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Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

wbaltv.com

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Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

#101

Post by DonHopkins »

morsch wrote: post #20
divbzero wrote: post #3

This has been confirmed by local authorities: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/26/major-bridge-in-baltimore-co... https://twitter.com/TheMDTA/status/1772524001815920876

As of right now, that page starts out with a photo of an entirely different bridge of the same name from Washington DC, quite confusing. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_Bridge_(Washington,_D.C .) (hn breaks the trailing parenthesis in the link) Edit: they removed the photo.

Yeah I've encountered url parsing problems on hn before too -- it pays to always check your links. It forgot the . too, which made it think the url was over! You can use percent encoding in such cases -- . is %2E and ) is %29:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_Bridge_(Washington,_D.C%...

Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

#102

Post by [deleted] »

DicIfTEx wrote: post #73
somat wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What impressed me was that it looks like openstreetmap shows the bridge as down already. https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/39.2144/-76.5279

Makes sense, you want anyone following GPS to divert from the scene ASAP. Caching-wise, I see the updated bridge at zoom 15+ but the old intact bridge at zoom ≤14.

[deleted]

Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

#103

Post by mkl »

somat wrote: post #98
mkl wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all bridges are this vulnerable to a single impact. This one, opened 12 years earlier, has a different style and mostly survived a cargo ship impact: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasman_Bridge_disaster

I would say the damage is about the same, The ship knocked down a pier and all spans connected to the pier went down. The difference is, on the baltimore bridge is that the spans are a lot longer. But all other spans(the ones nearly out of frame) are still standing.

Parts of the Francis Scott Key Bridge not connected to the hit pylon went down too. The beam structure above the road that supports the whole thing collapsed and took down other spans.

Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

#104

Post by 4gotunameagain »

coqadoodle wrote: post #18
testfoobar wrote: post #10

You can look back on the livestream here to see the collision and collapse. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83a7h3kkgPg

The lights on the ship were going off and on, and it appeared to be smoking before hitting the bridge. Does not look like they had much control at the time.

Could it be that the power going off and on, and the smoke came from a panicky attempt to recover from a mistake and avoid hitting that bridge ?

Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

#105

Post by lukan »

jack_riminton wrote: post #99
irjustin wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This situation is terrible, but to your specific question: Anyone can build a bridge, but it takes an engineer to barely make it stand.

I like this quote. We have a medieval bridge near to our house (1000 years old perhaps), it's incredibly solidly built, but could you call it well-engineered? It's a subtle distinction that I don't think many in the digital realm quite grasp either i.e. far too many over-engineered technical solutions for features and products that aren't even desired

"but could you call it well-engineered"

If it is still standing after 1000 years, I would say yes. You cannot build a bridge out of stones with bad engineering - it would collapse under its own weight.

edit: does "well engineered" now means over engineered to some?

Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

#106

Post by baq »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #100
_giorgio_ wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the static scheme of the bridge. Most modern bridges are hyperstatic: if you remove one support, it still stands. Or at least isostatic: you remove one support or one span, and nothing happens to the nearest ones. This bridge was ill conceived: you remove one support or span, and it brings down everything like a chain that pulls down everything it's linked to. It's bad because the "engineer" just wante…

You cannot put the entire weight of the 70's safety culture to an engineer "showing off" I bet there was a much more complex and nuanced analysis which included crossing ship dimensions, budget, time to completion, available technology, composition of the local seabed etc.. Designing a bridge is proper engineering and not that easy.

> Any idiot can build a bridge that stands, but it takes an engineer to build a bridge that barely stands.

...in other words.

Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

#107

Post by somat »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #66

Somehow I find it surprising how completely the bridge collapsed after the damage. I understand that a container ship collision is serious, but you could imagine a scenarios where the bridge slumps or buckles but doesn’t just disintegrate like that. It’s surprising that ships capable of doing this damage were probably regularly driving past it, and its safety as a thoroughfare depended entirely on those collisions no…

I would guess none. No bridge span could survive complete loss of it's supporting abutment. Some bridges are engineered to survive partial loss. For example if the left side goes the right side will hold it up. But from the video the ship looks like it took out the entire supporting structure.

Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

#108

Post by bloak »

nubinetwork wrote: post #36
wannacboatmovie wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes me wonder what goes through someone's head when one sees a mass casualty event like this, and your first instinct is to rush to Wikipedia to change the article to past tense ('was' a bridge).

Free Internet points.

Do you think that someone at the FBI, inspired by https://xkcd.com/2910/, will be checking the IP addresses of the Wikipedia editors who got there before the ambulances did?

Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

#109

Post by guenthert »

makach wrote: post #70
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #66

Somehow I find it surprising how completely the bridge collapsed after the damage. I understand that a container ship collision is serious, but you could imagine a scenarios where the bridge slumps or buckles but doesn’t just disintegrate like that. It’s surprising that ships capable of doing this damage were probably regularly driving past it, and its safety as a thoroughfare depended entirely on those collisions no…

Modern bridges are required to endure a collision. This bridge might be very old and not sufficiently maintained against current requirements.

Collision with what? I'm pretty sure that with a sufficiently massive ship sailing fast enough, one could take down any bridge. Hence I'd think there are limits which ship may approach at a given speed. Was one of those limits perhaps exceeded?

Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

#110

Post by jillesvangurp »

wannacboatmovie wrote: post #9
Freedom2 wrote: post #6

The footage looks absolutely crazy - I hope people are safe.

Judging by the footage with the bridge being over water and the temperature in Baltimore near freezing, I would guess no they are not. The outcome of this is going to be very unpleasant.

I just watched the footage. It's pretty horrifying. The whole bridge collapsed in a few seconds. It's a pretty long drop down to the water. Anyone on that bridge ended up in the water with little/no warning.

That drop alone would injure/kill many. And immediately after people would be in cold water still locked in their vehicles. The water there was deep enough to be able to deal with loaded container ships. So, tens of meters at least. If you then factor in currents and the amount of time it takes to mount any form of rescue operation with divers, etc. it starts looking pretty grim indeed.

I hope rescue workers pull off a minor miracle.

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