Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed early on Tuesday March 26 after a container ship smashed into a support pylon, destroying the steel span and sending vehicles and eight people into frigid water below.
Structural engineering associate professor Rachel Sangree, of Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, said the truss design of the bridge – while commonplace – might have contributed to its total collapse when struck by the ship.
“All three spans of that truss are connected to each other,” Sangree said. “There’s a lot of efficiency to that, because there’s a lot of load sharing that can happen among the truss members. But it also means that when this pier was struck, it not only impacts the two spans that were directly supported by that pier, but it impacts the span that apparently was pretty far from the pier.”
The Francis Scott Key Bridge opened in 1977 and crosses the Patapsco River near the busy Port of Baltimore, where activity has been halted.
Sangree said Tuesday’s incident called to mind a similar collapse of a bridge after a ship collision in Tampa, Florida in 1980. She said that event spurred changes in bridge design to focus on protecting support piers in locations that see heavy ship traffic. “When there’s a tragedy like this, you know, we learn from these mistakes,” Sangree said.
It was not immediately clear whether the Key Bridge might have been retrofitted to meet the new guidelines.
The Port of Baltimore is the busiest in the U.S. for automotive shipments, handling at least 750,000 vehicles in 2023, according to data from the Maryland Port Administration. Experts said it may be some time before the port can reopen – after the wrecked bridge and crippled cargo ship are removed from the waterway – and likely a matter of years before a new bridge can be built.
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