I happened to respond on this when the call came out around 2AM. It was a long 12 hours. I never expected B1M would do a video on it, but glad they did. It truly was a surreal event
@@gameratortylerstein5636 We haven't started it yet. I understand it's in the design phase. I think we are going to be one of the big steel fab shops that are going to be making it. I will know more after the company meeting in 2 weeks. High Steel Structures, Lancaster, Pa
The effect on traffic is definitely noticeable. The tunnels under the harbor get clogged up way more frequently and hazmat have to go all the way around the city on the other side of 695. Weird to see your house in a B1M video...
Hazmat is *supposed* to go around 695, but more and more of it is traveling illegally thru the tunnels. I hope we don't end up with a second B1M video about an avoidable tunnel explosion!
As an American I can tell you that we definitely have the ability to not only learn from our mistakes, but also the money and resources to ensure they never happen again. That said, we always seem to let our priorities fall elsewhere much to detriment of works of programs that would actually benefit us. *sigh*
We have learned a lot here. The key is for the _right people_ to be the ones that learn these lesson. As man creates smarter technology,, bigger idiots show up to balance things out! 😆
@@Lumbergo Not just America, but on this side of the pond, too. Whenever anything happens, those in charge say "Lessons will be learned" but they never are.
2:34 116,000 tons is the weight of what the ship can carry and not the weight of the actual ship. It's called Dead Weight Tonnage. The actual weight is the displacement which in this case was almost 149,000 tons.
I live near Baltimore Harbor, and when my wife asked what the new bridge design would look like, I said it should be a cable-stayed bridge... for the reasons you cover here in this video.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that your title is the understatement in engineering history. As a ship knocking into a support pillar, resulting in the bridge collapsing, was not supposed to happen.
I drove on it the day before it collapse to go home and the next morning it was gone. It was kind of surreal. Now the alternative routes are the two tunnels and the other side of the ring 695 highway. But it's already busy before with the Washington DC metro traffic. We definitely need better public transportation to relieve car dependency
I live in a town that recently lost a bridge (Red Bridge, Kamloops). Not because a ship hit it, but because somebody set its mostly-wood structure on fire. It wasn't a huge bridge, but it was a strategic part of the city's road network. Like Baltimore, it's going to be a while before they rebuild it...
The wake up call for the US was in 1980 with the Sunshine Skyway Bridge collision and collapse. Oddly, the response was to learn lessons only for that bridge’s replacement. No other bridges. The Golden Gate and bay bridges in SF are just as exposed right this minute.
@@johnperic6860 the bridge has one exposed pier on the south. The other is built into Marin headlands. Source: I live in SF, have eyes and this subject has been discussed post-Baltimore within the city govt. That wall you refer to is low and is going to do absolutely zip for the south pier vs a 1,300ft x 200ft, 200,000 ton cargo ship, or really any decently sized ship entering or leaving the bay. It should be safe from a Blue and Gold tourist ferry though.
Born and raised in Baltimore. The bridge opened the year before I was born, so it has literally been a fixture on the landscape all my life. It is just so weird to drive around and not see it anymore… The only thing left or the approaches just kind of hanging out and going nowhere.
Same for me. I haven't for a few years but for 33 years I drove the bridge twice a day. The views, the thunderstorms where lightning was hitting the trusses above the road deck, snow, super dense fog...
Deep water? Most of Tampa Bay is less than 10 feet deep. The ship channel is dug out regularly so that larger ships can go through safely, but ships of the size of the one that hit this bridge can't fit under the bridge. If a ship strays from the shipping channel, it will hit bottom. Which is why the three other long bridges over Tampa Bay don't have issues, the water isn't deep enough for a big ship to even reach one of them. The new I-275 bridge replacement that's almost done will be somewhat higher, but not that much. What those bridges really need is to have the causeways at each end heightened - storms tend to flood them out, including Helene - the waves in the bay were breaking over the causeways but not over the bridges, though of course they were shut down anyway. The cruise industry and the shipping industry would love to have a higher bridge where the Sunshine Skyway is, but that isn't going to happen within the next 100 years or so. Today's giant cruise and cargo ships can't go under the bridge, so it limits what the port of Tampa can do.
@@johnperic6860 Some people knew, but not for Maryland. The Sunshine Skyway collapsed because of a strong squall that pushed the bulk carrier, Summit Venture, into the piers, and yes it really is well protected with extra protections in place in the aftermath... Dali, meanwhile, loses power in a calm, shallow river past midnight and crash into the Scott Key Bridge (The fact they were able to warn the motorists there in advance meant they could see the bridge and they fail to steer the ship away). It's not just the crew, but the state of Maryland; they have plenty of time to sort out the issues after the 80's, but yeah, they chose not to take it and a lot of people are disillusioned to know that they will never change. As for why: well i can't know for sure what stopped them but they had plenty of time to think about that. My guesses are the money or priorities, or maybe there's some opposition that's been forgotten about.
I am just amazed how they haven't started putting up a new one for the folks there. And what about the shipping company? Are they going to be responsible for the cost of building a new bridge. Because there is not only that but the cost of lost time and money spent on fuel do to traffic jams and longer commutes and ect. I think that shipping company should at least pay out something. So the CEO's of the company have to go a few years without bonuses.
Big thank you from Baltimore! One additional component is that the cruise ship terminal in the area was severely limited on the size of the ships due to the relatively low height compared to Philly or Norfolk. A taller Key Bridge would be such a boost to a very average cruise ship operation near the Port
As a resident of Juneau, Alaska...be careful what you wish for as far as cruise ship traffic goes. We are dependent on them, for sure, so I don't want them banned or anything. But every year there are more and more, and they get bigger and bigger. It's destroying our city.
The only problem with really tall ships is that they still have to fit under the Bay Bridge spans, no matter the height of the new Key Bridge. However, eventually the current Bay Bridge spans will be retired and no doubt a replacement span will be much taller.
Interestingly, one of the main reasons for this is a depreciating dollar. It’s hard to plan for spending 20 bucks on a pizza in 10 years as the pizza will likely cost 30 by then.
And we all know why: the moral hazard of bureaucrats & contractors spending the money of taxpayers who don't even have a seat at the table. See also: The rest of America.
$1.7 Billion. I’d love to see the final number be anywhere in the same zip code as that. Over here in the SF Bay Area, the eastern Bay Bridge replacement span was pitched as a $1 to $2 Billion project. Actual cost was probably around $8 to $10 Billion.
About 60 seconds of looking at it on G Earth, it became pretty obvious that bridge needed much more collision protection built around the main supports.
Thanks for showing the brief insight into the clear up operation. Sometimes I think demolition is as interesting as construction, it's all well and good when you can have manufactured materials to build things to your design, but what happens when those giant structures break due to extreme events? Does it go to landfill? Is it recycled? What are the logisitics and chain of events afterwards?
Why are so many bridges collapsing recently? Not just in the US, where the maintenance infrastructure seems to be widely out of date, but around the world too
Because so many bridges were constructed in the decades of growth after WWII (50s til 70s). All these bridges need to be replaced NOW... but nobody wants to pay. So expect bridge collapses becoming commonplace. The only bridge the politicians can agree to rebuild is the crashed one.
@@calvinhobbes6646 And that was recently refurbished 2 years ago. The trend of old bridge collapsing makes it seem like an outlier, but even then, they have legitimate concerns. It may remain sturdy but can the same be said in hundreds of older bridges now built after Brooklyn?
Whoa... 0:33 is the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington. I drove across it last week as part of a mini road-trip to Olympic National Park during my layover in Seattle really impressive structure in person, but here in this video it is mentioned in a bit about dwindling US infrastructure... *shivers* great video as always mate, you're like the Mentour Pilot of engineering and that's awesome, keep it up! :)
I learned something new linguistically! I was prepared to call out what I thought was a typo or misreading @02:38 "…when the vessel CAREERED into one of the bridge's supports…" and I swore it should have been "careened". However, consulting a dictionary, it turns out that "careen" means to tilt or sway while "career" does have a meaning of being at "full speed" (after the more common meaning of a profession).
One disaster I’ve never seen a video on is a very weird one. Sometime in the late 80’s or early 90’s, something ruptured a tunnel next to the Chicago river. Chicago has an entire underground infrastructure. It was one of the first modern cities that was designed rather than just growing as demand grew and paving over dirt paths. If you’ve ever seen a movie with people fighting and driving underground that was probably Chicago. The (very reasonable) idea was that rather than having garbage, delivery, and other business traffic crowd up the surface streets all business traffic would use the underground streets. So all the major buildings have basements and sub-basements that connect to these streets. What no one ever thought of was that much of this infrastructure is next to the Chicago river and a breach in one of the walls that holds back the river could flood the entire underground infrastructure. That’s what happened. One day when there had been no rain, suddenly there was flooding in major downtown streets as the water flooded the underground and found its way to the surface. I don’t think anyone was seriously hurt but it shut down the city for several days and I would like to see a video with details about why it happened, the effects, and what they did to make sure it never happened again.
@@christianlibertarian5488 I'll look, thanks. It was interesting to live through that because it caused a lot of disruption and that tends to bring people together but no one was harmed and it seemed like such an "only in Chicago" kind of disaster. I remember it as being kind of a mini holiday because I was working my butt off but couldn't get to my office for a day or two. This was in the days when laptops existed but to do software development you usually needed a more powerful machine like a Sun workstation... sigh, I kind of miss my Sun workstation. Odd that my PC is a lot more powerful.
Good video. Thanks! Also the first time I see footage of the actual collapse, didn't know it existed. Really heavy stuff. There are so many video's and photo's in which I see bridge structures in the USA, which are really rusted and looks totally abandoned while still in use. Unbelievable the USA doesn't pay attention to regular maintenance like here in Europe is mandatory in the first place! I really hope they learn and build better, and make those other dozen-thousand bridges more safe before more disasters happen.
Michel Virlogeux is a renowned structural engineer, bridge specialist. He helped design bridges such as the Millau Viaduct in France or the Yavuz Sultan Selim in Turkey. A sound choice for the Francis Scott Key bridge replacement!
Went under that bridge went I went in my cruise a few years ago and said that it was huge compared to all the bridges back in my hometown of Pittsburgh.
I dunno if a bridge being hit by a massive ship they would've never thought of back when it was designed is really a "construction fail." I'd be surprised if any bridge in the world can withstand being hit by a massive heavy container ship.
When you have modern pier protection built to modern standards, like dolphins, islands, or thick abutments, the chances are extremely good that the bridge will survive. The Francis Scott Key Bridge would likely have survived this incident has it had proper pier protection. But it didn't, its dolphins were way too small, too few, and too far from the actual piers to make a difference. It was absolutely avoidable had the bridge been retrofitted.
As an engineering student, I promise you a direct strike from a ship that heavy is not going to be stopped. The best you can do is deflect the energy before the ship hit, and the key bridge had a smaller protection system. The Dali avoided the protection system. The way to avoid this problem in the future is to have longer spans and to move the pillars further away from the shipping channel. This is not an easy task, but it is possible. Ultimately, this would move the piers into water that is too shallow for a large container ship to travel through. It also would allow for a larger protection system to be installed without impact in the flow of traffic.
@@TheAmericanMuffin please look up the video about a chinese ship hitting a bridge and not collapsing, it kinda destroys your american "engineering" example...
@@TheAmericanMuffin -- OR, "they" could have controlled ship traffic to only permit one way traffic. The dredged channel would be narrower and an out of control ship would hit the bank and be slowed down or stopped.
Cable stayed bridges are more safer and stronger than suspension and truss bridges bottom line .. they prevent future incidents such as ship collisions and less stress tensions on the superstructures to avoid critical fractures on support or pier columns along with stronger and wider pillar columns in the water to better against weather conditions, etc. ... Bridges must have their weights and structures fully secured to support enough weight to hold loads of millions and millions of vehicles and avoid vulnerabilities they face
The Dolphins were placed assuming that a ship would be sailing along the river channel but too far over. But the Dali went from being in the middle of the channel to veering off course at a steep angle directly into the pylon. They didn't plan for that eventuality.
I live in Maryland and had travelled over that bridge many times, the collapse of the bridge was inevitable. 1. The lack of dolphin protection was obvious. Look at the power line protection just west, those were property done. I actually built parts for them for the contractor , McLean Contracting which is literally like a mile away. 2. The bridge was janky as hell. I'd drive my large service truck over it and the bridge deck under the suspension span portion would bounce as you went over it. 3. Because of the much higher increase in weight and traffic, it would have probably failed at some point due to excess vibration and corrosion. The thing that bothers me the most about the 'rebuild' is before they had a design they know how much it costs ($1.4-2.1B by some estimates). And also the bridge is only about a mile and a half long . Now the 2nd Bay Bridge built in the mid 70's cost roughly $5B (adjusted for inflation) and it is 4.4 miles long in depths 3x deeper. How does a bridge a third of the length, in shallower water, with existing entry infrastructure (road, toll plaza, etc) cost half as much , especially when there are numerous shipyards, fabricators and bridge contractors located nearby? The whole thing already stinks of union corruption. As like anything in Maryland, the cost by the times it's done will likely be 2x and after a few Senate hearings and a bunch of resignations it'll be found there was a bunch of payoffs ,bribes and shady deals from everyone involved...
I used to be a part of a union, but I left because the only thing they cared about was raising my wages so they could get more union dues. I would have preferred a lot of other things be done first before my wages were raised, since the higher my wages went, the less money I actually took home (getting kicked into higher tax brackets, etc.)
It was actually "inevitable" for 3 reasons (1) it was too short for the promised Mega-Port ships and could not be made taller; (2) its footings were too near the already one-way-only shipping channel and could not be widened; (3) The Powers that wield the energy beam weapon used to take it down (melted in several places along the steel girders) decided it was time and that they could 'get away with it'. The organization site called "CONSPIRA" has a 104-part series deeply examining all known of the many anomalies.
Keep in mind unless action to change status quo is take, this incident will be a lesson observed versus lesson learned. Glad the critical failure bridges in USA have been identified. Now action has to be taken to mitigate the risk as necessary for each site.
With bridges that have such narrow main spans there’s only two possible mitigations, new bridges or don’t let ships near this big anywhere near them. Both are major costs to local economies so I’ll bet most do nothing if they aren’t already getting funds for a replacement for other reasons.
I've been thinking about this recently, why did it not get talking about or investigated? It literally looked like it got hacked and went straight for the bridge at the last min. And also lost power? What happen
I work in a bridge fab shop just up the road from this in Pa. Maryland called us in the morning it fell. Just to see how busy we are and to see if we could do the project, of course we said yes. B1M should do a video of the plant and how steel bridges are made. I'm sure High Steel Structures, Lancaster, Pa would eat in up. We are one of the biggest on the east coast. There are about 5 companies on the east coast that can do a project like this.
I think no lessons will be learnt - by the politicians anyway. As the video says, while this bridge gets rebuilt, others get no money. With how Congress (doesn't) work nowadays, expect few to no bridges to be rebuilt before they crumble and collapse.
I don’t even understand that; why are we paying for the entire bridge? Isn’t that something that either that shipping company or whoever their insurer should be paying a fat stack for?
I see this happening to the Western Hills Viaduct in Cincinnati Oh. For years the state has listed it as "Dangerous". The city says that they cannot afford to replace it yet they could afford to build three sports stadiums.
I drove over it 10 times a week the last 3 years and also the bay bridge's for work. I'm still shocked it happened. I remember going over the last time. I feel like I've always had a slight premonition about the collapse.
Kinda surprised you didn't touch upon the parallels between the Francis Scott Key bridge incident and the Sunshine Skyway Collapse. I was kinda floored when I looked up the dates and saw how close the opening of the FCK Bridge and the Sunshine Skyway collapse were. I was honestly kinda infuriated that there were only 4 dolphins, given the amount of ship traffic I honestly would have thought after the Sunshine Skyway collapse they would added at least 6-12 additional dolphins to better protect those critical supports.
Congress won't pay a dime to prevent disasters when it's cheaper to just replace the bridge after it has collapsed. Unless, I guess, it's a bridge the politicians use themselves...
Indeed, I noticed the parallel when I first heard about the Key Bridge collapse. The old Sunshine Skyway was a cantilever truss bridge that collapsed when a ship crashed into it. (Or rather, one side of it did; it was two parallel bridges, and only one came down.) Its replacement is a cable-stayed bridge with _much_ better protection to keep ships from crashing into it.
Dolphins are basically ineffectual against ships this size, you need large artificial islands or the piers moved to shallow water/riverbanks. Basically you need a whole new bridge. The main span on the old one was too narrow to be better protected and still navigable. The spate of bridge collapses around the world in the 70’s and 80’s (basically one this size almost every year for a decade or so!) led to protections against the size of ships that existed then. Alternatively to a new bridge they would have had to stop ships even half this size going near the bridge. There’s no middle option here. New bridges are $$$$ someone judged it worth the risk, I’m still not sure they’d have changed their mind even in hindsight.
The bridge this guy designed in Copenhagen, is the worst bridge built in danish history. It's a bicycle bridge, but designed with complete disregard for people on a bicycle.
It was a very sad morning as I was waking up the local news was on and when I heard the bridge was hit !!!! People were in the water and missing .heart breaking i used the bridge 99% of the time to get to the Eastside of baltimore county. I just pray ot never happens again anywhere
I think this is more of a lesson in maritime security. Modern ships are so large that it's imposssible to design a bridge that would be guaranteed to survive a hit to one of its supports.
Not at all. Just place the supports far away from the shipping channel and pour sand around them. Any ship no matter its size would beach itself before reaching the supports. The key here is MODERN bridges. Cheap old bridges like this Francis Scott Key bridge has no business existing in such a high volume shipping channel, and should have been torn down years ago.
Nope, most modern bridges with heavy port traffic especially suspension bridges today are more than capable of handling impact from even the largest ships in the world. The bridge collapse was an infrastructure problem, not a maritime security issue. The MV Dali wasn't even on cruising speed when it hit the bridge, that tells you how prone it was to collapse.
@@eat_ze_bugs Large container ships weigh 200 000 tons, and near a port it might travel at around 20 knots. That's roughly 2 billion Newtons of force hitting a bridge support. I seryously doubt any structure could support such a strong lateral force without being prohibitively expensive.
1:54 🇭🇰🌉The Tin Kau bridge in Hong Kong is absolutely beautiful as is the Copenhagen bridge. I had the honor of visiting the Tin Kau it on a misty day in December some years ago and Cophenhagen bridge more recently. Tin Kau is an absolutely stunning marvel. WTG Ian Firth!
"Mare-ee-land" is a rail station in East London. The US state is "Mare-eh-land" with the middle syllable so short that it is often dropped entirely. This mistake is extremely common among Brits, including many who should know better.
@@Ryan-093 It is profoundly sad how little attention our nation's rail infrastructure receives. I understand that our country is not as compact as Europe or Japan (which makes long-distance rail travel much longer), but the need for metropolitan rail is very much still alive. We tore out almost every single streetcar in our country and replaced them with single-occupancy vehicles. Bring back rail-based mass transit!
@kentslocum Only an anti-private vehicle person would type that. Ur statement is wrong. A great deal of Goods are delivered via over land trucks. Many private vehicles are for small business. "Small business is the backbone of our country" - -Sm biz owner & sm biz Coach.
@lacesout8292 what? more trains makes roads less congested. nobody is saying to get rid of roads entirely. the US was literally built with railroads and trains.
The rebuild will be federally funded. Shouldn't it be funded by the company that owns the ship that took down the bridge? Or at least by their insurance company?
There are lawsuits. Either way, using tax dollars for the bridge is the Constitutionally correct use of tax dollars. US infrastructure used by US citizens. The cost, no matter how high, will be a very small fraction of what we send overseas every day.
We do have at least 2 problem bridges where I live in the Staten Island borough of New York City 1 - Outerbridge Crossing built mid-1920s almost 100 years ago main complaint is it still has the older outdated lane width of 10 feet compared to modern highway and bridge 12 foot wide lane standards, this smaller lane size plus two lanes each way carrying a LOT of traffic can make driving annoying I have done it, not sure of bridge condition, New York State has said they are aware of it needing replacement especially after the Goethals Bridge north of it was replaced for similar lane width, needing more lanes and age issues 2 - Bayonne Bridge built around start of the 1930s about 90 years old sees the lightest traffic of our 4 bridges but its main issue is it goes across a main shipping route giving access to important New Jersey ports such as Newark Before and after 2010, plans were made to raise the roadbed due to increasing height of container ships and they did There was consideration for a new bridge or even a tunnel but both those were deemed too expensive yet you have to wonder if ships keep getting taller, how long can they keep raising the roadway Our other two bridges include 3 - Verazzano-Narrows Bridge, not sure of exact condition but nothing heard about needing replacement 4 - Goethals Bridge, original was built in the late 1920s and lasted until about 2017 then replaced by new current one We first heard of the new one publicly that I recall in the 2000s however it has been stated there was actual consideration for other plans going back to the mid-1980s including a plan to build a sister structure to the old one giving 2 bridges, one for each direction, a plan that was canceled by politics at the time The new current one is said to have tower design made to avoid causing problems for flights going to and from Newark Airport north of it, did not know that was an issue personally
my guess is such work would require effectively building a new bridge. They cant just add more steel and call it a day, that extra steel adds weight that wasnt a factor in the original design, then the piers and foundations need work to support the new mass, that would require under water works, coffer dams alot of skilled work that goes beyond just welders and fabricators - surveyers geologists etc. Before you know it you've just contracted out a whole new bridge, but probably for much higher cost than it would be to just build a new one from scratch 100 meters upriver and demo the old
THE problem was money. The port of Baltimore has been losing business to the Virginia ports for decades. Had, for example, Baltimore required tugs fewer ships would have called on that port.
@@GilmerJohntugs aren’t capable of stopping a ship like this moving at speed. They very slightly adjust the speed and direction of ships that are basically stopped to begin with. You can’t practically move a ship this large any reasonable distance with tugs and they’re explicitly made to not be with the ships near bridges as it would in this situation have made no difference except probably another fatality on a tug. Their only options realistically were new bridge or moving these port facilities downstream of the bridge. Both $$$$.
Federally funded ?? Doesn't the company who owns the ship that damaged the bridge have insurance ?? Why should the tax payers pay for someone else's accident ??
Since nationwide news coverage has left the city since the incident, its not being covered outside the city, but the state of maryland has filed a lawsuit against the company that owns the ship.
Having been over that bridge many times over the years, and knowing the state Baltimore has been in even longer than I've been alive, it doesn't surprise me that such an incident was avoidable. Local leadership tends to fall into a pattern of corruption, and very little actually gets fixed, until a catastrophe occurs.
@@vinesthemonkey sadly, history has shown at least in Baltimore that it’s not specific to a particular party; it seems to entrap anyone who ends up in Baltimore politics.
AND, the ship with a poor maintenance record, we can't leave that part out of it. The ship doesn't hit the bridge, it's standing today and for many years to come.
It’s honestly a little baffling no one is mentioning the sunshine skyway bridge down in Florida, it collapsed because of a ship back in 1980… we know how to protect bridges people and we know ships hit bridges… the Francis Scott key bridge should still be standing!!!
We learned a lot decades ago it’s just expensive or inconvenient to actually prevent re-occurrence. It’s not because no one knew this was possible just because $$$$
So… how was it avoidable? In the same way that the other 16,000 fracture critical bridges can avoid this accident? I think the accident would have been avoided if the ship didn’t lose power at that moment… or if it wasn’t sailing at all on that day… if it wasn’t for the 1970s this would never have happened..
It could have been avoided by increasing the protective structures. Or even building islands around the bridge supports, But that would have cost money, to fix a problem that "couldn't happen" and so economics won out over safety..
@@Markus117d well yeah that’s true but that’s what I mean.. there are 16,000 other bridges in the same condition so… who was to know that this was the one that needed that protection over the others…
There are a lot of bridges that are in critical condition, but not so many of them have cargo ships going under them. One problem this incident had was that the port didn't require tug boats to escort the ships out. So, had the tug boats been out there tugging the Dali, this wouldn't have happened. Also, more protection to the critical supports.
Exactly. Spending billions, calling it learning lessons from an avoidable tragedy, by making an ‘indestructible’ replacement is the ultimate example of being reactive after the horse has bolted. Is it more likely that another ship will hit the replacement than the other 16k bridges, or would it be better to build an adequate replacement and spend the rest on making some other bridges safer?
@@Cypher791 Not all of those 16,000 bridges are on navigable waterways, meaning there are maybe a few hundred bridges at most with unprotected in-water piers vulnerable to major ship collisions. The rest of the fracture critical bridges are more vulnerable to earthquakes, windstorms, vehicle fires, or vehicles impacting structural members. It would maybe cost a few billion to retrofit all the bridges in the US that are vulnerable to ship collisions, which is pocket change compared to what the cost would be to fully replace all of those bridges. But I doubt the US will spend the money and instead we’ll keep rolling the dice and hoping the worst doesn’t happen (but then be surprised when it does).
I've never seen your channel till now, and I've gotta say how immidiatly impressed I am! Your research and narration are so thorough and detailed, not opinionated, and answered every question I had in such a short time! Plus, editing and visuals. It all feels very professional! Definitely checking out more of your channel when I can. Side note: It's always interesting to hear and see other states' and countries' perspectives and depth of research on places I grew up around! My parents spent their young adult years in Maryland, my mom growing up in Fredrick. I've grown up in Virginia but have frequently traveled to MD via car throughout my life, so it's cool to hear everything I know and some things I dont in such a way, like reading about my home town in a history book :)
This is the direct result of 5 or 6 decades of neglect. Money has not been put to proper use, and the mentality that a fresh coat of paint will solve the problem have combined to make our infrastructure drop to a third world level. Those in charge must be held responsible, or this will increase to a level that may well paralyze our entire nation.
talking about a coat of paint forth road bridge uk Scotland built 1840 odd takes four years to paint they also inspect it and fix as they go BRITISH ENGENERING FROM 150 YEAR AGO
Raising the bridge height is a great idea, however unless it includes somehow raising the Chesapeake Bay Bridge also or so accommodation, ships are still height restricted as they still need to pass under its 185 high clearances.
@@toomanymarys7355 Yeah, this was the 70's, Things have changed and, after the Sunshine Skyway, they have plenty of time to save the bridge from potential doom even when there's no storms... Well, inaction really hurts their psyche and now, they (civilians) are wholly expecting that they will not get it done.
Questions: If this bridge is replaced, will it use the same name (it's in the identical same location, serving the same purpose)? If so, will it follow the naming protocol of boats - meaning the name is the same but having a "2" after it? Or perhaps something else like "The MV Dali memorial Bridge"? So many questions...
Was waiting for youz guyz to get to this. Design flaw or not.. this bridge actually has hindered the ports growth. As ships have gotten massive the clearancees have shrunken to the point that operators avoid the port all together.. the 2 biggest improvements they can work on is dredge the channel deeper and either build a new tunnel or build a massive cable stayed bridge with double decks . This would open the port up new opportunities in shipping and industry that would be less dependent on Delaware or philly or new yourk ports.
I think a mandatory policy of 2-3 tugs should be used to guide the huge ships through the bridge, as an added safe guard. Make the shipping companies pay the cost.
The ship companies would pass on the cost to the shippers (those who put the goods on the ship), and after a few more stages, it would end up being paid by the consumers. At best the inevitable increase in shipping cost might cause the economic needle to move to localisation of production to consumption.
Can’t believe it took so long to find this comment regarding tug escorts.This accident wouldn’t have happened if tug escorts were in play.But time after time short cuts and greed along with softer controls ultimately bring these disasters to fruition.Ultimately the estimated cost of bridge replacement(which we know will blow out as they always do)is only a part of the financial knock on effect.1.2billion alone could have tug escorts for 20 plus years
@@SR-yp3eg Maybe the reason that it took so long for the comment regarding tug escorts to reach the thread was because the 'smart money' knew that the use of tugs in the situation leading up to the bridge strike to prevent that strike happening would have required various other factors to be in place. The 'other factors' could well have made the strike much less likely to happen anyway.
They should do one just like the Vasco da Gama Bridge in Portugal, which is very long aswell overwater with a suspension section in order for boats and ships to pass
It’s shocking how people who do maintenance never accounted for the preventative measures of the bridge collapse, especially when it’s close to a critical port to the country
No protection built into the bridge or channel design, that's how. Just hoping and praying all ships always hold course is indeed a massive design flaw.
@@WestCoastWheelman Can't blame the engineering too much as those type of ships didn't exist when it was built, can't build contingency for what you don't know. The actual problem is that those later protections were insufficient, but i'm not familiar with the field enough to know if that's a 20/20 vision on this accident or if the bridge administrator needed to know better.
@@zapfanzapfan Yes. it slides open. They had a lot of problems just making the two sides being able to meet and lock together in the middle. And on top of that it is just not very nice to use. I would not take any design advise from whomever designed this bridge
@@RuneJuhlPetersen Thank you. A swing bridge or some other way of opening it would have made more sense. Unless there is some weird constraint in place like "it has to be an arch" or something.
The federal and state governments could move substantial (not all!) funding away from human services into infrastructure projects, and end up helping most of those same people more than previously. The biggest difficulty would be the lack of training, but that's fixable as well. My grandmother went from housewife to ship welder in six months in WWII, building liberty ships. One strategy swould simply to move a chunk of funding for unemployment, training, and welfare for people who have left the workforce or never entered, from HHS to Dept. of Transportation or Commerce. Then prioritize the funding to encourage return or entry to the workforce. Since there us also a demographic problem, it may be necessary to also establish a migrant labor component of "guest workers" who go home for at least two months per year, taking some of their wages eith them. This would boost the central and south American economies and reduce the demand for illegal immigration.
The shipping company and their insurance should pay the bill. Where in the hell do you get off volunteering taxpayer's monies? And you want to bring in more foreigners to take American jobs? You must be a jew.
The big step into valuable labor is what really hurts our economy, in conjunction with the leaving of factory jobs and the idolization of office jobs. Encouraging people to take up training people to be able to take care of what we have would definitely spur proper economic growth.
@@cavalierliberty6838 smart people have been complaining for 40 years about the removal of shop and technical pathways in our high schools. Somehow the education elites/establishment convinced themselves we should all be academics - probably because that's all they had experience with. They just had no clue about how the real world was put together with concrete, aluminum, steel, etc. And the transition to a globalized economy exacerbated and appeared to justify that belief. But I said 30 years ago that wages would stabilize worldwide within a generation or two, and the problem would reverse.
The thing about this incident that I don’t understand is that I thought that all bridges were supposed to have protection barriers around support structures. I thought after the Sunshine Skyway Bridge accident it was mandatory for bridges to have some sort of anti collision barriers to keep ships from hitting bridges. The fact that I don’t see any for this bridge sort of tells me that they wanted a ship to hit this bridge so they could get federal funding to replace it instead of maintaining it or funding it at the state level. This incident could have been avoided by having the support columns protected by anti collision barriers. I know that it was a major issue when they built the new Sunshine Skyway bridge here that it had to have these barriers to protect the bridge. I thought that it was a federal mandate after the Sunshine Skyway incident that bridges were to have these barriers installed. The fact that this bridge didn’t have any makes me wonder why it didn’t. The barriers would have cost less than replacement of the bridge but to me they wanted a new bridge and not pay for it so let’s have a ship hit it and get the money from the federal government and then we wouldn’t have to spend money on a new one or continue wasting money on the old one.
There are dozens if not hundreds of videos that have done a good job discussing this situation, how it happened and the problems with losing power on that vessel and even reviews of the reports that were written looking to determine root cause failure. There were massive issues with vibration on board the vessel that likely cause the power failures. Having good operational vessels is the cure.
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I just love your channel. My brother and I geek out over it together at family reunions. Thanks for all the awesome content, you guys rock!
I happened to respond on this when the call came out around 2AM. It was a long 12 hours. I never expected B1M would do a video on it, but glad they did. It truly was a surreal event
Thanks for sharing! Where do you work?
My company makes the steel that makes bridges.
@@jackthompson8560 Where is it made?
@@gameratortylerstein5636 We haven't started it yet. I understand it's in the design phase. I think we are going to be one of the big steel fab shops that are going to be making it. I will know more after the company meeting in 2 weeks. High Steel Structures, Lancaster, Pa
Sure bro
The effect on traffic is definitely noticeable. The tunnels under the harbor get clogged up way more frequently and hazmat have to go all the way around the city on the other side of 695. Weird to see your house in a B1M video...
Driving through the city was never fun but now it’s hellish. They can’t build the replacement soon enough
Hazmat is *supposed* to go around 695, but more and more of it is traveling illegally thru the tunnels. I hope we don't end up with a second B1M video about an avoidable tunnel explosion!
@@Tim--- Especially overnight. I drive alongside or past hazmats routinely through the Harbor Tunnel (895)
Random question, is John Mayer from around there? he's always singing about these places
@@Dan_Roland In reality they should build 2 or 3 bridges for the real demand.
11:02 pffft “lessons will have definitely been learned” oh how you underestimate our ability to avoid learning any lessons 😂
As an American I can tell you that we definitely have the ability to not only learn from our mistakes, but also the money and resources to ensure they never happen again. That said, we always seem to let our priorities fall elsewhere much to detriment of works of programs that would actually benefit us. *sigh*
If you mean "americans" then yes, you guys will never learn...😂😂😂
We have learned a lot here. The key is for the _right people_ to be the ones that learn these lesson. As man creates smarter technology,, bigger idiots show up to balance things out! 😆
i think they knew, some people chose not to.
@@Lumbergo Not just America, but on this side of the pond, too. Whenever anything happens, those in charge say "Lessons will be learned" but they never are.
2:34 116,000 tons is the weight of what the ship can carry and not the weight of the actual ship. It's called Dead Weight Tonnage.
The actual weight is the displacement which in this case was almost 149,000 tons.
Which is way more than a Nimitz class aircraft carrier.
There was something suspicious about that ship
Even Gordon Lightfoot knew that
I live near Baltimore Harbor, and when my wife asked what the new bridge design would look like, I said it should be a cable-stayed bridge... for the reasons you cover here in this video.
Hopefully it will be a decent looking one. Some of those cable stayed bridges are huge eyesores!
@@leeriffee4606like the San Francisco bay bridge?
@@pietrojenkins6901 Yes! That one is awful looking...
Hopefully it will be like the Skyway Bridge in Florida (which also was hit by a freighter in 1980)
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that your title is the understatement in engineering history. As a ship knocking into a support pillar, resulting in the bridge collapsing, was not supposed to happen.
that's why he's explained that island and more dolphins could have been added, and might be added to other unprotected bridges supports around the US
It wasn't avoidable because it was brought down on purpose.
@@StopMediaFakery The fuck is that supposed to mean?
Spoken like someone who absolutely did not watch the video.
@@gamm8939 That a fair few Americans think the Universe is actively working to thwart the US of A.
monday upload!? what a great start to the week!
You’re welcome 😉
I drove on it the day before it collapse to go home and the next morning it was gone. It was kind of surreal. Now the alternative routes are the two tunnels and the other side of the ring 695 highway. But it's already busy before with the Washington DC metro traffic. We definitely need better public transportation to relieve car dependency
Maybe in another country...
Or instead of wasting money on public transportation, build 2 better made ( or protected rather) bridges 🤡
@@CalgarGTX dumb
@@CalgarGTX”with American steel raaah” 🦅 🇺🇸
@@CalgarGTX Dont really see how giving people more freedom to choose how they want to travel is a waste of money.
I live in a town that recently lost a bridge (Red Bridge, Kamloops). Not because a ship hit it, but because somebody set its mostly-wood structure on fire. It wasn't a huge bridge, but it was a strategic part of the city's road network. Like Baltimore, it's going to be a while before they rebuild it...
The wake up call for the US was in 1980 with the Sunshine Skyway Bridge collision and collapse. Oddly, the response was to learn lessons only for that bridge’s replacement. No other bridges. The Golden Gate and bay bridges in SF are just as exposed right this minute.
And so... the lesson learnt is that there will never be a wake up call. Expect only collapsed bridges to get replaced.
No, they aren't. The Golden Gate Bridge has 20-foot thick walls surrounding its piers on all sides.
The bay bridge could be more well protected.
@@johnperic6860 the bridge has one exposed pier on the south. The other is built into Marin headlands. Source: I live in SF, have eyes and this subject has been discussed post-Baltimore within the city govt. That wall you refer to is low and is going to do absolutely zip for the south pier vs a 1,300ft x 200ft, 200,000 ton cargo ship, or really any decently sized ship entering or leaving the bay. It should be safe from a Blue and Gold tourist ferry though.
The Sunshine Skyway Bridge dolphins and islands would not stop a 100,000+ ton ship moving at 10 knots.
@@johnperic6860
That would not stop a 100,000+ ton ship moving at 10 knots.
Born and raised in Baltimore. The bridge opened the year before I was born, so it has literally been a fixture on the landscape all my life. It is just so weird to drive around and not see it anymore… The only thing left or the approaches just kind of hanging out and going nowhere.
Same for me. I haven't for a few years but for 33 years I drove the bridge twice a day. The views, the thunderstorms where lightning was hitting the trusses above the road deck, snow, super dense fog...
It’s still so weird driving by and just seeing two on-ramps to nowhere
Sunshine skyway bridge is a good example of bridge protection while still being in deep water
Yes but you mean the second skyway bridge the first was destroyed when a ship hit it In 1980. A lesson obviously not learned
@louisschueler7608 oh no it was learned. But only for the sunshine skyway bridge cause clearly it wouldn't happen again
@@louisschueler7608 How was it a lesson not learned? The new skyway bridge is extremely well protected.
Deep water? Most of Tampa Bay is less than 10 feet deep. The ship channel is dug out regularly so that larger ships can go through safely, but ships of the size of the one that hit this bridge can't fit under the bridge. If a ship strays from the shipping channel, it will hit bottom. Which is why the three other long bridges over Tampa Bay don't have issues, the water isn't deep enough for a big ship to even reach one of them. The new I-275 bridge replacement that's almost done will be somewhat higher, but not that much. What those bridges really need is to have the causeways at each end heightened - storms tend to flood them out, including Helene - the waves in the bay were breaking over the causeways but not over the bridges, though of course they were shut down anyway.
The cruise industry and the shipping industry would love to have a higher bridge where the Sunshine Skyway is, but that isn't going to happen within the next 100 years or so. Today's giant cruise and cargo ships can't go under the bridge, so it limits what the port of Tampa can do.
@@johnperic6860 Some people knew, but not for Maryland.
The Sunshine Skyway collapsed because of a strong squall that pushed the bulk carrier, Summit Venture, into the piers, and yes it really is well protected with extra protections in place in the aftermath...
Dali, meanwhile, loses power in a calm, shallow river past midnight and crash into the Scott Key Bridge (The fact they were able to warn the motorists there in advance meant they could see the bridge and they fail to steer the ship away). It's not just the crew, but the state of Maryland; they have plenty of time to sort out the issues after the 80's, but yeah, they chose not to take it and a lot of people are disillusioned to know that they will never change.
As for why: well i can't know for sure what stopped them but they had plenty of time to think about that. My guesses are the money or priorities, or maybe there's some opposition that's been forgotten about.
Thank you for this one! I love a 15-minute drive from where the Francis Scott Key Bridge stood, so it is nice to see this coverage!
A lot of progress is being made quickly in the planning stages, but... like many things here in Maryland, I'll believe it once it's finished.
0:49 Idk why but they way you said Maryland is funny to me "merry-land" lmfaoo
Makes it sound like a theme park😊
Curious if they just assumed thats how its regularly pronounced based on how its spelled, or the Brits take their old Queens very seriously
In certain parts of Baltimore, that is how it is pronounced
@@lawrence5503really?
@@xbear7473no one from Maryland pronounces it Merry land
1.7 billion estimated cost for a us infrastructure project usually means 5 billion dollars in end costs.
I am just amazed how they haven't started putting up a new one for the folks there. And what about the shipping company? Are they going to be responsible for the cost of building a new bridge. Because there is not only that but the cost of lost time and money spent on fuel do to traffic jams and longer commutes and ect. I think that shipping company should at least pay out something. So the CEO's of the company have to go a few years without bonuses.
@@teddine7366start building a new bridge before it’s been at least started with design and engineering? Are you sure that’s a good idea?
I'll raise the final cost to 7.8 billion.
Big thank you from Baltimore! One additional component is that the cruise ship terminal in the area was severely limited on the size of the ships due to the relatively low height compared to Philly or Norfolk. A taller Key Bridge would be such a boost to a very average cruise ship operation near the Port
As a resident of Juneau, Alaska...be careful what you wish for as far as cruise ship traffic goes. We are dependent on them, for sure, so I don't want them banned or anything. But every year there are more and more, and they get bigger and bigger. It's destroying our city.
The only problem with really tall ships is that they still have to fit under the Bay Bridge spans, no matter the height of the new Key Bridge. However, eventually the current Bay Bridge spans will be retired and no doubt a replacement span will be much taller.
When you said “...lessons will have definitely been learned...” I heard a great chorus of voices saying, "Hold my beer."
8:40 those estimates will undoubtedly double, this is civil contracting we're talking about
Double your too kind it will triple straight away
Interestingly, one of the main reasons for this is a depreciating dollar. It’s hard to plan for spending 20 bucks on a pizza in 10 years as the pizza will likely cost 30 by then.
And we all know why: the moral hazard of bureaucrats & contractors spending the money of taxpayers who don't even have a seat at the table. See also: The rest of America.
$1.7 Billion. I’d love to see the final number be anywhere in the same zip code as that. Over here in the SF Bay Area, the eastern Bay Bridge replacement span was pitched as a $1 to $2 Billion project. Actual cost was probably around $8 to $10 Billion.
About 60 seconds of looking at it on G Earth, it became pretty obvious that bridge needed much more collision protection built around the main supports.
Thanks for showing the brief insight into the clear up operation. Sometimes I think demolition is as interesting as construction, it's all well and good when you can have manufactured materials to build things to your design, but what happens when those giant structures break due to extreme events? Does it go to landfill? Is it recycled? What are the logisitics and chain of events afterwards?
Nothing like a Monday B1M upload to get the week started right
Yes
the bridge should have moved out the way
A very American response
Ego problem.
Hilarious! B1M is probably already designing a bridge that does just that… 😅
Amen, I agree...
It shouldn't have been out alone at night.
/s
Why are so many bridges collapsing recently? Not just in the US, where the maintenance infrastructure seems to be widely out of date, but around the world too
Because so many bridges were constructed in the decades of growth after WWII (50s til 70s).
All these bridges need to be replaced NOW... but nobody wants to pay.
So expect bridge collapses becoming commonplace. The only bridge the politicians can agree to rebuild is the crashed one.
Because there's a 50 year design life and many bridges are approaching or past that time.
@@ferky123 -- The Brooklyn Bridge is about 130 years old.
@@GilmerJohnyes, and it was the only bridge built at the time. The standards have changed drastically.
@@calvinhobbes6646 And that was recently refurbished 2 years ago. The trend of old bridge collapsing makes it seem like an outlier, but even then, they have legitimate concerns. It may remain sturdy but can the same be said in hundreds of older bridges now built after Brooklyn?
Whoa... 0:33 is the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington. I drove across it last week as part of a mini road-trip to Olympic National Park during my layover in Seattle really impressive structure in person, but here in this video it is mentioned in a bit about dwindling US infrastructure... *shivers*
great video as always mate, you're like the Mentour Pilot of engineering and that's awesome, keep it up! :)
I remember when everyone on the internet were suddenly bridge engineers and now they’re “meteorologists”. Time flies so fast.
Most people on the internet can't even pick a pathetically made fake prank video.
I learned something new linguistically! I was prepared to call out what I thought was a typo or misreading @02:38 "…when the vessel CAREERED into one of the bridge's supports…" and I swore it should have been "careened". However, consulting a dictionary, it turns out that "careen" means to tilt or sway while "career" does have a meaning of being at "full speed" (after the more common meaning of a profession).
I think it depends what side of the Atlantic you're on. I've never heard the word "careened" before
Considering I'm writing a story based around automotive racing right now...totally gonna steal that one
Did you also learn at 00:51 that Maryland is pronounced "Mary Land"??? 🤣
@videotrexx yup, but they will tell you that you are speaking English, their language. 😂😂😂
One disaster I’ve never seen a video on is a very weird one. Sometime in the late 80’s or early 90’s, something ruptured a tunnel next to the Chicago river. Chicago has an entire underground infrastructure. It was one of the first modern cities that was designed rather than just growing as demand grew and paving over dirt paths. If you’ve ever seen a movie with people fighting and driving underground that was probably Chicago. The (very reasonable) idea was that rather than having garbage, delivery, and other business traffic crowd up the surface streets all business traffic would use the underground streets. So all the major buildings have basements and sub-basements that connect to these streets. What no one ever thought of was that much of this infrastructure is next to the Chicago river and a breach in one of the walls that holds back the river could flood the entire underground infrastructure. That’s what happened. One day when there had been no rain, suddenly there was flooding in major downtown streets as the water flooded the underground and found its way to the surface. I don’t think anyone was seriously hurt but it shut down the city for several days and I would like to see a video with details about why it happened, the effects, and what they did to make sure it never happened again.
I actually did see a video on that a few years ago. Wasn’t that great, but you should be able to find it on RUclips if they haven’t taken it down.
@@christianlibertarian5488 I'll look, thanks. It was interesting to live through that because it caused a lot of disruption and that tends to bring people together but no one was harmed and it seemed like such an "only in Chicago" kind of disaster. I remember it as being kind of a mini holiday because I was working my butt off but couldn't get to my office for a day or two. This was in the days when laptops existed but to do software development you usually needed a more powerful machine like a Sun workstation... sigh, I kind of miss my Sun workstation. Odd that my PC is a lot more powerful.
Good video. Thanks! Also the first time I see footage of the actual collapse, didn't know it existed. Really heavy stuff.
There are so many video's and photo's in which I see bridge structures in the USA, which are really rusted and looks totally abandoned while still in use. Unbelievable the USA doesn't pay attention to regular maintenance like here in Europe is mandatory in the first place!
I really hope they learn and build better, and make those other dozen-thousand bridges more safe before more disasters happen.
I like your explanation
I live in Maryland, I've been on that bridge countless times, and been under it on a boat around a dozen times.
Michel Virlogeux is a renowned structural engineer, bridge specialist. He helped design bridges such as the Millau Viaduct in France or the Yavuz Sultan Selim in Turkey. A sound choice for the Francis Scott Key bridge replacement!
Went under that bridge went I went in my cruise a few years ago and said that it was huge compared to all the bridges back in my hometown of Pittsburgh.
I dunno if a bridge being hit by a massive ship they would've never thought of back when it was designed is really a "construction fail." I'd be surprised if any bridge in the world can withstand being hit by a massive heavy container ship.
When you have modern pier protection built to modern standards, like dolphins, islands, or thick abutments, the chances are extremely good that the bridge will survive. The Francis Scott Key Bridge would likely have survived this incident has it had proper pier protection. But it didn't, its dolphins were way too small, too few, and too far from the actual piers to make a difference. It was absolutely avoidable had the bridge been retrofitted.
You do know it happened in China right? A ship crashed onto a bridge and it didn't fall? No? Weird...
As an engineering student, I promise you a direct strike from a ship that heavy is not going to be stopped. The best you can do is deflect the energy before the ship hit, and the key bridge had a smaller protection system. The Dali avoided the protection system.
The way to avoid this problem in the future is to have longer spans and to move the pillars further away from the shipping channel. This is not an easy task, but it is possible. Ultimately, this would move the piers into water that is too shallow for a large container ship to travel through. It also would allow for a larger protection system to be installed without impact in the flow of traffic.
@@TheAmericanMuffin please look up the video about a chinese ship hitting a bridge and not collapsing, it kinda destroys your american "engineering" example...
@@TheAmericanMuffin -- OR, "they" could have controlled ship traffic to only permit one way traffic. The dredged channel would be narrower and an out of control ship would hit the bank and be slowed down or stopped.
Cable stayed bridges are more safer and stronger than suspension and truss bridges bottom line .. they prevent future incidents such as ship collisions and less stress tensions on the superstructures to avoid critical fractures on support or pier columns along with stronger and wider pillar columns in the water to better against weather conditions, etc. ... Bridges must have their weights and structures fully secured to support enough weight to hold loads of millions and millions of vehicles and avoid vulnerabilities they face
The MV Dali want to the side of the far too small "dophin" when it hit the bridge. It's next to the ship at 11:10.
The Dolphins were placed assuming that a ship would be sailing along the river channel but too far over. But the Dali went from being in the middle of the channel to veering off course at a steep angle directly into the pylon. They didn't plan for that eventuality.
I love the look of cable-stayed bridges! 🤗
I live in Maryland and had travelled over that bridge many times, the collapse of the bridge was inevitable.
1. The lack of dolphin protection was obvious. Look at the power line protection just west, those were property done. I actually built parts for them for the contractor , McLean Contracting which is literally like a mile away.
2. The bridge was janky as hell. I'd drive my large service truck over it and the bridge deck under the suspension span portion would bounce as you went over it.
3. Because of the much higher increase in weight and traffic, it would have probably failed at some point due to excess vibration and corrosion.
The thing that bothers me the most about the 'rebuild' is before they had a design they know how much it costs ($1.4-2.1B by some estimates). And also the bridge is only about a mile and a half long . Now the 2nd Bay Bridge built in the mid 70's cost roughly $5B (adjusted for inflation) and it is 4.4 miles long in depths 3x deeper. How does a bridge a third of the length, in shallower water, with existing entry infrastructure (road, toll plaza, etc) cost half as much , especially when there are numerous shipyards, fabricators and bridge contractors located nearby?
The whole thing already stinks of union corruption. As like anything in Maryland, the cost by the times it's done will likely be 2x and after a few Senate hearings and a bunch of resignations it'll be found there was a bunch of payoffs ,bribes and shady deals from everyone involved...
I used to be a part of a union, but I left because the only thing they cared about was raising my wages so they could get more union dues. I would have preferred a lot of other things be done first before my wages were raised, since the higher my wages went, the less money I actually took home (getting kicked into higher tax brackets, etc.)
It was actually "inevitable" for 3 reasons (1) it was too short for the promised Mega-Port ships and could not be made taller; (2) its footings were too near the already one-way-only shipping channel and could not be widened; (3) The Powers that wield the energy beam weapon used to take it down (melted in several places along the steel girders) decided it was time and that they could 'get away with it'. The organization site called "CONSPIRA" has a 104-part series deeply examining all known of the many anomalies.
What A mess. I am so glad that it is going to be rebuilt. Lets hope it is sometime soon. Thanks for sharing....
Ship happens!
Any updates on how that ship ended up hitting the bridge or are we just gonna carry on waving our hands in the air saying "it's a mystery!"?
As a Marylander, great video as always with you guys ❤
An hour and a half North of Seattle, we had a Interstate bridge over the Skagit river a collapse.
Keep in mind unless action to change status quo is take, this incident will be a lesson observed versus lesson learned. Glad the critical failure bridges in USA have been identified. Now action has to be taken to mitigate the risk as necessary for each site.
With bridges that have such narrow main spans there’s only two possible mitigations, new bridges or don’t let ships near this big anywhere near them.
Both are major costs to local economies so I’ll bet most do nothing if they aren’t already getting funds for a replacement for other reasons.
I've been thinking about this recently, why did it not get talking about or investigated? It literally looked like it got hacked and went straight for the bridge at the last min. And also lost power? What happen
Weak. In the US you still need a ship to hit a bridge to collapse.
Here in germany we can do that without needing one.
But our bridge in Germany wasn't deadly while collapsing. It knew the tram schedule.
So the real lesson here: public transport must be punctual to avoid bridge death. UK looks on nervously.
Germany is always at peak efficiency
Yeah but here in the UK Liz Truss collapsed a whole economy in a week- beat that!
@@geraint8989 😂 you have never used german public transportation. Everything is always late or outright cancelled.
I work in a bridge fab shop just up the road from this in Pa. Maryland called us in the morning it fell. Just to see how busy we are and to see if we could do the project, of course we said yes. B1M should do a video of the plant and how steel bridges are made. I'm sure High Steel Structures, Lancaster, Pa would eat in up. We are one of the biggest on the east coast. There are about 5 companies on the east coast that can do a project like this.
na
send for the Chinese
I think no lessons will be learnt - by the politicians anyway. As the video says, while this bridge gets rebuilt, others get no money.
With how Congress (doesn't) work nowadays, expect few to no bridges to be rebuilt before they crumble and collapse.
I don’t even understand that; why are we paying for the entire bridge? Isn’t that something that either that shipping company or whoever their insurer should be paying a fat stack for?
@@jackwinter1507 I assume that payment will come after 10 years or so of trails and retrails, meanwhile the bridge is needed ASAP.
I see this happening to the Western Hills Viaduct in Cincinnati Oh. For years the state has listed it as "Dangerous". The city says that they cannot afford to replace it yet they could afford to build three sports stadiums.
0:11 You see the (2) Cars on the Right-Hand-Side w/their Headlights *on* Dive Head 1st into the Water O.O The 1st Car got Airborne :/
I drove over it 10 times a week the last 3 years and also the bay bridge's for work. I'm still shocked it happened. I remember going over the last time. I feel like I've always had a slight premonition about the collapse.
Kinda surprised you didn't touch upon the parallels between the Francis Scott Key bridge incident and the Sunshine Skyway Collapse. I was kinda floored when I looked up the dates and saw how close the opening of the FCK Bridge and the Sunshine Skyway collapse were. I was honestly kinda infuriated that there were only 4 dolphins, given the amount of ship traffic I honestly would have thought after the Sunshine Skyway collapse they would added at least 6-12 additional dolphins to better protect those critical supports.
Congress won't pay a dime to prevent disasters when it's cheaper to just replace the bridge after it has collapsed.
Unless, I guess, it's a bridge the politicians use themselves...
Indeed, I noticed the parallel when I first heard about the Key Bridge collapse. The old Sunshine Skyway was a cantilever truss bridge that collapsed when a ship crashed into it. (Or rather, one side of it did; it was two parallel bridges, and only one came down.) Its replacement is a cable-stayed bridge with _much_ better protection to keep ships from crashing into it.
Dolphins are basically ineffectual against ships this size, you need large artificial islands or the piers moved to shallow water/riverbanks.
Basically you need a whole new bridge. The main span on the old one was too narrow to be better protected and still navigable.
The spate of bridge collapses around the world in the 70’s and 80’s (basically one this size almost every year for a decade or so!) led to protections against the size of ships that existed then.
Alternatively to a new bridge they would have had to stop ships even half this size going near the bridge. There’s no middle option here.
New bridges are $$$$ someone judged it worth the risk, I’m still not sure they’d have changed their mind even in hindsight.
I used to drive across this bridge a lot, but never noticed any railroad tracks on it.
The bridge this guy designed in Copenhagen, is the worst bridge built in danish history. It's a bicycle bridge, but designed with complete disregard for people on a bicycle.
@sbeen434 Recommend you get a motorcycle so you can ride on the jolly bridge. It's essentially a motorized bicycle
Who is "this guy"?
@@KellyClowers Ian Firth, the talentless bridge designer from timestamp 01:54
It was a very sad morning as I was waking up the local news was on and when I heard the bridge was hit !!!! People were in the water and missing .heart breaking i used the bridge 99% of the time to get to the Eastside of baltimore county. I just pray ot never happens again anywhere
I think this is more of a lesson in maritime security. Modern ships are so large that it's imposssible to design a bridge that would be guaranteed to survive a hit to one of its supports.
Never say never
But building what amounts to fortifications isn't really cost effective
Not at all. Just place the supports far away from the shipping channel and pour sand around them. Any ship no matter its size would beach itself before reaching the supports.
The key here is MODERN bridges. Cheap old bridges like this Francis Scott Key bridge has no business existing in such a high volume shipping channel, and should have been torn down years ago.
You can't put that much sand you need deep wide water channels for navigation to be possible in the first place @@user-wm3hu7lo1g
Nope, most modern bridges with heavy port traffic especially suspension bridges today are more than capable of handling impact from even the largest ships in the world. The bridge collapse was an infrastructure problem, not a maritime security issue. The MV Dali wasn't even on cruising speed when it hit the bridge, that tells you how prone it was to collapse.
@@eat_ze_bugs Large container ships weigh 200 000 tons, and near a port it might travel at around 20 knots. That's roughly 2 billion Newtons of force hitting a bridge support. I seryously doubt any structure could support such a strong lateral force without being prohibitively expensive.
Never been to Baltimore “Merry-Land”, but I’ve heard great things about it👍
1:54 🇭🇰🌉The Tin Kau bridge in Hong Kong is absolutely beautiful as is the Copenhagen bridge. I had the honor of visiting the Tin Kau it on a misty day in December some years ago and Cophenhagen bridge more recently. Tin Kau is an absolutely stunning marvel. WTG Ian Firth!
I live in the Baltimore area - they have not even come close to starting the rebuilding of the bridge 😢
"Mare-ee-land" is a rail station in East London. The US state is "Mare-eh-land" with the middle syllable so short that it is often dropped entirely. This mistake is extremely common among Brits, including many who should know better.
"Merlin"
Lin not land
Hon
The middle syllable is dropped here in Baltimore is due to dialect, not a mistake.
Maryland US is named after Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of King Charles 1.
Thanks for the upload 👍
It seems pretty obvious that our road infrastructure is overbuilt. Too many roads and bridges; not enough money to repair and maintain them. 😢
The problem with infrastructure is the more you build the more it costs to maintain.
should have a lot more trains. wouldn't need as many roads.
@@Ryan-093 It is profoundly sad how little attention our nation's rail infrastructure receives. I understand that our country is not as compact as Europe or Japan (which makes long-distance rail travel much longer), but the need for metropolitan rail is very much still alive. We tore out almost every single streetcar in our country and replaced them with single-occupancy vehicles. Bring back rail-based mass transit!
@kentslocum Only an anti-private vehicle person would type that. Ur statement is wrong. A great deal of Goods are delivered via over land trucks. Many private vehicles are for small business. "Small business is the backbone of our country" - -Sm biz owner & sm biz Coach.
@lacesout8292 what? more trains makes roads less congested. nobody is saying to get rid of roads entirely. the US was literally built with railroads and trains.
We've had bridges on our list of to-dos I think for 40 years now. They started a list of substandard bridges over 40 years ago.
The rebuild will be federally funded. Shouldn't it be funded by the company that owns the ship that took down the bridge? Or at least by their insurance company?
They are suing the company but in the meantime they have to rebuild it asap.
There are lawsuits. Either way, using tax dollars for the bridge is the Constitutionally correct use of tax dollars. US infrastructure used by US citizens. The cost, no matter how high, will be a very small fraction of what we send overseas every day.
@@1972Ray we were talking about building a bridge. No one‘s trying to bring that rhetoric into this conversation.
They're already federally funded. ALL public transportation in Maryland is subsided by the government
We do have at least 2 problem bridges where I live in the Staten Island borough of New York City
1 - Outerbridge Crossing built mid-1920s almost 100 years ago main complaint is it still has the older outdated lane width of 10 feet compared to modern highway and bridge 12 foot wide lane standards, this smaller lane size plus two lanes each way carrying a LOT of traffic can make driving annoying I have done it, not sure of bridge condition, New York State has said they are aware of it needing replacement especially after the Goethals Bridge north of it was replaced for similar lane width, needing more lanes and age issues
2 - Bayonne Bridge built around start of the 1930s about 90 years old sees the lightest traffic of our 4 bridges but its main issue is it goes across a main shipping route giving access to important New Jersey ports such as Newark
Before and after 2010, plans were made to raise the roadbed due to increasing height of container ships and they did
There was consideration for a new bridge or even a tunnel but both those were deemed too expensive yet you have to wonder if ships keep getting taller, how long can they keep raising the roadway
Our other two bridges include
3 - Verazzano-Narrows Bridge, not sure of exact condition but nothing heard about needing replacement
4 - Goethals Bridge, original was built in the late 1920s and lasted until about 2017 then replaced by new current one
We first heard of the new one publicly that I recall in the 2000s however it has been stated there was actual consideration for other plans going back to the mid-1980s including a plan to build a sister structure to the old one giving 2 bridges, one for each direction, a plan that was canceled by politics at the time
The new current one is said to have tower design made to avoid causing problems for flights going to and from Newark Airport north of it, did not know that was an issue personally
Why didn't they update the safety measures as ships got larger to modern standards?
my guess is such work would require effectively building a new bridge. They cant just add more steel and call it a day, that extra steel adds weight that wasnt a factor in the original design, then the piers and foundations need work to support the new mass, that would require under water works, coffer dams alot of skilled work that goes beyond just welders and fabricators - surveyers geologists etc. Before you know it you've just contracted out a whole new bridge, but probably for much higher cost than it would be to just build a new one from scratch 100 meters upriver and demo the old
Blocked by lobbyists to save their employers money.
They do not retro in the US, they grandfather everything in because it’s cheaper and easier.
THE problem was money. The port of Baltimore has been losing business to the Virginia ports for decades. Had, for example, Baltimore required tugs fewer ships would have called on that port.
@@GilmerJohntugs aren’t capable of stopping a ship like this moving at speed. They very slightly adjust the speed and direction of ships that are basically stopped to begin with. You can’t practically move a ship this large any reasonable distance with tugs and they’re explicitly made to not be with the ships near bridges as it would in this situation have made no difference except probably another fatality on a tug.
Their only options realistically were new bridge or moving these port facilities downstream of the bridge. Both $$$$.
Very enjoyable as always 👍
Federally funded ?? Doesn't the company who owns the ship that damaged the bridge have insurance ?? Why should the tax payers pay for someone else's accident ??
Since nationwide news coverage has left the city since the incident, its not being covered outside the city, but the state of maryland has filed a lawsuit against the company that owns the ship.
There’s no way the ship owner could pay the entire cost of rebuilding
A video on the new proposed I-5 Columbia River bridge designs would be interesting.
Having been over that bridge many times over the years, and knowing the state Baltimore has been in even longer than I've been alive, it doesn't surprise me that such an incident was avoidable. Local leadership tends to fall into a pattern of corruption, and very little actually gets fixed, until a catastrophe occurs.
Now the federal government is going to hand over $1.7B and Maryland has no skin in the game. I wonder who will be skimming off this contract.
Democrat leadership
@@vinesthemonkey sadly, history has shown at least in Baltimore that it’s not specific to a particular party; it seems to entrap anyone who ends up in Baltimore politics.
AND, the ship with a poor maintenance record, we can't leave that part out of it. The ship doesn't hit the bridge, it's standing today and for many years to come.
It’s honestly a little baffling no one is mentioning the sunshine skyway bridge down in Florida, it collapsed because of a ship back in 1980… we know how to protect bridges people and we know ships hit bridges… the Francis Scott key bridge should still be standing!!!
im not gonna sugarcoat it, we haven't learned a damn thing from our mistakes.
We learned a lot decades ago it’s just expensive or inconvenient to actually prevent re-occurrence. It’s not because no one knew this was possible just because $$$$
A ship lost power and hit the bridge in 1980.
Wtf are you talking about?
Your first four word are actually sugarcoating.
As someone who was on a DC field trip and went on the bridge about 2 minutes before that ship hit it scares me that I was so close to death.
So… how was it avoidable? In the same way that the other 16,000 fracture critical bridges can avoid this accident? I think the accident would have been avoided if the ship didn’t lose power at that moment… or if it wasn’t sailing at all on that day… if it wasn’t for the 1970s this would never have happened..
It could have been avoided by increasing the protective structures. Or even building islands around the bridge supports, But that would have cost money, to fix a problem that "couldn't happen" and so economics won out over safety..
@@Markus117d well yeah that’s true but that’s what I mean.. there are 16,000 other bridges in the same condition so… who was to know that this was the one that needed that protection over the others…
There are a lot of bridges that are in critical condition, but not so many of them have cargo ships going under them.
One problem this incident had was that the port didn't require tug boats to escort the ships out. So, had the tug boats been out there tugging the Dali, this wouldn't have happened.
Also, more protection to the critical supports.
Exactly. Spending billions, calling it learning lessons from an avoidable tragedy, by making an ‘indestructible’ replacement is the ultimate example of being reactive after the horse has bolted. Is it more likely that another ship will hit the replacement than the other 16k bridges, or would it be better to build an adequate replacement and spend the rest on making some other bridges safer?
@@Cypher791 Not all of those 16,000 bridges are on navigable waterways, meaning there are maybe a few hundred bridges at most with unprotected in-water piers vulnerable to major ship collisions. The rest of the fracture critical bridges are more vulnerable to earthquakes, windstorms, vehicle fires, or vehicles impacting structural members.
It would maybe cost a few billion to retrofit all the bridges in the US that are vulnerable to ship collisions, which is pocket change compared to what the cost would be to fully replace all of those bridges. But I doubt the US will spend the money and instead we’ll keep rolling the dice and hoping the worst doesn’t happen (but then be surprised when it does).
I remember that day, I was visiting Virginia from the west coast and it was on the news at my hotel breakfast.
Every disaster is avoidable
Yet people like you do nothing to stop them.
Thats simply untrue. You can't avoid Volcanos, Tsunamis or Hurricanes.
Exactly that kind of smoothing-over generalizing talk is what means nothing gets done. This particular disaster was very much avoidable.
Let me correct it further, every man-made disaster is avoidable.
I've never seen your channel till now, and I've gotta say how immidiatly impressed I am! Your research and narration are so thorough and detailed, not opinionated, and answered every question I had in such a short time! Plus, editing and visuals. It all feels very professional! Definitely checking out more of your channel when I can.
Side note: It's always interesting to hear and see other states' and countries' perspectives and depth of research on places I grew up around! My parents spent their young adult years in Maryland, my mom growing up in Fredrick. I've grown up in Virginia but have frequently traveled to MD via car throughout my life, so it's cool to hear everything I know and some things I dont in such a way, like reading about my home town in a history book :)
Just blame McNulty.
Lester was in on it too.
Omar's a comin'
B1M should make a video explaining the difference between cable-stayed and suspension bridges
This is the direct result of 5 or 6 decades of neglect.
Money has not been put to proper use, and the mentality that a fresh coat of paint will solve the problem have combined to make our infrastructure drop to a third world level.
Those in charge must be held responsible, or this will increase to a level that may well paralyze our entire nation.
talking about a coat of paint
forth road bridge uk Scotland
built 1840 odd
takes four years to paint
they also inspect it and fix as they go
BRITISH ENGENERING FROM 150 YEAR AGO
Raising the bridge height is a great idea, however unless it includes somehow raising the Chesapeake Bay Bridge also or so accommodation, ships are still height restricted as they still need to pass under its 185 high clearances.
if by "avoidable" you mean, "just avoid the bridge", then yeah obviously mate
Did you even watch the video? The old bridge was a compromised design
@@GeekyMediait was a standard older design.
@@toomanymarys7355 Yeah, this was the 70's, Things have changed and, after the Sunshine Skyway, they have plenty of time to save the bridge from potential doom even when there's no storms... Well, inaction really hurts their psyche and now, they (civilians) are wholly expecting that they will not get it done.
@@DavidRGDDon't forget. We have the double-span Bay Bridge 40 miles away that is "also" not protected and could be gravely catastrophic
@@GeekyMediait was a fine design for ships that existed when it was built. Completely unable to be retrofitted to survive a ship this big though.
Questions: If this bridge is replaced, will it use the same name (it's in the identical same location, serving the same purpose)? If so, will it follow the naming protocol of boats - meaning the name is the same but having a "2" after it?
Or perhaps something else like "The MV Dali memorial Bridge"?
So many questions...
I hope y'all know where Singapore is now
lol what?
@@GeekyMedia read more
@@Rixynatorcomment less
@@legendarygary2744 vint cerf is that you? (Now you going to Google who that is because you not the brightest)
Was waiting for youz guyz to get to this. Design flaw or not.. this bridge actually has hindered the ports growth. As ships have gotten massive the clearancees have shrunken to the point that operators avoid the port all together.. the 2 biggest improvements they can work on is dredge the channel deeper and either build a new tunnel or build a massive cable stayed bridge with double decks . This would open the port up new opportunities in shipping and industry that would be less dependent on Delaware or philly or new yourk ports.
I think a mandatory policy of 2-3 tugs should be used to guide the huge ships through the bridge, as an added safe guard.
Make the shipping companies pay the cost.
The ship companies would pass on the cost to the shippers (those who put the goods on the ship), and after a few more stages, it would end up being paid by the consumers. At best the inevitable increase in shipping cost might cause the economic needle to move to localisation of production to consumption.
Can’t believe it took so long to find this comment regarding tug escorts.This accident wouldn’t have happened if tug escorts were in play.But time after time short cuts and greed along with softer controls ultimately bring these disasters to fruition.Ultimately the estimated cost of bridge replacement(which we know will blow out as they always do)is only a part of the financial knock on effect.1.2billion alone could have tug escorts for 20 plus years
@@SR-yp3eg Maybe the reason that it took so long for the comment regarding tug escorts to reach the thread was because the 'smart money' knew that the use of tugs in the situation leading up to the bridge strike to prevent that strike happening would have required various other factors to be in place. The 'other factors' could well have made the strike much less likely to happen anyway.
They should do one just like the Vasco da Gama Bridge in Portugal, which is very long aswell overwater with a suspension section in order for boats and ships to pass
It’s shocking how people who do maintenance never accounted for the preventative measures of the bridge collapse, especially when it’s close to a critical port to the country
They wanted someone else to pay. Now they got what they wanted.
@@user-wm3hu7lo1g wow that is tragic
I think an extensive review of the pre launch checks on the Dali are in order.
How is a 10,000 TEU ship hitting a bridge a "flaw" of the bridge? Lol
No protection built into the bridge or channel design, that's how. Just hoping and praying all ships always hold course is indeed a massive design flaw.
Before commenting please study first the issue
Yeah how dare those people back then not consider ships that didn't even exist yet! Amateur design flaw!
@@WestCoastWheelman Can't blame the engineering too much as those type of ships didn't exist when it was built, can't build contingency for what you don't know. The actual problem is that those later protections were insufficient, but i'm not familiar with the field enough to know if that's a 20/20 vision on this accident or if the bridge administrator needed to know better.
100,000+ tons!
Awesome video !
The bridge in copenhagen is so badly designed. Constant bike crashes due to idiotic design. Makes you wonder.. 😝
I was just about to write the same. Clearly a bicycle bridge desinged by someone who has never ridden bicycle.
Does it slide open? Looks very weird.
@@zapfanzapfan Yes. it slides open. They had a lot of problems just making the two sides being able to meet and lock together in the middle. And on top of that it is just not very nice to use. I would not take any design advise from whomever designed this bridge
@@RuneJuhlPetersen Thank you. A swing bridge or some other way of opening it would have made more sense. Unless there is some weird constraint in place like "it has to be an arch" or something.
Interesting. I've just completed a presentation on this bridge
The federal and state governments could move substantial (not all!) funding away from human services into infrastructure projects, and end up helping most of those same people more than previously. The biggest difficulty would be the lack of training, but that's fixable as well. My grandmother went from housewife to ship welder in six months in WWII, building liberty ships.
One strategy swould simply to move a chunk of funding for unemployment, training, and welfare for people who have left the workforce or never entered, from HHS to Dept. of Transportation or Commerce. Then prioritize the funding to encourage return or entry to the workforce.
Since there us also a demographic problem, it may be necessary to also establish a migrant labor component of "guest workers" who go home for at least two months per year, taking some of their wages eith them. This would boost the central and south American economies and reduce the demand for illegal immigration.
Interesting
The shipping company and their insurance should pay the bill. Where in the hell do you get off volunteering taxpayer's monies? And you want to bring in more foreigners to take American jobs?
You must be a jew.
The big step into valuable labor is what really hurts our economy, in conjunction with the leaving of factory jobs and the idolization of office jobs. Encouraging people to take up training people to be able to take care of what we have would definitely spur proper economic growth.
@@cavalierliberty6838 smart people have been complaining for 40 years about the removal of shop and technical pathways in our high schools. Somehow the education elites/establishment convinced themselves we should all be academics - probably because that's all they had experience with. They just had no clue about how the real world was put together with concrete, aluminum, steel, etc. And the transition to a globalized economy exacerbated and appeared to justify that belief. But I said 30 years ago that wages would stabilize worldwide within a generation or two, and the problem would reverse.
The thing about this incident that I don’t understand is that I thought that all bridges were supposed to have protection barriers around support structures. I thought after the Sunshine Skyway Bridge accident it was mandatory for bridges to have some sort of anti collision barriers to keep ships from hitting bridges. The fact that I don’t see any for this bridge sort of tells me that they wanted a ship to hit this bridge so they could get federal funding to replace it instead of maintaining it or funding it at the state level. This incident could have been avoided by having the support columns protected by anti collision barriers. I know that it was a major issue when they built the new Sunshine Skyway bridge here that it had to have these barriers to protect the bridge. I thought that it was a federal mandate after the Sunshine Skyway incident that bridges were to have these barriers installed. The fact that this bridge didn’t have any makes me wonder why it didn’t. The barriers would have cost less than replacement of the bridge but to me they wanted a new bridge and not pay for it so let’s have a ship hit it and get the money from the federal government and then we wouldn’t have to spend money on a new one or continue wasting money on the old one.
Bridge
There are dozens if not hundreds of videos that have done a good job discussing this situation, how it happened and the problems with losing power on that vessel and even reviews of the reports that were written looking to determine root cause failure.
There were massive issues with vibration on board the vessel that likely cause the power failures. Having good operational vessels is the cure.
almost every accident is avoidable...people don't pay attention to what they're doing...that simple...