Inside the military’s response to the Baltimore bridge collapse

Inside a Baltimore cruise terminal last week, dozens of military personnel were spread out across a large room under bright lights, with workers hunched over computers at rows of tables hastily arranged as workstations.

This is the busy Unified Command operations center leading the response to the total collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge late last month.

Authorities are working around the clock to rid Baltimore of the bridge’s remains and reopen the vital national port on a tight schedule: a tentative goal has been set to complete the removal of the debris and fully reopen the port by the end of May.

Commandant of the US Coast Guard. Roberto Concepcion, speaking to The Hill during a visit this month, said it was a “very aggressive” but necessary goal.

“We need to set aggressive targets… because a lot of jobs are at stake, there are a lot of stakeholders,” he said. Still, he added, “there are a lot of different factors and things that could happen.”

The bridge collapse on March 26 left huge piles of steel and concrete debris floating in the water and largely closed one of the country’s busiest ports, with an estimated loss of $15 million a day.

This incident command post, created the day after the bridge collapse, is a vast network of agencies and officials, working in unison to reopen the Port of Baltimore and eventually begin rebuilding the bridge. The network has more than 370 employees and 80 assets, such as boats and cranes.

The Unified Command post is administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but includes the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Navy and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Maryland Department of the Environment, the Transportation Authority of Maryland and the Maryland State Police.

The cruise terminal is a scene of perpetual activity. In the far corner is a supply station to distribute essential materials to teams. A buffet table filled with snacks and other food sits just beyond the main room in a small hallway. Outside the warehouse-sized terminal in the parking lot is a long trailer that serves as a mobile communications hub.

Salvage companies hired as government contractors are carrying out most of the work to remove the debris, which is scattered in separate pieces of the steel bridge in a line through the murky waters of Baltimore Harbor. There are an estimated 50,000 tons of steel and concrete, with some parts extending from the surface to deep underwater.

One of the largest pieces of scrap is hanging off the front of the 984-foot container ship called Dali, chartered by shipping giant Maersk. The merchant ship reportedly lost power in the early morning hours of March 26, before colliding with the Key Bridge and forcing its total collapse. The FBI has supposedly open a criminal investigation into the accident.

Crews are also removing some containers from the Dali ship so they can eventually pull it out of the debris field, a major priority in the mission.

Maryland Governor Wes Moore (D) said in a Tuesday press conference that the ongoing operation to remove the wreckage is “remarkable”, describing the Dali as the “weight of the Washington Monument”, surrounded by “tens of thousands of tons of steel”.

“This kind of complexity is unprecedented,” Moore said. “And seeing the professionalism and the way this team [is working] it was absolutely extraordinary.”

Contractors deployed barges, construction ships and floating docks to facilitate access to the site, along with 500- and 1,000-ton cranes for lifting.

Much of the work requires intensive cutting of fallen sections of the bridge to remove pieces of debris one at a time, before transporting the scrap to a special site in nearby Sparrows Point for recycling or disposal. Cutting is a careful process because crews must make surgical cuts to safely remove pieces of a larger structure. Teams are using tools such as torches, hydraulic shears and diamond wire saws.

The US Navy is also involved in the response. The Navy Diving and Salvage Supervisor is tasked with supervising commercial diving companies that go into the water for cut and search operations.

Lieutenant Commander of the Navy. Rob Carelli said the companies hired are experienced, but described the mission as challenging because there are many “unknowns” and progress depends on climate cooperation.

“We had a few days of pretty gloomy weather, with strong winds and a lot of rain,” he said. “It kind of changes what we do on those days.”

While Carelli acknowledged the work is demanding, he said the mission is extremely important.

“We’ve all seen the economic impact and the impact on people’s lives,” he said. “So there is great motivation and fulfillment of part of the work in helping to restore” the port.

Another important part of the bridge response comes from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which reports to the Army but is primarily a civilian workforce. About 62 engineers are employed in the bridge response, although about 1,100 are available if needed.

One way the Army Corps can help is by providing information to protect divers, who have limited visibility in the murky waters and bed of the Patapsco River. These divers are tasked with reporting underwater wreckage.

Rick Benoit, an emergency management specialist with the Army Corps’ North Atlantic division, called it an “unusual mission with an extremely extreme working environment of dark, cold water.”

“Under these waters, divers move as if they are playing an underwater game of Twister and Jenga with hundreds of tons of broken concrete and twisted steel in complete darkness,” Benoit said. said in an Army Corps press report.

John Hill, chief engineering technician for the Army Corps, said his job is to monitor data from Baltimore Harbor canals and relay that information to crews on the ground.

He said a 65-foot research boat takes images of the bottom of the river channel and sends the data back to him for processing, which signals where it is safe for ships to cross.

Hill remembers being “stunned” when he first realized the extent of the bridge’s collapse.

Despite the unprecedented nature of the collapse, Cynthia Mitchell, chief of media operations for the Army Corps’ Baltimore district, said the response was largely smooth, with Unified Command employing lessons learned from other disasters.

“The muscle memory was there for us,” she said. “It was a matter of everyone coming together very quickly.”

In addition to removing the debris, emergency crews are still searching for the two remaining bodies of the six construction workers who died when the Key Bridge collapsed. A fourth body was found this week. Workers must first remove the tangled debris to clear the way for search and recovery.

“There are a lot of dangers down there,” said Concepcion of the Coast Guard, “the water is so murky and you can only see so far. It’s super difficult because the last thing you want is some diver stuck in the rubble.”

The U.S. Coast Guard is also tasked with patrolling the harbor’s waters to ensure no ships cross the 2,000-yard limit line, which is closed while work is underway. Along with Coast Guard patrol boats, drones circulate.

Coast Guard vessels are a frequent sight around the harbor, with small vessels also plying the waters to ferry media and press to take videos and photos of the bridge.

There are two smaller access channels currently operational on both sides of the debris field, Hawkins Point and Sollers Point, through which empty barges, small tugs, research vessels, crane barges and the Coast Guard can pass.

The goal in the coming weeks is to reopen the 50-foot-deep, 700-foot-wide federal canal that would allow full access to the Port of Baltimore.

President Biden visited the Port of Baltimore earlier this month, where he called the military personnel and first responders “the best engineers in the world” and announced that the port’s third canal would be reopened by the end of April and the port complete by the end of Could.

Workers on the front lines of the effort are optimistic about achieving that goal.

“Everyone is working together really well,” said Coast Guard Petty Officer 1st Class Claudio Giugliano. “Everyone has the same goals in mind.”

Coast Guard Rear Admiral Will Watson said the “core” of the team was its committed staff.

“Without their dedicated effort, this team would not function, would not function as well and effectively as it has,” he said at Tuesday’s press conference.

“We often refer to Unified Command when we talk about the structured network of people and professionals who do this great work. But I think it’s good to remember that at the center of everything are people.”