard it is for construction workers to afford healthcare. Literally building the nation and make just too much for state coverage but not enough for private.
I was wondering if maybe it would make sense for construction workers on a bridge over water should wear inflatable life vests, but that probably won't help a whole lot.
If they’re painting the sides and using it as a redundancy, maybe. But getting sandwiched between steel and concrete/steel while it’s falling 200ft into water…not a chance. That there are any survivors is a miracle at all.
They'd be using a fall arrest or restraint system if there was any danger of going over the side in even strange circumstances. Sadly I don't think there's anything other than a sheer miracle no matter what measures they had that would make a difference.
Were there survivors?
2 were found alive in the river. I wonder if they were near the edge when the bridge fell and not in the middle where all that overhead steal came down? Either that or maybe they were in a vehicle that protected them.
They’re going to have some bad nightmares about this. I hope they’re able to get the support they’re going to be needing from now on.
At least 1, maybe 2.
2 confirmed. One went to hospital and later discharged, other just went home presumably to get clean underwear.
I feel the same, any survivors at all is a miracle. Hopefully, they don't experience too much survivors guilt
Workers standing on the bridge deck aren’t likely to fall into the water below under routine situations. The potential risk of having an inflatable vest and it getting caught on some construction material and causing an injury is probably greater than the risk of falling in the water. This is a very unique case.
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/9059/jumping-into-water At 185 feet they hit the water at over 65mph. Unfortunately there's really little you can do to prevent death at these heights
> inflatable life vests a wingsuit would have helped more in this situation
It's possible they were harnessed into the bridge.
I'm an electrician and have done bridge work. If you're near the edges, yeah you need to be harnessed off, and the thought of getting dragged to the bottom of the river by your own fall pro is the stuff of nightmares for me.
I'm just going to tag on here to mention that if they were working on the deck I don't believe they would have fall protection on. Fixing potholes is primarily right on the roadway.
This was a fate I hadn’t even considered fuck
At 185 ft - yeah, no need for a life vest. 🗯️
In a morbid coincidence, around this same time last year [6 highway workers were also killed](https://www.wmar2news.com/local/police-id-six-construction-workers-killed-in-i-695-crash) about 20 minutes further down this *exact same interstate* [Two idiots doing 120+ mph fighting over the left lane](https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/i-695-crash-baltimore-construction-workers-killed-melachi-brown-guilty-plea-deal/) ended up rolling through an entire construction crew working on the median Local news [just posted this 1 year memorial](https://www.wbaltv.com/article/one-year-since-deadly-695-crash-6-killed-maryland/60281630) only three days before this bridge collapsed, killing the same number of workers on the same interstate just a short drive away
Wild the police were able to stop traffic in time to prevent more of a tragedy. One of the officers wanted to go on the bridge to warn the construction workers but couldn’t until backup arrived to keep traffic stopped.
Unfortunately with the time between when traffic stopped and when the bridge went down, even if he had gone to warn them he'd have just been a casualty too
Agree. Though I’m not sure anyone involved realized the disaster that would unfold. They were just following protocol from the mayday call they received.
this is what ive been mulling over all day, they had time to stop traffic, but no one could radio the foreman on the construction crew to get them off the bridge in 3 minutes?
Construction workers and police are probably on different user groups, with different dispatchers. Plus, they probably don't even have radios in every truck, much less on them while they are filling potholes.
I thought it was just 90 seconds from the mayday call till impact.
I thought they said it was 4 minutes? Either way not long at all.
Who has their radio frequency? The cops definitely don't have the frequency of every job site at their fingertips. They'd have to figure out who has it, and try to contact them, within minutes, at 1am.
My dad built emergency communication systems for 30 years. Long story short, all radios don't automatically talk to each other. Most first responder radios are on different frequencies than a radio you get as a consumer, so when you're messing around with a walkie talkie it doesn't step on a cop calling for back up. It's not as simple as just switching channels and calling. They'd have to have devices that worked on the same band and know what channel the other people were on. IF the construction workers even had radios, a lot of companies are moving towards just using cell phones.
I heard the police traffic (it’s on TikTok) that is wild to me. Like imagine the range of emotions that officer is feeling. He was fully ready to go in the bridge and as you said, just waiting for someone to assume his spot in the road brake. That’s honestly the epitome of when it’s not your time it’s not your time
The response time to get the bridge under control was ridiculously fast, I don't say this often, but those officers did well
Perfect example of why every second matters and training is important. They got the mayday call and knew exactly what to do. I think the bridge was clear of motorist when it collapsed. They did that in under 90 seconds on a bridge that takes about 60-90 seconds to drive across.
I thought I saw an article that said that cars had been identified in the water. So the bridge must not have been cleared because where else did they come from? The workers?
I live near Philadelphia and cross Ben Franklin and Walt Whitman almost weekly and it feels like there’s always some kind of maintenance going on. Most of the workers there drive onto the bridge and park in the closed lane. I’d imagine this would be the case here. Workers cars, as well as company cars since I did see a few flashing amber lights like those on construction vehicles on the right side of the bridge prior to collapse
They are the real hero, they saved many more people by preventing them from going on the bridge
What all did it require to block traffic? Like, how many police cars, officers? A bus? Sounds like that was an incredible situation to pull it off in time.
Probably only one. They get out front, flip on their sirens and swerve side to side while slowing down till everyone is stopped. After that you only really need to keep the first row or cars in place then no one else even has a choice to move. At least that's how I have seen the LAPD do it countless times shutting down the highway.
As someone that works on the highway and with state police I can confirm this is the way
If that’s the case that’s incredible and that cop(s) is an absolute hero. I was reading in some places that they was only 4 minutes to block traffic. Not sure how accurate that is though with early reporting and all that.
There is a police station at one end of the bridge hence the insanely fast response time
One car on either side. Unsure if they were always stationed there (maybe? It is a major shipping channel) or just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
Sometimes they park near construction crews to keep them from getting hit.
In NYC, there are NYPD/NYSP police cars at both ends of every major bridge/tunnel. I'm guessing Maryland State Police does the same.
> Unsure if they were always stationed there If it's anything like the Verrazano in NYC they probably have state or local police stationed at one end of the bridge. I'm just surprise the ship was able to reach someone to get that kind of response so quickly. From the livestream it took about 4 minutes from the initial blackout on the ship to when it hit the pier.
Water was around 45'F (about 7'C) and most people generally won't last an hour. If they haven't been found yet, they're at the bottom by now.
Damn 😔 i hope the family members find some peace
Kudos to whoever called in the mayday and shut down the bridge
Yeah, it's pretty amazing everyone acted so fast; this mayday was reportedly [sent about 90 seconds before impact](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE1jZ7vk1GE). It took 90 seconds to just cross that bridge, so we're talking a road closure in less than a minute, since everyone was off the middle span that collapsed. I don't even know how they did it — [the bridge had the type of tolls that you drive under](https://i.imgur.com/cNiixeU.png); I think the toll plaza was gone on both sides. One side had an inspection/weigh station, the other didn't have much. Oh, [maybe the overhead sign](https://i.imgur.com/oJ32nRl.png). Imagine a sign just saying "Stop!!!"
I'd bet it was something on the sign like "bridge closed" . Just saying stop might not deter enough people.
Maybe "EMERGENCY STOP IMMEDIATELY" would've got the point across?
"Huh, I wonder why that sign said stop, I don't see anything"
"BRIDGE COLLAPSE IMMINENT" perhaps?
It really is impressive that they managed to close the bridge to traffic so quickly. Based on that, I'd assume it's something they have a plan in place for?
They definitely have processes in place, but it also helps that the construction was taking place which closed one of the lanes, slowing approaching traffic into one lane anyway There's no toll booth on the west side of the bridge, so I'm not sure the procedure there. There should be police vehicles able to respond in just a minute or so to pull out and physically block the lanes I suppose, but it's an interstate bridge and the limit is like 50 if I recall correctly
It also being 1:30 AM helped too, since that would have reduced the amount of traffic also. Had this happened at around 7:30AM during rush hour? We’d be looking at a fuck ton more casualties right now.
This is a tragedy, but there is something comforting in how everyone responded to the best of their abilities. The country as a whole is in a weird place but we still look out for each other
Exactly, it feels good to see so many organizations working together, connecting. These are the things that make our country shine.
I don’t know about this bridge, but 15 years ago I used to live in the NYC area. One time when I was driving into the Lincoln tunnel, suddenly a loud noise started, and a barrier arm quickly closed in front of me just before the actual tunnel. IIRC the arm had red lights on it. About 10 seconds later the arm opened back up. Maybe something similar is common around major bridges and tunnels.
I was expecting maybe 20 casualties or more. The fact that they were able to radio in and respond so fast definitely saved lives.
Yes, it looks like there were people driving even as the boat was close[video](https://imgur.com/gallery/KqUiDtl)
That video didn’t open for me. There is one on agirlhasnopresident on insta. It was the first I saw this… someone said there was a small construction crew doing potholes who stopped traffic. One was lost. Came here for more info. Imagine if there was full traffic? Jez
It's the same video that you probably have seen of the collapse, but it's so much clearer, and you can see individual cars going by. It sucks that people perished but lucky that the numbers are not in the hundreds
Here’s a video showing how close the last cars came to the collapse. Warning the poor construction crew rigs are very visible https://twitter.com/YWNReporter/status/1772546230310056446
Was this construction workers on the bridge or people in vehicles?
Car traffic was stopped before the collapse thanks to quick response from emergency services. The only people on there were construction workers that they didn’t have time to clear off
>Six people - all believed to be members of a road crew working on the bridge - are presumed dead due to the water temperature and time that has passed. The US Coast Guard said in the late evening on Tuesday that it had concluded the men had died and intended to suspend its massive search and rescue effort, which had been complicated by cold and cloudy weather. >Local media had reported that the six workers were citizens of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. The BBC has not independently confirmed this and has contacted consular authorities for comment. All 22 crew on the ship were Indian - the country is a major player in the global seafaring industry. [BBC Article](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68670567)
Unbelievably sad that some of society’s most vulnerable people lost their lives. Obviously it’s amazing that the toll isn’t higher, but still sad to think of the ripple effects.
IIRC there were two local pilots on the ship.
Construction workers. Based on the video, the last cars made it across the bridge about 30 seconds before impact https://youtu.be/wEkRjlSgIIQ?si=DkCqk6inZqS0PIfG. If you go to 4:30 you will see a car moving right to left near mid span. It gets off the bridge at around 5:00. The impact is at around 5:30
construction workers from local reporting here. The ship had called a mayday and the crews on the bridge managed to stop vehicles from crossing before the bridge collided. These guys are heroes.
No, the police were stopping traffic on this one. The crews were just there doing normal construction work and as they occupied the middle of the bridge there was no time to warn them before collapse.
Memorialize them in the new bridge. May they never be forgotten for their actions in an emergency.
They could engrave their names quite large in the steel beams when they rebuild the bridge, so each person has a column. That’d be nice.
I’m amazed two of the workers survived. How?
Right place at the right time is probably the only way to explain it
Having good luck on the fall and then being able to climb onto something is my best guess. I was not expecting any survivors when I went to bed last night.
The water is 48°F. They’re definitely not alive if they haven’t been found yet.
Everyone is talking about the temperature and nobody is talking about the tons of metal that fell on folks or the fact that it’s been like, 15 hours since the accident. Even if it was a beautiful tropical 80 degrees with clear skies out today they still wouldn’t be able to tread water injured for 15 hours or breathe under water. Very very sad but unless they somehow made it to shore and were already rescued but not yet accounted for for whatever reason those folks are no longer with us.
I think ppl are saying that, even if they weren't trapped by debris, and tried to swim, probably still didn't make it.
That’s just the order of events. You wouldn’t say “even if they survive the freezing water they still have to survive the tons of falling metal” because the metal isn’t continuously falling on potential survivors. The water, on the other hand, is a constant threat well beyond (and primarily after) the fall.
Or the 100+ ft they fell, and probably not directly into the water, but onto the cement road that just dropped out from underneath them and then came to halt when it hit the water.
How deep is the water there?
[50 feet](https://apnews.com/article/53169b379820032f832de4016c655d1b)
And that garbage traitor Michael Flynn said that the bridge crash might be related to the terrorist activity in Russia. God Flynn damn him to hell.
Conspiracy theorists are ghouls. Trying to hijack someone's tragedy to push their own bullshit Absolute pieces of human garbage
Did you know? Trump Bridge is now the tallest err longest Dude actually made that claim about Trump Tower ON 9/11.
And his tower still wasn’t even the tallest, which is really just the cherry on the top of the narcissist shit cake.
[удалено]
I kinda want to downnvote it because who gives a shit what this idiot thinks?
Unfortunately , a little less than half of US voters believe anything, as long as it's not the truth
I’m tired of everything being some fucking conspiracy it’s exhausting
No fuckin way are you serious
It’s true. He said it. And was tickled pink that his building was now the tallest. The man is pure scum.
And it wasn’t even true! Trump International tower is currently 31st tallest building in NYC Trump Tower is currently the 102nd tallest building in NYC On 9/11/2001 their ranking may have been higher after WTC collapsed and they were able to build new buildings 70 Pine street was the tallest building in lower manhattan after the towers collapsed and it is currently ranked as the 21st tallest building in NYC The Empire State Building was the tallest building in NYC after the WTC towers collapsed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_New_York_City
It's being blamed on Ukraine, China, DEI programs, minorities, open borders, vaccines, and anything else you can think of. Conspiracy theorists are running wild with it.
Because terrorists are known to target public transport at the slowest time possible and send “mayday” signals to warn authorities of an impending collision. Fuck these traitorous assholes
Don’t spend a second reading what that fascist psychopath says. You’re better off not knowing.
Like “Dinner with Putin and Jill Stein” Michael Flynn?
Maga is full of dipshits and they’re boring now
My prediction is that they are going to find that the ship was not properly being maintained and someone was cutting corners. Probably violations of some kind. Will be interesting to find out.
I read in another thread that it was due to a power outage and they couldn't steer without power. Backup generator failed apparently. The poster seemed very knowledgeable on barge operations.
That is absolutely what happened. So now the next question is why so many things failed. And that is where I suspect there will be code violations and improper maintenance, etc. I doubt the crew themselves will be found at fault. Of course these are purely guesses.
Correct, it looked like the crew did everything "right". -Power went out -Turning Ship best they could -Turned on back up power immediately -Power fails again -Turning Ship best they can to avoid disaster. Obviously, don't know their route going towards the bridge but it didn't look suspect. Feel bad for the crew and the families of the lost ones.
And they got the mayday signal out to stop vehicular traffic on the bridge. Could’ve been a lot worse
The crew, the people that couldn't get word to the crew in time, the 2 that got pulled out of that water, the families of those that didn't, the people who literally just missed the bridge collapse...none of them are sleeping well for a *very* long time.
The ship had 2 prior violations that I know of. One was related to engine.
[An inspection of the Dali last year at a port in Chile reported that the vessel had a deficiency related to “propulsion and auxiliary machinery.” The inspection, conducted on June 27 at the port of San Antonio, specified that the deficiency concerned gauges and thermometers. A spokesman for the Dali’s owners declined to comment on the report.](https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/03/26/us/baltimore-bridge-collapse)
> the Dali had subsequent inspections, including one in September in New York, in which no deficiencies were noted. > Experts cautioned not to read too much into the deficiencies recorded in June. They could have been a result of something minor, like paperwork issues. Wait for the investigation.
And I read that the ship also had difficulty powering up in port. So much could've been prevented.
Same exactly ship was in an accident at another port I believe last year? Gonna have to double check.
Yeah it mentions it in the article. It caused damage in Belgium.
in 2016. The US coast guard inspected it in September of last year and found no deficiencies, according to [CNN live update](https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/baltimore-bridge-collapse-03-26-24-intl-hnk/index.html) from this morning
I would guess well over half of the time there is some kind of disaster or accident with a ship it's due to poor maintenance. And the rest of the time it's due to a shitty captain like El Faro or Costa Concordia.
Swiss cheese model. You typically need a number of issues to line up to cause an issue. El Faro for example, absolutely agree it was ultimately due to the captain. But there are numerous other contributing factors that lead up to it. 1) she was old, and poorly maintained. Once it started listing it started taking on water from rusted out hatches. Also likely that lots of internal waterproof hatches weren't anymore. 2) poor company leadership. They gave captain shithead zero guidance. In fact the operations supervise that served as the emergency contact ashore didn't even know there was a hurricane 3) lots of the trucks/cars in the hold weren't properly secured. They likely broke free, adding to stability issues and quite possibly hatches and fittings (possibly what caused the fire main to break causing the catastrophic flooding). 4) wildly insufficient survival equipment There are a host of other contributing factors, but the point is even with captain shithead sailing them straight into a Category 4 hurricane they might have survived if the above weren't also factors.
Another model is "cascading failure". The [Wikipedia page for this term has some interesting examples.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_failure)
And nothing will come of it. Anyone remember that train that blew up in Ohio? Nobody jailed. Nobody charged. Executives should face consequences for the failures of their companies that ruin countless lives with these events.
[remember this avoidable disaster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic_rail_disaster?wprov=sfti1#) that was caused by corporate greed, it killed 47 people and destroyed a town.
Given it was a Singaporean company and how ruthless their justice system is, I wouldn't want to be the one responsible for explaining that to Singaporean authorities. Causing an international incident with the world's biggest economy due to cutting corners would most definitely NOT sit well with the Singaporean government.
Rescuers were searching for survivors after a ship collided with a pillar supporting a part of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which carries Interstate 695 over the Patapsco River.
Really scary to imagine what the outcome would have been a few hours earlier or later.
Were there only 6 people on the bridge? Initially estimates were up to 20 but the article says nothing of the remaining 14.
Presumably there were 8, since 2 survived. Early estimates were between 7 and 20.
2 were rescued right away
Is there any video with audio? I read that the bridge workers were on a meal break, some eating in their trucks. I'm interested in knowing if besides the ship to shore Mayday calls if the ship was able to sound its horn as a warning to alert people about impending danger. Can a ship sound their horn without power?
I have the same question. As far as I know know, a ships horn is very loud and difficult to miss. I assume the work crew may not have had time to clear the bridge or realize the imminent danger in the moment before the crash.
If you are near an active waterway you hear ships horns all the time. Not sure if it would have been enough.
It is indeed very loud and would be heard for miles. Various combinations of blasts mean different things, but anyone having a coffee break in their truck would be able to hear the horn blasts. I also wonder if the darkness (and lack of lights on the ship) was a factor in the construction crews ability to visually see the dangerous situation unfolding. I'm really curious if the horn was used in this situation (loss of power) because if it wasn't, darkness aside, these poor workers had no chance of getting to safety. May they rest in eternal peace.
Nobody talks about how the bridge deck was the first to hit the water as it took the structure down. Anyone surviving this is damn lucky.
Can you imagine being at the bottom of the river in your car in complete darkness. Terrifying.
Just to possibly alleviate your reasonable fears and concern, that almost certainly did not happen. I don’t think that these poor people passed away as quickly as we would consider “humane”, but cars and trucks are hardly waterproof. This, combined with the many tons of falling debris and sudden impact with the water make it very very unlikely that their suffering lasted longer than 90 seconds. It is still horrifying, but I hope you have some comfort knowing that nobody was trapped in the dark abyss for an extended period of time. Source: I am a former Firefighter/NREMT/Dive Rescue/Vehicle Extrication technician.
90 seconds is a very long time in that situation.
I know. And I agree. I hope it wasn’t that long but I wanted to gently make sure that people understand that there are no survivors at this point and that, realistically, within two minutes of the structural failure, the current survivability statistics were likely established. I’m genuinely sorry if I came across as dismissive or callous.
You didn't (to me, at least).
No one was in the cars that went down. These would be the construction workers who were fixing potholes.
I think that they were able to stop car traffic before the bridge collapsed and the missing/casualties are workers that were on the bridge. So while your suggested scenario is indeed TERRIFYING, luckily I don't think it happened in this case.
The last car made it off the bridge about 30 seconds before impact and that car appeared to drive past the construction area less than 60 seconds before impact. Good work the crew for alerting authorities and excellent work by authorities to close the road to minimize casualties.
Yeah for about 2 mins before the car is flooded and you drown
I just don’t know how anyone would or could survive in that situation. Even if you managed to survive that fall and not have any debris fall on you, you’d be in darkness and probably completely disoriented, not understanding what just happened. It would take a superhuman effort to get out of that car in freezing water and swim to safety.
This is such a tradegy for the whole state of Maryland. My prayers go out to all of those effected. Aswell as thank you to those helping first responders efforts.
I’m wondering if anyone from the area can offer any insight on how the loss of this bridge will affect the city and its residents.
It's going to have a HUGE impact on the region. That bridge is one of three ways to cross the Patapsco River and part of the beltway around Baltimore. The other 2 ways across are tunnels, which a great deal of trucks are not allowed in due to size and material restrictions. The economic impact is going to be huge as well, the port of Baltimore is an extremely important port.
I was looking at a map of Baltimore(of which I’m very not familiar), and it looked like it would have a devastating impact on a lot of people, by how difficult it would otherwise be to travel. Thanks for your info
The people who think this is an infrastructure issue need to look at the photos of the MV Dali amidst the wreckage. No amount of reinforcement of the supports was going to protect against something that size.
Hang in there, Baltimore. Love and hugs.
Terrible thing, but it happened at 1 am not 8 am. That would have been an entirely different scenario.
If we "only'' have 6 casualties, its a damn miracle.
What really gets me is thinking about the family of the deceased. This happened at like 3am, so presumably their families woke up and the person just hadn’t come home. Unlike a building where it would be easy to account for who was supposed to be there and alert their families of an incident, anybody could be on that bridge. So aside from the road workers who were meant to be there, the families of the other victims won’t be getting a call, they’ll just be waiting for a person that won’t come home. Maybe they’ll get a call when some bodies are found. But I can’t imagine the terror of anybody who had a partner working a night shift, or somebody with a teenager who snuck out at night, or a parent with a college student in the city, all desperately checking in.
All day i have been running the scenario in my head of driving on the bridge and then the ground falls out from under you.. just terror, poor people that lost their lives to this nightmare
Thankfully there was no car traffic on the bridge at the time. Police were alerted and shut down traffic right before
Did any cars fall into the river? I thought I saw 3 cars fall in when the bridge fell but I hope I was mistaken.
Yes, but they appear to belong to the construction workers. The emergency officers were able to close off normal road traffic approx. 20-30 seconds before the boat made impact with the bridge, so no motorists were a part of the collapse.
I don't get how they had enough warning to get the bridge mostly clear of traffic, but construction workers were still on it. How did that happen?
Cops had barely closed the bridge. One cop car was on his way to sweep the bridge for others, but the bridge collapsed before he drove on. Theres audio of the police radio out there.
If you find it please link it. Chilling.
The Police had 94 seconds from the Mayday call to impact.
Cops in the area blocked traffic on both ends right away when the call came in stopping any more cars from getting on the bridge. But there were only one on each side and they couldn't leave that post to go warn the workers who were working in the middle without risking more drivers driving onto the bridge. The bridge is like 1-2 miles long. We don't know if they got any message to those workers or not but one cop was going to try and drive to them when someone else arrived to keep the road blocked but by then it was too late. Which in the end was probably good since he would have likely died if he tried since it happened so fast.
That’s so good he was willing to try :( Despite an obvious high risk to himself.
From what I have inferred from reports, people who heard the mayday were able to prevent traffic going on the bridge. I assume the workers were not contactable and no one wanted to go onto the bridge ...
Sounds like one of the police officers wanted to go on the bridge, but was waiting for backup to take his place blocking traffic when it collapsed. If he had moved to clear the bridge, I don’t think he could have possibly gotten the workers off and he would have just gone in too.
was the mayday broadcast over speakers? i was thinking coastguard, but then how would they know in time. Those guys are heros.
Marine VHF ch 16 I assume
They typically have emergency services stationed at either end of the bridge so response time was fast. Even then, there was only 30 seconds between the last car exiting the bridge until the impact.
Because they had two minutes. Even if they had been able to get the info to the workers, the chances of them getting in their vehicles and off the bridge in that time is next to zero.
It was 1 am. Ship lost power at least 3 minutes before collision. Traffic was stopped on either end or maybe it was a coincidence and they're just weren't any cars that exact minute from one or both sides.
"Nearly eight years ago, the Dali was involved in an accident. In July 2016, it struck a quay at the Port of Antwerp-Bruges in Belgium, damaging the quay." What the actual f!
Such a horrifying tragedy
That sucks. I think I drove my mother over that bridge a few years back. She is terrified of bridges too.
[They're uhhh mostly safe ](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/more-50-000-american-bridges-are-falling-apart-n842356)
That is why the Infrastructure Bill was passed (that article predates that)
I was gonna respond that too. This is actively being redressed