Northwestern Civil Engineering professor emeritus Jospeh Shofer looked at video footage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse and had just one word to describe it: shocking.
A container ship lost power and rammed into the major bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, early Tuesday, causing it to snap and plunge into the river below. Several vehicles fell into the chilly waters, and rescuers were searching for survivors.
Shofer called the tragedy shocking not only for what happened, but for what it means to one the East Coast’s busiest harbors. Shofer said the harbor handles both cargo and passenger vessels.
“You have ships trapped inside the harbor that aren’t going to get out for a very long time and you have ships trapped outside,” the Associate Dean of the McCormick School of Engineering said.
Feeling out of the loop? We'll catch you up on the Chicago news you need to know. Sign up for the weekly Chicago Catch-Up newsletter here.
The collapse is almost sure to create a logistical nightmare for months, if not years, along the East Coast, shutting down ship traffic at the Port of Baltimore, a major shipping hub. The accident will also snarl cargo and commuter traffic.
Shofer compared the Baltimore incident to a similar bridge collision in 1980 that brought down Tampa Bay’s Sunshine Skyway Bridge. Like Baltimore, the Tampa collapse was triggered by a ship striking one of its main support piers. The entire bridge did not fall, but cars on the Tamp bridge kept driving in the fog and many fell off the edge of the missing section.
Shofer said engineers learned that the support piers of the bridge had to be protected.
Local
But experts say collisions are not the main reason bridges fail.
In their annual Bridge Report, the American Road and Transportation Builders Association estimated that more than 4,100 Illinois bridges are in need of repair. Of those more than 2,400 are structurally deficient. That’s more than 9% of Illinois bridges.
The group pointed to examples like DuSable Lake Shore Drive where it crosses the Chicago River. In 2019, massive cracks were found in the supports and the bridge was temporarily shored up. That bridge and others nearby are now the focus of a massive renovation project.
Shofer said bridge maintenance is critical to avoiding disasters.
“I think our issue [in the Chicago area] is less a collision with a ship and more a matter of making sure that we maintain the condition of those bridges,” he said.
As far as the Baltimore bridge, Shofer said authorities should follow Tampa’s example and build artificial islands around the support piers.
“That’s an extra expense, a substantial expense,” he said.
The process of clearing the harbor and designing and building the new bridge could take between five and 10 years, according to new officials.
