Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses

wbaltv.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 1001 posts

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

#421

Post by desro »

dgfitz wrote: post #267
hiddencost wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's quite right. People in Dundalk will suffer a fair bit, as will folks in Glen Burnie and Annapolis, but most people are going from DC to Delaware, and go north rather than over the Key bridge. I think this is most harmful for commuters. Blocking the Baltimore harbor is brutal although I suspect the passage will be cleared as quickly as possible.

I think 30-35k cars a day cross that bridge. Being local to the area, is is going to make traffic in the entire metro area much worse, and it is already awful.

Report from CBS News mentions the bridge handled "11.5 million" vehicles a day.

EDIT: That number seemed fishy; I think the reporter is referring to the traffic along the entire I-95 corridor.

https://x.com/CBSNews/status/1772556368106450953?s=20

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

#422

Post by boringg »

low_common wrote: post #402
boringg wrote: post #397

This is a tragedy for those involved. My rough calculus points that the amount of force of this collision is on par with a large scale natural disaster. Everyone being surprised at the bridge collapsing needs to reconcile with the amount of force that struck the bridge - it is a truly significant amount of Newtons that hit the bridge. More than a train going from full speed to a full stop. Unbelievable amount of forc…

Your last sentence is pretentious and condescending.

To be fair I am truly surprised at the comment thread here and people being surprised that it collapsed and the lack of understanding of magnitude of forces. I always think of HN as a fairly educated group with a large portion of engineers (skewed heavily towards software which doesn't always have a background in the physical environment).

I don't intend to sound pretentious or condescending. Maybe its more that I need to reconcile with my own expectations of the community level of knowledge/domain of expertise.

I rather have a high bar of expectations than a low bar though to be honest.

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

#423

Post by peteradio »

Balgair wrote: post #374
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.

Fucking Rocket boat... Okay, story time. So, my brother was a law student in SF. He had a class on maritime law. They took at field trip to the Mare Island DHS office (I think) to learn more about the implementation of all the law they were learning. So, they learned, in response to the Cosco Busan oil spill (I think), DHS decided to put in a warning system that would track all the boats in the Bay and then alert the…

Why don't they just fine the shit out of that rocket boat company every time they pull that outrageous prank? Or throw someone in jail. Who thinks that is in any an ok prank? Can you imagine someone doing that in a car? Its just a prank bro!

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

#424

Post by sva_ »

Symbiote wrote: post #53
sva_ wrote: post #5

It was hit by a container ship https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/26/us/ship-hits-baltimore-ke... That's gonna be expensive.

Alternative (registration wall, I think). https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2024/mar/26/baltimo...

Bypass Paywall Clean works.

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

#425

Post by pedermoeller »

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #213

Also important to note. The logistic company running this ship was Maersk. That is the same shipping company that had the ever given stuck in the suez canal a few years ago. Is Maersk now officially the "Boeing" of shipping?

No, Ever Given was not a Maersk ship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ever_Given

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

#427

Post by peteradio »

rpeden wrote: post #168
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.

Anything's possible, but a ship losing steering control is not that uncommon. This just happened at a particularly bad time and place.

It looks like the nominal trajectory takes it very close to the pylon. Why wouldn't nominal be towards the middle of the two pylons?

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

#428

Post by senordevnyc »

desro wrote: post #421
dgfitz wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think 30-35k cars a day cross that bridge. Being local to the area, is is going to make traffic in the entire metro area much worse, and it is already awful.

Report from CBS News mentions the bridge handled "11.5 million" vehicles a day. EDIT: That number seemed fishy; I think the reporter is referring to the traffic along the entire I-95 corridor. https://x.com/CBSNews/status/1772556368106450953?s=20

[dead]

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

#429

Post by sickofparadox »

boringg wrote: post #397

This is a tragedy for those involved. My rough calculus points that the amount of force of this collision is on par with a large scale natural disaster. Everyone being surprised at the bridge collapsing needs to reconcile with the amount of force that struck the bridge - it is a truly significant amount of Newtons that hit the bridge. More than a train going from full speed to a full stop. Unbelievable amount of forc…

It's likely that a lot of people don't understand just how huge these ships are. I'd imagine that much of HN doesn't have a ton of firsthand experience with shipping yards or even close friends/relatives that work on these things. In my experience, almost nothing hides just how large it is than a giant ship.

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

#430

Post by boringg »

mikeyouse wrote: post #386
mixedmath wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if I would expect any bridge to survive being struck by an enormous container ship.

Older bridges no, but newer bridges should absolutely. The Bay Bridge was struck in 2007 and came away mostly unscathed due to earlier efforts to prevent catastrophic damage in that scenario; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosco_Busan_oil_spill Though the Maryland accident looks like it struck it dead on - just a massive amount of energy to absorb.

Glancing blow of the Cosco Busan was a big deal but it wasn't a direct impact. Different order of the magnitude of forces that impact. Not comparable.
Post reply on HN