Baltimore Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse

[SiliconWizard]

I think they would form a fleet of various boats from all over the place in american east coast to take it on anything they can

There are things that are physically difficult. Various boards all over the place? That would be a major safety hazard, that's just insane.
And you can't lift those containers like that, they are all tightly placed next to one another and on top of one another. That needs major means to do it effectively and safely.

[SiliconWizard]

Speaking of figures, if I didn't mess up my calculations, at the speed the ship was estimated to move when it hit the pillar and with its estimated mass, the energy must have been something the equivalent of the explosion of between 500kg and 1t TNT. Just to get an idea.

[jpanhalt]

Sunrise in Baltimore: 6:55 AM:

Oh, say, can you see
By the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hail'd
At the twilight's last gleaming?

Whose bright containers shined
Through the perilous night
O'er the river's banks we watched
And the Dali was still there.

Inspired by FSK and quoted in part.

[xrunner]

how would people salvage all this in 3 days right in the middle of the river with no bridge

canoes

Didn't the ancient Egyptians move multi-ton obelisks on simple wooden boats? 

[langwadt]

This fuel at room temperature is a tar like substance and is heated to decrease its viscosity. It is then run through centrifugal separators to get rid of impurities prior to being fed to the engines

One theory that I've seen, that sounds plausible, is that contaminated fuel clogged the fuel filters for the generators, causing the generators to stop. Perhaps the ship didn't have centrifugal separators, or the separators didn't filter out enough impurities to prevent clogging the filters.

The bunker oil used as fuel on ships like this one is the dregs of the petroleum refining process and often contains gunk that may be problematic.

All of this should be easy enough to figure out as the ship is still intact and presumably there's data logging that will point to the cause of the problem.

coastal areas and ports are sulfur emission controlled areas, so there they run bunker A which is basically diesel 

[switchabl]

Keep the ship for collateral - some 1851 law which was cited by the Titanic’s owner in a Supreme Court case 1912, could limit the payout. Titanic law could help ship owner limit liability in Baltimore bridge collapse

Estimates are $2B to repair/replace the bridge, $0.1B to free the ship and clean up the mess. Biden is talking like the Feds will give the money, but I have to ask why the US taxpayer is ultimately on the hook, as well as the many years of cranked up toll pricing we know will result. OUCH.

The article makes it sound a bit like it is some loophole in an old, forgotten law. But in fact the principle of limited liability has been a central element of maritime codes internationally for centuries and it comes up in almost all major shipping accidents.

Now, many people do think that this doesn't really make sense anymore in a world where LLCs and huge insurance companies exist and shipping isn't nearly as dangerous as it used to be. But any attempt to change this unilaterally might prove hard to enforce. E.g. the owner of the MV Dali is based in Singapore which is a member of the International Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims.

[Sal Ammoniac]

coastal areas and ports are sulfur emission controlled areas, so there they run bunker A which is basically diesel 

Sometimes they run cleaner fuel when in port and switch to the dirty stuff when at sea.

Even the lowest grade bunker fuel is lower in sulfur than it used to be. In fact, that change has contributed to global warming because higher sulfur emissions tended to mitigate warming.

[langwadt]

coastal areas and ports are sulfur emission controlled areas, so there they run bunker A which is basically diesel 

Sometimes they run cleaner fuel when in port and switch to the dirty stuff when at sea.

yep, and if they are going to shut down the engines. Don't want things to cool down with the thick fuel that needs to be hot   

Even the lowest grade bunker fuel is lower in sulfur than it used to be. In fact, that change has contributed to global warming because higher sulfur emissions tended to mitigate warming.

yes, the global limit was lowered to 0.5% from (afair) 3.5% in 2020, I think in ports and coastal areas it is ~0.1%

[coppice]

Even the lowest grade bunker fuel is lower in sulfur than it used to be. In fact, that change has contributed to global warming because higher sulfur emissions tended to mitigate warming.

The response to this seems to be that we now need to throw more crap into the atmosphere to replace the crap we've just removed. Welcome to clown world.

[xrunner]

The largest crane on the Eastern seabord has arrived at the bridge. That may well be, but it doesn't seem large next to the wreckage. 

[delfinom]

The largest crane on the Eastern seabord has arrived at the bridge. That may well be, but it doesn't seem large next to the wreckage. 

* Largest water borne crane the army corps of engineers has access to


Also the photo is not even correct, they took a photo of another crane that got moved closer to the wreck.

This is the crane that's called in:
https://www.donjon.com/ches1000.htm

[Sal Ammoniac]

That crane looks precarious. It's hard enough working with big cranes near the limit of their load capacity on solid ground--doing it on a floating barge adds another element of difficulty.

[floobydust]

Is this an example of decaying infrastructure or misplaced pride?

That crane barge built in 1972, max. 1,000 short tons (within 63ft), Donjon's stuff is all very old but with upgrades apparently.
It looks not enough to deal with the mangled steel trusses, and having to cut it up into nice little pieces will take a long time.
Just phone up a professional salvage company that has real cranes and foot the bill. The port needs to be open ASAP.

"U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is deploying more than 1,100 personnel to Baltimore..."
It's going to be impressive, they don't mess around- but you still need good tools for the job.

[mariush]

I was wondering how feasible would be inflate some thick things with air or something and tie the to the metal of the bridge and then cut small segments of that bridge and drag the segments to the river sides while they float.

Maybe even something like filling shipping containers with ping pong balls or something and welding them shut... cheap flotation devices with mounting points at the corners to attach to the bridge.

I'm thinking the surface of the bridge would be the hardest to lift out the water and remove it, I imagine they'd have to cut strips and lift it with the crane.

I guess river's too deep for a boat like this to work :

[coppercone2]

Is this an example of decaying infrastructure or misplaced pride?

That crane barge built in 1972, max. 1,000 short tons (within 63ft), Donjon's stuff is all very old but with upgrades apparently.
It looks not enough to deal with the mangled steel trusses, and having to cut it up into nice little pieces will take a long time.
Just phone up a professional salvage company that has real cranes and foot the bill. The port needs to be open ASAP.

"U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is deploying more than 1,100 personnel to Baltimore..."
It's going to be impressive, they don't mess around- but you still need good tools for the job.

they need to make better boats because fuck the cost going on the tax payer. You can probobly make a better bridge but someone is just gonna make a bigger boat. Its way cheaper to make the boat and it effects way less people if they improve the boat rather then improving the bridge.

Why should we have to build crazy bridges, when there is a over seas non American manufacturer that probably caused this problem by putting copper clad wire in a generator to keep his costs down?


Like we are gonna end up eating off brand ramen to protect the right of Marsk to use alibaba inverters and crap like that. I don't think the infrastructure is failing.

[langwadt]

Is this an example of decaying infrastructure or misplaced pride?

That crane barge built in 1972, max. 1,000 short tons (within 63ft), Donjon's stuff is all very old but with upgrades apparently.
It looks not enough to deal with the mangled steel trusses, and having to cut it up into nice little pieces will take a long time.
Just phone up a professional salvage company that has real cranes and foot the bill. The port needs to be open ASAP.

"U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is deploying more than 1,100 personnel to Baltimore..."
It's going to be impressive, they don't mess around- but you still need good tools for the job.

they need to make better boats because fuck the cost going on the tax payer. You can probobly make a better bridge but someone is just gonna make a bigger boat. Its way cheaper to make the boat and it effects way less people if they improve the boat rather then improving the bridge.

Why should we have to build crazy bridges, when there is a over seas non American manufacturer that probably caused this problem by putting copper clad wire in a generator to keep his costs down?


Like we are gonna end up eating off brand ramen to protect the right of Marsk to use alibaba inverters and crap like that. I don't think the infrastructure is failing.

what a weird nonsensical rant..

[coppercone2]

whats decaying about the infrastructure? It was a fine bridge. Probably would have passed inspection for 50 years more. It is the ship that was having problems even by its service history. A boeingesque problem?

[SiliconWizard]

Worse than Boeing, IMO, although (usually) less of a problem as there are no passengers.
The reliability and maintenance of those cargo ships are disastrous, from what I've heard.

[David Hess]

whats decaying about the infrastructure? It was a fine bridge. Probably would have passed inspection for 50 years more. It is the ship that was having problems even by its service history. A boeingesque problem?

The ship has been in service for a while, so a maintenance problem is more likely than a design or manufacturing problem.  It could have been contaminated fuel so we will have to wait for the investigation and report.

[soldar]

what a weird nonsensical rant..

Especially when pretty much everybody agrees America's infrastructure is in bad state of decay and in serious need of update, repair, improvement and maintenance.

A search for America, infrastructure, decay brings up dozens of pages, including the White House.

https://www.businessinsider.com/asce-gives-us-infrastructure-a-d-2017-3
https://www.csis.org/analysis/united-states-broken-infrastructure-national-security-threat
https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/11/15/the-time-is-now-to-modernize-u-s-infrastructure/

And, in any case, the prevention of accidents, in general, is a multitude of layers, of redundancy. 

That bridge today would be built with a breakwater and other better measures that it had when it was built fifty years ago.

Accidents happen. They happen in American built ships. They happen in American navy ships. They happen.

Blaming the whole thing on a foreign built component is misplaced.

[tom66]

Given the last disaster of similar scale in the USA was almost 50 years ago, it could be argued that a one-in-50 year event is not worth spending billions of dollars on (across all possible bridges on entry to ports in the USA).

Whilst tragic that six lives were lost,  it is clear that the port authority and bridge operator had reasonable mitigation for this type of disaster by being able to close the bridge to traffic quickly.  The cost is mostly economic, and even if it costs $2 billion to rebuild this bridge, it would probably not be worth spending, for instance, a further $2 billion on reinforcing remaining bridges.

I would like to see maritime law changed to make the insurers liable for these costs, though.  It's not okay that the federal government has to pick up the tab for incompetent maintenance, or contaminated fuel.

Edit: corrected amount, brain fart

[soldar]

I would like to see maritime law changed to make the insurers liable for these costs, though.  It's not okay that the federal government has to pick up the tab for incompetent maintenance, or contaminated fuel.

Where do you get the idea that the insurers are not liable?

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/28/business/who-ends-upholdingthebagfor-the-baltimore-bridge-collapse/index.html

Insurers footing the bill

The Dali ship is owned by Grace Ocean Private, a Singapore-based company, and insured by the Britannia Protection and Indemnity Club.

Britannia is one of the dozen marine insurance member clubs under the International Group of P&I Clubs, a consortium that provides marine liability coverage for 90% of ocean freight and pools liability claims among members. (The International Group of P&I Clubs did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.)

These insurance companies are backed by insurance companies of their own – a type of business known as a reinsurer.

Around 80 different reinsurers provide around $3 billion in coverage to the Dali’s insurers, according to Moody’s analyst Brendan Holmes. Since the losses will be spread across so many insurers, it’s unlikely to bankrupt any of the companies or cause a major bump in insurance prices, he said.

[tom66]

I would like to see maritime law changed to make the insurers liable for these costs, though.  It's not okay that the federal government has to pick up the tab for incompetent maintenance, or contaminated fuel.

Where do you get the idea that the insurers are not liable?

The post above by @floobydust suggests they might be on the hook for a maximum of the ship's value + cost of cargo transport.  So probably north of $100mn, but well short of the cost of one replacement bridge.

[floobydust]

whats decaying about the infrastructure? It was a fine bridge. Probably would have passed inspection for 50 years more. It is the ship that was having problems even by its service history. A boeingesque problem?

I meant the infrastructure to deal with modern shipping accidents - such as newer, VLCC tankers, big container ships, scuttling or on fire etc.
It's all fine letting these ships in/out of ports and on your waters, but at the same time you need to invest in the equipment to deal with their calamity, and not be caught with your pants down.
Coast Guard, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) etc. doesn't have the equipment and it looks like neither do American salvage companies. We'll see how that crane barge from New Jersey does.

edit: It's the largest crane in the Eastern Seaboard.
edit 2: I was right, nobody makes a crane like this for general purpose unless...
"The crane originally was built as the Sun 800 in 1972 to help construct the Hughes Glomar Explorer, a deep-sea vessel used by the CIA in a secret mission called "Project AZORIAN" to recover a Soviet nuclear submarine that sank in the Pacific Ocean during the Cold War {1968}, according to the Engineering News-Record."

[soldar]

I would like to see maritime law changed to make the insurers liable for these costs, though.  It's not okay that the federal government has to pick up the tab for incompetent maintenance, or contaminated fuel.

Where do you get the idea that the insurers are not liable?

The post above by @floobydust suggests they might be on the hook for a maximum of the ship's value + cost of cargo transport.  So probably north of $100mn, but well short of the cost of one replacement bridge.

Regardless of the liability, I would advise not legislating in the heat of the moment and pondering things very carefully. Legislating too quick makes for bad laws.

All countries, including the USA, have many ways of limiting liability because it is considered to result in a benefit to society in the big picture. Limited liability corporations, bankruptcy laws, etc. might seem unjust in specific cases but they benefit society as a whole.

Governments already pay for infrastructure out of taxes because it results in economic activity and development and well being.

If the government required every business to have unlimited insurance coverage then many businesses would have to shut down because it would not be affordable. 

I do not know but maybe if the USA required too much insurance or other requirements for ships and other forms of freight then that would result in much higher shipping costs or even in some ships or companies just refusing to go there.

It may well be that the USA considers the cost of rebuilding a bridge every few years more affordable than putting very onerous requirements on ships.

Legislating in the heat of the aftermath often makes bad law and has unwanted consequences.

Laws have to be considered and crafted very carefully and even then they often backfire.

The Jones Act requires vessels transporting freight within American ports to be American built and crewed. The ostensible purpose was to protect the American shipbuilding industry. In fact it totally backfired.

https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/jones-act-burden-america-can-no-longer-bear

I would advise to tread slowly and carefully and consider changes with great care.