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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

#651

Post by imoverclocked »

paddy_m wrote: post #574
deltarholamda wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This disconnect happens with boats quite a lot. For example, I can, by myself, pull a 45 foot grand banks trawler in shallow water. I know because I've done so. But at even very low speeds, I cannot stop it from hitting a pier. I have not tried to do this, but every harbor master has a bunch of stories about people trying to do so and getting a leg or an arm or something squished and pulverized. People who are not bo…

To anyone reading this who isn't an experienced boater: If you are invited onto someone else's boat, sit down and shut up during docking, don't talk to friends, let the captain concentrate. Don't help, if the captain wants you to do something, they will let you know. If you think you know better than the captain, and this advice is unknown to you, you don't know better. Being a good guest during docking shows experie…

This advice also translates for general aviation during takeoff, landing and taxiing.

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

#652

Post by gimmeThaBeet »

jihadjihad wrote: post #384
dwightgunning wrote: post #28

I had a hunch this was the bridge featured in The Wire s2e1, "Ebb Tide". Classic McNulty; a great season opener. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebb_Tide_(The_Wire)

Season 2 of The Wire is the single greatest work of television I've ever seen. It's as rich as a novel, as tragic as something out of Shakespeare. Seriously. If anyone hasn't seen The Wire, do yourself a favor and give it a watch.

It's always wild that Season 2 seems to be polarizing, it is very different but it's so compelling. Tragedy is really probably the most complete way to describe it.

But yeah the short scenes of "that's my f*ing town" and the "they used to make steel there, no?". I know the first one takes place right next to the bridge because they say they are at Fort Armistead. I assume the latter is in much the same place since I thought they are looking across the river at Sparrow's Point.

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

#653

Post by BHSPitMonkey »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #591
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.

I would and furthermore I think there is a massive bias at play - if the exact same disaster happened in China there would be jokes about bridges made of Chinesium. There is an expectation that a disaster happening in the west in a result of unforeseeable act of god, but in China it will be a result of corruption or shoddy workmanship. Whereas in reality maintenance standard in the west have fallen but in the east th…

> Whereas in reality maintenance standard in the west have fallen

In the context of this incident, are you saying that we _previously_ used to go around retrofitting our 50-year-old bridges with more modern defenses, and then at some point since then we stopped doing this? Obviously if we're talking about new construction, it stands to reason that standards have only _increased_, but this was an old bridge built to old standards. So which standards have "fallen" to result in this disaster specifically?

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

#654

Post by jgeada »

Does anybody keep track how often these ships lose all power?

Wasn't that long ago that another massive cargo ship lost power in the Suez, crashed and blocked that channel for a while.

Somehow I'd expect that there would be backup systems keeping basic rudder control going even in a total power failure, but clearly that isn't the case.

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

#656

Post by mikeyouse »

smrq wrote: post #632
Baxxter wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'The Bay Bridge' refers to something else in this part of the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesapeake_Bay_Bridge

Hacker News:California::Internet:USA It's assumed that everyone comes from California unless proven otherwise.

In my defense, the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge is older and carries more 4x more traffic than the "other" Bay bridge! But yeah, given that the Chesapeake one is just down the road from the bridge that collapsed, I get the confusion.

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

#657

Post by dpedu »

bsimpson wrote: post #637
dgfitz wrote: post #357

I heard on the local radio here, with one of the DJs being an ex-cop, his contact with EMS said the driver of the boat called a mayday and said to clear the bridge. Nope, can't prove it, but I imagine it'll come out in the news soon. So, not intentional.

Sounds like they were able to stop traffic in time, which is why they know the precise number of missing people. They were construction workers fixing potholes.

I'd expect that they have traffic cameras on the bridge that would allow them to know how many cars are missing.

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

#658

Post by CIPHERSTONE »

paddy_m wrote: post #574
deltarholamda wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This disconnect happens with boats quite a lot. For example, I can, by myself, pull a 45 foot grand banks trawler in shallow water. I know because I've done so. But at even very low speeds, I cannot stop it from hitting a pier. I have not tried to do this, but every harbor master has a bunch of stories about people trying to do so and getting a leg or an arm or something squished and pulverized. People who are not bo…

To anyone reading this who isn't an experienced boater: If you are invited onto someone else's boat, sit down and shut up during docking, don't talk to friends, let the captain concentrate. Don't help, if the captain wants you to do something, they will let you know. If you think you know better than the captain, and this advice is unknown to you, you don't know better. Being a good guest during docking shows experie…

This is great advice. For myself, docking in windy situations can be nerve racking. The old adage is to only dock as fast as your willing to hit the pier, and for me this means slow as hell.

I always let guests know exactly what I want them to do, and to your point, it's mainly to sit tight and let me focus.

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

#659

Post by major505 »

danpalmer wrote: post #501
bastardoperator wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The video is surreal, it looks like it barely bumps the bridge and 2 seconds later the entire thing is gone. I don't know what I was expecting, the bridge just looked extremely fragile, makes me wonder what other bridges are at risk of an event like this.

It's somewhat counterintuitive how much energy can be in something moving so slowly. I say somewhat, because when you're up close it's much more obvious, but you're right that on a video it doesn't look like much.

Force = mass * acceleration, it might be slow but how much does a container shop weighs? 100, 200 thousand tons?

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

#660

Post by bmitc »

throwup238 wrote: post #504
bmitc wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That timeline implies that there was only four minutes to respond. Is that correct? Where was the ship going? Does it travel under this bridge on its own power rather than a tug boat? What I am wondering is: why couldn't the bridge have been blocked off preventing casualties? It seems like more than just the boat and operators' failing if there's no time or secondary precautions if such failures occur. I wonder if it…

It was blocked off the shortly after the ship pilots sent their mayday signal and declared an emergency, giving the traffic that was on the bridge time to make it through. Most (all?) of the people on the bridge were contractors repairing potholes. > I wonder if it makes sense to protect bridges with pylons like they have in front of buildings to stop cars and trucks. They're called "dolphins" and some bridges do hav…

> It was blocked off the shortly after the ship pilots sent their mayday signal and declared an emergency, giving the traffic that was on the bridge time to make it through.

This video makes that a little hard to believe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJNRRdha1Xk. Looks like traffic was crossing up until the last second.

Will have to do some more reading as it's very confusing what the ship was doing and what it should have been doing under normal circumstances. In the video, it almost looks like it was steered directly into the bridge. Very confusing.

> They're called "dolphins" and some bridges do have them.

Thanks for that!

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