Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Baltimore Bridge Collapse

I drove over that bridge regularly. It's only 20 minutes from where I live. This incident has done nothing for my fear of heights and tall bridges. I always say a little prayer whenever I cross any of our Bay bridges. You look down and see a ship approaching and think "Jesus Christ if that big bastard even so much as grazed a pylon...."

The Chesapeake Bay Pilots Association is, as stated earlier, a very insular but very professional organization. The knowledge required and the tests to pass is mind boggling - they are a very sharp bunch of cookies. (And paid very handsomely for it.) Ships, all ships, are commandeered far south of here on the Bay by a pilot who threads it through the narrow shipping lanes, ditto in reverse. Unless shown otherwise I gotta keep faith that a pilot was at the helm and that it had to have been caused by some sort of systems failure that he was powerless to cope with. Those guys know those channels and the Bay in general better than you know your way around your living room.

Aftermath: My fair state (fairly f*cked up state) is gonna be hard pressed to scrape together the money to rebuild it. There'll have to be Federal input. The "rainy day, budget surplus" left behind by a Republican administration was immediately frittered completely away by the incoming Democrat admin on frivolous "social programs". Betcha right now they wish they hadn't.

All I know for sure is I'll not be driving anywhere near Baltimore for a long time. Y'all have no idea how badly this is gonna bollox up traffic in my area. We're locked in by all the water that surrounds us - the Bay and its estuaries, rivers, creeks, etc. - there is a finite convoluted land mass that can be traveled upon. Destinations only three miles away typically entails a five or six mile journey because of that. Add now the re-routing off of I-95/695 and there's yet another reason I wish I could move the hell away. This once quaint charming area is now a hell of urban/suburban sprawl with attendant traffic nightmares on a good day, and good days are in the rearview mirror now.