Non Political Current Events Thread

[shafnutz05]

I've driven over that probably a half dozen times, can't imagine how much worse that could have been just a few hours later. Just awful

[NAN]

Watching the video is crazy. Guess the cargo ship had two power outages heading towards the bridge and there was smoke coming. And then the actual bridge collapse, wow. Fortunately it was at 1:30 am but so tragic.

[NAN]

Also read they found 2 alive in the water.

[shafnutz05]

That route is the designated Hazmat route for trucks going up and down 95. Not to mention the Port of Baltimore will essentially be shut down for what will likely be weeks. The Patapsco is the only way in and out of the Inner Harbor.

[MR25]

How does that even happen

I'm surprised the supports are just exposed steel beams and not covered in concrete like Pittsburgh bridges are. Seems like it would prevent this/make this occurrence highly unlikely with some concrete protection.

[Troy Loney]

I remember when a barge hit a bridge in Pittsburgh. Guessing this was just that with a massively bigger vessel.

I’m amazed that they don’t have some sort of preventative control in place to stop this from happening. Especially if it’s one of these things going offline by a matter of like 50 ft causing a massive bridge collapse and mass casualty. Basically, like a traffic controller monitoring. I get that’s an expense, and this was probably a lot of things going wrong. But even if the probability of this happening is small, the damage is massive.

Also another great example of why you can’t trust private enterprise to manage their external risks. Whoever is responsible will pay in some way, but not nearly enough considering the damage and death they caused.

[DigitalGypsy66]

[Troy Loney]

Supply chain problems again.

Good thing we got McKinsey boy genius in the White House

[Beveridge]

Being in Baltimore?

I laughed way harder at this than I should have given the situation.

[Shyster]

Live video:

TIL that a piling used to protect a bridge or similar structure, or to mark a navigational channel, is called a "dolphin," and a protective bulwark surrounding the piers of a bridge is called a "starling."

Looking at the video and at Google satellite views, it doesn't seem like there was much in the way of protective dolphins or starlings for the bridge piers. It looks like there is a power line near the bridge, and the power line's piers may have bigger/better starlings protecting them than the Key Bridge did. This seems like a major engineering oversight for such a busy waterway.

In 1980 a cargo ship hit one of the piers of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge crossing the entrance to Tampa Bay, which caused a bridge collapse that killed 35 people. The Sunshine Skyway Bridge also had a very similar steel-truss center span, which was the part that collapsed. There's a documentary out there on the disaster, which I watched a couple years ago. It might also have been covered on Seconds From Disaster or one of the other "engineering disaster" shows. If you go on Google satellite or Google Earth, you can see that the center span of the new Sunshine Skyway Bridge is surrounded by huge concrete dolphins, and the main piers are resting on big built-up stone and concrete starlings that would ground a ship before it could hit the piers. For Baltimore, it looks like there are a couple dolphins that were marking the channel under the Key Bridge, but I don't see any more around the piers, and neither do I see much in the way of starlings around where the main support piers came down.

[Rylan]

How does that even happen

I'm surprised the supports are just exposed steel beams and not covered in concrete like Pittsburgh bridges are. Seems like it would prevent this/make this occurrence highly unlikely with some concrete protection.

The amount of force those cargo barges can produce, i don't think theres anything that can actually withstand and uncontrolled impact.

[NTP66]

How does that even happen

I'm surprised the supports are just exposed steel beams and not covered in concrete like Pittsburgh bridges are. Seems like it would prevent this/make this occurrence highly unlikely with some concrete protection.

The amount of force those cargo barges can produce, i don't think theres anything that can actually withstand and uncontrolled impact.

Listen, I'm being told on Twitter that Mayor Pete should have prevented this.

[dodint]

I watched that Sunshine doc a few years ago too, was pretty interesting.

[Lemon Berry Lobster]

How does that even happen

I'm surprised the supports are just exposed steel beams and not covered in concrete like Pittsburgh bridges are. Seems like it would prevent this/make this occurrence highly unlikely with some concrete protection.

The amount of force those cargo barges can produce, i don't think theres anything that can actually withstand and uncontrolled impact.

Listen, I'm being told on Twitter that Mayor Pete should have prevented this.

Yeah well that bridge was racist so it deserved it.

[Morkle]

Anything on X anymore is incredibly annoying. All I see is Right wing conspiracy talk and people who spread ridiculous mis-information. Top post I saw was Flynn saying this was a black swan event, and then a litany of people agreeing with him posting conspiracy garbage.

Why can accidents, just be accidents anymore?

[Shyster]

Listen, I'm being told on Twitter that Mayor Pete should have prevented this.

Not Mayor Pete, but I'm going to call this a failure of government, specifically the Maryland Transportation Authority. The lesson from the Sunshine Skyway Bridge disaster was that a bridge over a major commercial waterway needs serious protection, because even 44 years ago cargo ships were large enough that an impact could take out the entire bridge. Compare the protections for the new Sunshine Skyway Bridge (shown next to the old one being demolished):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_ ... nd_new.jpg

with the Francis Scott Key Bridge:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_S ... n_View.jpg

44 years later and no protections were added to the Key Bridge, which looks like the old Sunshine Skyway Bridge in terms of minimal protective dolphins and no starlings.

[DigitalGypsy66]

I've driven over the Ravenel Bridge in Charleston hundreds if not thousands of times since it opened in 2005. Note how the main shipping channel pilings are on islands:

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

wow, there were at least 7 cars on the bridge at the time. 7 people are believed to be missing but 2 were found safe. I’m kind of amazed that they were able to save those 2 people

[NTP66]

Those islands simply aren't stopping a loaded cargo ship.

[dodint]

A hard hat doesn't stop falling debris either.

[tifosi77]

Here's a webpage about the Key Bridge with a gallery that shows some good photos of the structure in its pre-collapse glory.

http://bridgestunnels.com/location/fran ... ey-bridge/

[NTP66]

I'm sorry, but I laughed.

[dodint]

Fabulous.

[DigitalGypsy66]

Hmm. Are there normally several people recording that bridge at 1 am in the morning? <tinfoil engaged>

[DigitalGypsy66]

The M/V Dali was on its way to Colombo, Sri Lanka. Due there in about a month.

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/de ... essel:DALI