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.

Wife is reading two have been pulled from water alive.

Thankfully it wasn't rush hour, there'd be a whole lot more dead. I noticed in the videos that there were a couple of truck drivers that had God on their side this morning. Prayers go out to the souls that went down with the bridge.

I've never been across it, but I went under it on a cruise ship one time. The Port of Baltimore is huge and there's a lot of ship traffic in and out of there. My major import supplier is located there. This will screw them up and cause my prices to go up. They'll have to bring their containers in through NJ or Philly. Overseas freight rates have already been going up because of the clusterfuk in the Red Sea. There's nothing good that'll come out of this. I would imagine that they'll have the channel open in short order. But what's that, a month, 3 months, 6 months? I'm sure that the channel has some serious current, so it'll be challenging.

Bet that bridge is bumper-to-bumper traffic from 7am-7pm.

Yep. And bear in mind the shipping channels in and around B'More are crazy narrow, and not 100% stable (silting in from the couple waterways that empty out here demands constant dredging to maintain). I'll wager that the shipping channel at the choke point that the FSK bridge traversed is a lot narrower than you think - barely wide enough for two huge ships to pass each other (which means that whenever possible it's a one-way street) - further negating the optimal use of tugs. You never see tugs that far out of the Inner Harbor.

Maybe they can raise gas prices up to $8 a gallon nationwide now just to punish the American people some more.

Yep.

Checking my digital maps. There's another way around that island, to the East, called Kent Narrows. Appears to be about 200 yards wide. I wonder how high that bridge is? How deep is the water?

a drunk pilot caused the ship to lose all power approaching the bridge.

please explain. lol

Fox News? lol

No

185', 50' of water

Can the bridge, build a tunnel.

Osky

185', 50' of water
DNC.

I have no knowledge of east coast pilot assn's, but having had many opportunities to get to know pilots in the Puget Sound marine operations..they are unquestionably the best of the best. Piloting is the very pinnacle of experience, ability and cool thoughtful command under pressure. The chronyism that the bicycle cop Barnard referred to is one of the best features of the pilot hierarchy...they do not suffer fools or the incompetent for one instant...they clean their ranks long before any mishap.

Also there's the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. I wonder how navigable that is?

I read that the controlling depth of Kent Narrows is 6 feet. The ship that hit this bridge draws ~40

35 feet I guess?

Wonder if we'll see a return to lighting ships in harbors by smaller operators then to get them inland?

too shallow and narrow for large ships. I've fished that many times

Sure seems to be a Hell if alot of accidents now days! Trains derailing, plane problems, not to mention Fires