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Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

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

#321

Post by throwaway48476 »

denton-scratch wrote: post #294
Retric wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bridges only last for roughly 50 years. Considering such collisions are rare enough to make the news as a memorable event you can workout for yourself that the odds are quite low over a bridges lifespan. They are designed to withstand smaller boat impacts because they occur relatively frequently, but cost vs benefit on rare events that are difficult to mitigate is quite different.

> Bridges only last for roughly 50 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Bridge Opened in 1781, still in service and perfectly safe. Of course, there are no container ships nearby. But I reckon you could sail a container ship under it, given enough water; and to damage the bridge supports, the container ship would need climbing equipment. 1781 isn't many years after the Declaration of Independence.

Notice it's a pedestrian and not a vehicle bridge as well.

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

#322

Post by gonzo41 »

zztop44 wrote: post #309
gonzo41 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hobart learned its lesson. You can't drive over the bridge when heavy ships sail under it.

Yes, but Hobart is tiny so this rarely happens and relatively few people are impacted when it does.

Seems like a fair few people are going to be impacted permanently in Baltimore because of this.

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

#324

Post by dredmorbius »

_heimdall wrote: post #254
Hamuko wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't the US have a problem with bridges exceeding their expected service lives?

That's a common topic here, yes, though honestly I rarely hear about a bridge collapse. I don't actually remember the last time I saw news of a bridge or overpass collapse that wasn't causes by damage like this. Makes me want to find the data now. I don't actually known if our bridges are too old, poorly maintained and falling apart early, or if the whole topic is just herd mentality and politics.

Among the more spectacular recent US bridge failures was the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, which failed during rush hour with bumper-to-bumper traffic with a loss of 13 lives on 1 August 2007: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-35W_Mississippi_River_bridge>

There's a list of many more failures at Wikpedia, though international in scope:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bridge_failures>

There are a number of ship-bridge collisions listed, as well as fuel-tanker explosions, which seems to be a surprisingly common failure mode.

Also numerous failures in China, though how much of that is simply a scale effect I can't say.

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

#325

Post by mannykannot »

throwaway48476 wrote: post #316
mannykannot wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But any preventive measure will have limits as what and how serious an impact it can deal with. The recent grounding of a large container ship in Baltimore's harbor channel demonstrates that a sufficiently massive berm will stop any ship. What's needed is the will to do something about low-probability but catastrophic events (though large-ship collisions, groundings and fortuitously harmless steering failures are f…

The "berm" in this case happens to be the seabed of the earth. There's nothing bigger.

Of course - but it doesn't take all of it...

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

#326

Post by jrwiegand »

hgomersall wrote: post #260

I was wondering after watching the video whether there could be an emergency bridge closure protocol if a ship veers off its intended course. It naively looks to me like there would be sufficient time to log the course deviation and stop vehicles from entering the bridge with lights and sirens and stuff.

This was exactly what I was thinking, too. Systems could be set up to monitor the trajectory of objects moving around a structure and then alerting and closing bridges or tunnels.

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

#327

Post by brazzy »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #104
coqadoodle wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ?

The power going off is most likely what caused the accident.

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

#328

Post by dgritsko »

LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #169
armchairdweller wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! So why are huge—ass container ships allowed to navigate underneath fragile public bridges with single points of failure? The not unlikely worst case is that the ship is out of control for some reason…

> out of control for some reason... I think the whole ship went dark for a moment. That may have had an impact on the rudder, and then some strong current and/or wind, pushing it sideways. Couldn't see tug-boats.

Was watching CNN around 6AM EDT, they had a reporter on scene who mentioned wind "whipping across" the harbor. This was in reference to the potential survivability of the freezing cold water, but it seems likely it could have been a factor in pushing the ship off course as well.

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

#329

Post by mhb »

squigz wrote: post #291
mhb wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could the cost of this possibly be justified?

How many people would need to die for it to be justified in your eyes? Or maybe just focus on the potential loss of cargo from trucks on the bridge, if that helps you.

How many? It depends on the opportunity cost of installing and maintaining whatever half baked thing (lights, sirens, computer vision, AI, barriers) it is OP is envisioning on how many thousands of bridges versus the frequency of issues it will prevent. This calculation is done all the time but not so much by the "if it saves only one x" crowd of clever solution proposers.

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

#330

Post by brazzy »

dvh wrote: post #116

Could this be cyber attack? On the video the ship goes normally straight under the bridge, then does sharp turn right and for 20s or so goes directly into the pier.

The ship loses power before the turn. The power loss could of course have been the result of a cyber attack, but a mundane mechanical failure seems more likely.
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