Baltimore Bridge.

Unbelievable how much damage was caused so quickly. The poor people, and rescuers, in the water at a temperature under 10C and with a diesel spill.

A shocking event indeed , hopefully people will be rescued successfully by emergency services and divers who are on scene.

I imagine that, given the conditions, there will, sadly, be a number of fatalities. There will also be arrests, criminal and civil proceedings.

Almost unbelievable how the bridge just went down .. locals thought it was an earthquake at first but now realise it was a heavily laden container ship…

OMG, just saw the video on the BBC website. Horrendous!

It is just awful.
My thoughts are with all involved.

Dreadful, and so sudden. The video on BBC showed how quickly it happened. Those poor people and their families.

How awful, those poor people. It’s really made me wonder how safely other bridges are designed, I’d always assumed each section had structural integrity but if this bridge was typical, that isn’t the case.

Absolutely awful. There will be a lot of questions about how a bridge could collapse like this after a container ship went into it and why it hit the bridge in the first place. Those poor people.

Awful to read this and am thinking of possible fatalities, I hope there aren't any but that's too much to hope for. About ten or so years ago we took an Amtrak train from New York to Savannah down that Eastern Seaboard of the US, passing right by Baltimore, the parts we saw from the train looked pretty run down and impoverished there's a lot of poverty in America. Thoughts are with the casualties.

There must surely have been something seriously amiss with the design, for the whole thing to collapse like that? Once he’s home I will consult dh - retired civil engineer.

How could that happen?!
The ship seemed way off its course.

Awful tragedy that could have been avoided. Those poor people who were on the bridge at the time didn't stand a chance.

It's horrific. What a terrible tragedy for all those involved. I have to admit that I've never liked driving over high bridges at all.

The weight hitting the bridge support would have been many, many tons. One of my first thoughts was whether the bridge could have been designed to withstand such an impact. It will be interesting to hear your husband’s thoughts Witzend.

Shocking, absolutely shocking!

Witzend Let us know what your DH says about the engineering aspect.

On the BBC feed it appears the problem is that the ship was or should have been in the process of turning around after leaving the port before it got to the bridge. Looking at the size of the ship and the size of the bridge it doesn't seem surprising.

The ship’s lights went out as it approached the bridge then flickered back on before going out again, loss of power presumably affected its course. Thank goodness it wasn’t in rush hour when the bridge would have been packed. Not many casualties reported so far.

Witzend

There must surely have been something seriously amiss with the design, for the whole thing to collapse like that? Once he’s home I will consult dh - retired civil engineer.

After9/11 I read that American building regulations aren’t as stringent as ours. Not sure how true that is.

Sparklefizz

Shocking, absolutely shocking!

Witzend Let us know what your DH says about the engineering aspect.

He would think something seriously amiss with the design, and/or ‘economies’ made with the construction.

Given that it was intended for a presumably busy shipping route, a collision at some point was always a possibility.

Depends when it was built and the traffic it was designed for, early bridges may not have been embedded into solid rock. It went down like a pack of unsupported cards. Many states in the US are poor, I have been watching drive through videos by Joe and Nic`s road trip. They give various statistics and I was shocked to see the poor areas and there are very many. Hence they could not afford highway maintenance

According to reports, it was built in the 70s.

BBC
12:43
Dali 'lost propulsion' before hitting bridge
An unclassified memo CISA - the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency - has confirmed that the Singapore-flagged vessel Dali "lost propulsion" and collided with "a supporting tower of the bridge".

Looking at the size of the bridge and the size of the ship it seems to me that a bridge planned and built in the 1970's was never planned to be able to take this kind of collision?

I’m sure we will learn much more as the days and weeks go by but I read that:

The Francis Scott Bridge was the third longest continuous truss bridge in the world. The longest are in Nagasaki and Astoria, Oregon.

Wiki tells us that:

A continuous truss bridge is a truss bridge which extends without hinges or joints across three or more supports. A continuous truss bridge may use less material than a series of simple trusses because a continuous truss distributes live loads across all the spans; in a series of simple trusses, each truss must be capable of supporting the entire load.

Although some continuous truss bridges resemble cantilever bridges and may be constructed using cantilever techniques, there are important differences between the two forms. Cantilever bridges need not connect rigidly mid-span, as the cantilever arms are self-supporting. Although some cantilever bridges appear continuous due to decorative trusswork at the joints, these bridges will remain standing if the connections between the cantilevers are broken, or if the suspended span (if any) is removed. Conversely, continuous truss bridges rely on rigid truss connections throughout the structure for stability. Severing a continuous truss mid-span endangers the structure.

… which is what has happened.