The U.S. Coast Guard suspended search-and-rescue operations for the six construction workers who have been missing since a Baltimore bridge collapsed early Tuesday, in an "unthinkable tragedy" that will have a significant impact on commerce, traffic and transportation beyond Maryland.
It's now a recovery operation, according to Maryland State Police.
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Recovery efforts resumed at the collapse site early Wednesday, state police said. Divers returned after challenging overnight conditions improved.
"We do not believe that we are going to find any of these individuals still alive," Coast Guard Rear Adm. Shannon Gilreath said.
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Brawner Builders Executive Vice President Jeffrey Pritzker said Tuesday afternoon that the missing employees were presumed to have died given the water’s depth and the amount of time that had passed since the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed.
“This was so completely unforeseen,” Pritzker said. “We don’t know what else to say. We take such great pride in safety, and we have cones and signs and lights and barriers and flaggers. But we never foresaw that the bridge would collapse.”
The company didn't name the employees, but María del Carmen Castellón told Telemundo 44 her husband, 49-year-old Miguel Luna, is one of them.
While access to the disaster zone is restricted, family members like Castellón were able to get in while they waited for news.
“They only tell us that we have to wait, that for now, they can’t give us information,” she said earlier in the day. “[We feel] devastated, devastated because our heart is broken, because we don’t know if they’ve rescued them yet. We’re just waiting to hear any news.“
According to Jesús Campos, who worked alongside some of the victims for Brawner Builders for years, the men came from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico and became part of the community in Dundalk and Highlandtown.
As night fell, a somber Maryland Gov. Wes Moore expressed compassion for the families of those lost.
“I can’t imagine how painful today has been for these families, how painful these hours," he said. "Even though we've transitioned from a search and rescue to now a recovery mission, we will use every asset to make sure they find a sense of closure."
The crew was repairing potholes in the middle of the bridge’s span when a cargo ship hit it about 1:30 a.m. and crumbled the bridge.
Rescuers pulled two workers from the Patapsco River. One was hospitalized and released hours later.
Multiple vehicles also fell into the water, although authorities don't think anyone was inside them.
At a 3:30 p.m. news conference, Moore and U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin had held out hope for the families.
“This is still very much an active search-and-rescue mission,” Moore said.
The ship is owned by Singapore-based Grace Ocean Private Ltd., which said all crew members, including the two pilots, were accounted for and there were no reports of injuries involving anyone who was on board.
Officers were about to alert crew when bridge collapsed
Radio traffic from the Broadcastify.com archive indicates officers were just about to alert the construction crew when the bridge collapsed.
The Maryland Transportation Authority first responder radio traffic includes a dispatcher putting out a call saying a ship had lost its steering ability and asking officers to stop all traffic. It took officers less than two minutes to stop traffic on the bridge.
“I’m thankful for the folks who, once the warning came up and once the notification came up, there was a mayday, who, literally, by being able to stop cars from coming over the bridge, these people are heroes,” Moore said. “They saved lives last night.”
One officer who had stopped traffic radioed that he was going to drive onto the bridge to notify the construction crew once a second officer arrived. But seconds later, a frantic officer said: “The whole bridge just fell down. Start, start whoever, everybody ... the whole bridge just collapsed.”
It’s unclear if word ever got to the work crew on the bridge that the ship was in danger and to evacuate the span.
“There were eight individuals,” said Paul Wiedefeld, Maryland’s transportation secretary. “Six are being searched for right now, one was taken to the hospital and one is not in the hospital that we are speaking to.”
As word spread the bridge had collapsed into the water, authorities immediately asked nearby jurisdictions to send rescue boats and dive teams. The U.S. Coast Guard responded with ships and a helicopter.
Container ship lost power, rammed support column
The container ship lost power and rammed one of the bridge’s supports, destroying a span of the bridge in a matter of seconds and plunging it into the river in a terrifying collapse that could disrupt a vital shipping port for months.
“It looked like something out of an action movie,” said Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, calling it “an unthinkable tragedy."
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.
Highway signs as far south as Virginia warned drivers of delays associated with the bridge.
Synergy Marine Group — which manages the ship, called the Dali — confirmed the vessel hit a pillar of the bridge at about 1:30 a.m. while in control of one or more pilots, who are local specialists who help guide vessels safely into ports.
Maritime historian Sal Mercogliano of Campbell University said the timing of the power loss was the worst possible.
“Unfortunately, the loss of power, this exact moment, was the problem, because a few seconds later, they're under the bridge and perhaps run aground,” he said.
He reviewed video of the moments leading up to the ship striking the bridge. The first sign of trouble seen in the video is the ship going dark.
“That means every system on the vessel went offline, and that is the worst feeling for a mariner on board,” Mercogliano said. “Silence and darkness is the worst. That means you've lost propulsion, you've lost steering, you've lost control of the vessel.”
The lights came back seconds later.
“What we're not sure about is whether or not that is the main power coming back on or the emergency power coming back on,” Mercogliano said. “If it’s emergency power, that means they don't have control.”
Then thick, black smoke was seen coming from the ship’s smokestack.
“That's usually an indication that they're trying to back down the engine, that they're perhaps maybe wanting to try to slow down and stop,” Mercogliano said.
The port anchor was dropped, but at the speed the ship was going — 8 knots, or roughly 9 mph — that wouldn’t do anything.
“A hundred thousand tons at 8 knots is a lot of a momentum, and it's very hard to control it when you lose propulsion and rudder control,” Mercogliano said.
Jagged remnants of the bridge could be seen jutting up from the water's surface. The on-ramp ended abruptly where the span once began.
Major transportation impact
The 1.6-mile bridge spans the Patapsco River at the entrance to a busy harbor, which leads to the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean. Opened in 1977, the bridge is named for the writer of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
It likely will take more than a year or even two to rebuild, Transportation Reporter Adam Tuss explained.
About 31,000 vehicles per day used the Key Bridge – 11.3 million per year. Wiedefeld says Interstates 95 and 895, two tunnels under the Baltimore Harbor will likely pick up the spillover traffic.
“About double that use the harbor tunnel, and double that again that use the Fort McHenry tunnel,” he said. “So basically, we have those two other options. We’ll make sure that we have as much personnel out there to deal with any incidents, because as you know, that can cause the backups very quickly.”
All the traffic that used the Key Bridge likely will go through Baltimore and along the western side of the Baltimore Beltway.
Trucks that carry hazardous materials and can’t go through the tunnels took the bridge, and that traffic will have to be reconfigured, as well.
Transit alternatives also will be studied, Tuss reported.
Port of Baltimore closed indefinitely
Wiedefeld said all vessel traffic into and out of the port would be suspended until further notice, though the facility was still open to trucks.
“The ships that are in Baltimore are stuck, and the ships waiting to get into Baltimore are either going to have to wait or divert,” Mercogliano said.
“We're talking about tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of dollars of impact of cargo,” he added.
And the ships can't simply offload somewhere else like Norfolk or Philadelphia, Mercogliano said.
"You need the facilities to be able to take them," he said. "Cargo is going to have to be rerouted into Baltimore that was scheduled to arrive there. And again, the coal and grain that come out through that port are not going to be able to be taken up in other facilities. The facilities don’t exist.”
Ships like the Dali have what’s known as a forward collision area, which is designed to take some impact. Crews will inspect the hull from inside and out, which might be delayed because as we see there is debris from the bridge resting on top of the ship.
The equipment needed to remove the debris from the ship and from the river will have to be brought in from up and down the eastern seaboard before the port can be reopened.
President Joe Biden said he planned to travel to Baltimore “as quickly as I can” and that he intends for the federal government to pick up the entire cost of rebuilding the bridge.
“This is going to take some time,” Biden said. “The people of Baltimore can count on us, though, to stick with them at every step of the way until the port is reopened and the bridge is rebuilt.”
The FBI was on the scene and said there was no credible information to suggest terrorism.
What we know about the cargo ship Dali
The Dali was headed from Baltimore to Colombo, Sri Lanka — where it was scheduled to arrive April 22 — and flying under a Singapore flag, according to data from Marine Traffic. The container ship is about 985 feet (300 meters) long and about 157 feet (48 meters) wide, according to the website.
Synergy Marine Group issued a statement saying there were 22 crew members on board the ship Tuesday.
"All crew members, including the two pilots, have been accounted for," Synergy said in a statement, adding, "the exact cause of the incident is yet to be determined."
The owners and managers said they're fully cooperating with federal and state agencies during the investigation.
Danish shipping giant Maersk said it had chartered the vessel. No Maersk crew and personnel were on board.
The News4 I-Team found the Dali was involved in an accident in 2016. Antwerp-Bruges Port Authority in Belgium confirmed a YouTube video showing the ship colliding with a port wall as it tried to exit a terminal, causing hull damage.
The Dali's inspection history shows another recorded deficiency in the ship's nine years. Inspectors found a problem with the Dali’s machinery in June, but a more recent examination did not identify any deficiencies, according to the shipping information system Equasis.
Records indicate neither deficiency was serious enough to take the ship out of commission.
Before making its way to Baltimore the Dali had traveled from Panama to New York and Norfolk.
Last year, the Port of Baltimore handled a record 52.3 million tons of foreign cargo worth $80 billion, according to the state.
The head of a supply chain management company said Americans should expect shortages of goods from the effect of the collapse on ocean container shipping and East Coast trucking.
“It’s not just the port of Baltimore that’s going to be impacted,” said Ryan Petersen, CEO of Flexport.
The collapse, though, is not likely to hurt worldwide trade because Baltimore is not a major port for container vessels, but its facilities are more important when it comes to goods such as farm equipment and autos, said Judah Levine, head of research for global freight booking platform Freightos.
