Bridge Collapses In Baltimore After Ship Crash

[detrius]

US citizens talk about immigrants like there are not millions of US citizens living in other countries. We don't know how many are living in other countries illegally though I personally know a few including some that are documented in a neighboring country and use tourist visas to "live" and work in the other. But even when they're caught, they're usually not labeled as terrorists, or drug dealers, or job stealers.

We have similar rhetoric in Selma about housing. A tornado damaged and destroyed many homes a little over a year ago. Some of us are still having work done due to insurance and contractor delays. Both HUD, and our state-funded housing authority, are replacing some of the destroyed homes with prefabricated houses on slabs and pylons respectively. There is much uproar that the units are not historic in appearance and some of the color choices are "just plain ugly" and concrete slabs and prefab!

Explaining to them that these are homes, for people who have been living in hotels, with family, in cars, makes no impression on the indignation. That property values are higher with occupied homes, rather than dilapidated structures or overgrown lots, makes no impression on the indignation. Facts and truth are meaningless to the indignation. They are Deplorable Indignates.[/rant]

edit: forgot to add supporting linkage

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247wallst.com

American Expats by Country 2024

worldpopulationreview.com

It's always funny to me when Americans who live abroad are called 'expats' while people who moved to America are 'immigrants' or even 'aliens'. It's such an obvious double standard. (Same thing with Germans, it's not as if people here aren't doing the same.)

 

[Noodles]

The armchair shipping and logistics experts from the Evergreen ship in the Suez, along with the armchair professional civil/structural engineers from the Miami condo collapse are teaming up for Speculation As Fact Fest 2024.

I am not a Civil Engineer, but my Mechanical Engineering degree says to me that Bridges are made to hold a lot of weight and atake a lot of force in a vertical direction, but probably not exactly built to be structurally sound in a horizontal direction mostly designed to resist cross winds. Especially when a zillion ton ball of metal crashes into it.

It seems really weird that there are conspiracies about how and why it collapsed. The answer is clear, a big ass boat hit it.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

I am not a Civil Engineer, but my Mechanical Engineering degree says to me that Bridges are made to hold a lot of weight and atake a lot of force in a vertical direction, but probably not exactly built to be structurally sound in a horizontal direction mostly designed to resist cross winds. Especially when a zillion ton ball of metal crashes into it.

It seems really weird that there are conspiracies about how and why it collapsed. The answer is clear, a big ass boat hit it.

Right, building bridges such that they can withstand a HUGE ASS BOAT crashing into them would be astronomically expensive... I can sort of understand conspiracy theories about the boat, but not about the bridge.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Right, building bridges such that they can withstand a HUGE ASS BOAT crashing into them would be astronomically expensive... I can sort of understand conspiracy theories about the boat, but not about the bridge.

Think of that, and then add the cost of completely rebuilding every bridge every ten or fifteen years because the boats have gotten even huger ass since the last time.

Like, in 1980 this same bridge was struck by a HUGE cargo ship - huge for 1980 - and it survived more or less without a scratch. This boat that brought it down a couple of days ago is soooo much bigger, and it isn't even the biggest kind of container ship there is right now.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

As for the conspiracy theories though - I mean, if you've got someone who thinks it's "suspicious" that a bridge fell down after one of its supports was knocked completely out from under it, what could you even say that's going to change their mind? They've already decided that gravity and physics aren't real, so I'm not sure what you can do to sway them at that point.

 

[Cristiano]

As for the conspiracy theories though - I mean, if you've got someone who thinks it's "suspicious" that a bridge fell down after one of its supports was knocked completely out from under it, what could you even say that's going to change their mind? They've already decided that gravity and physics aren't real, so I'm not sure what you can do to sway them at that point.

Yeah and those pesky facts like terrorists don't normally make mayday calls to ensure the bridge was closed to traffic does nothing to persuade them. Plus Laura Loomer has "intel sources" (her uncle on Facebook) who says it was a cyber attack(?). CASE CLOSED.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

They were only able to clear traffic from the bridge because it was the middle of the night. If it was a terror attack aimed at Americans, they would have struck during heavy traffic when you can't clear the bridge in time even if you wanted to.

So if this was a terror attack, it was aimed at 8 immigrants working on an infrastructure project. Which political party is against immigration and infrastructure spending?

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Yeah and those pesky facts like terrorists don't normally make mayday calls to ensure the bridge was closed to traffic does nothing to persuade them. Please Laura Loomer has "intel sources" (her uncle on Facebook) who says it was a cyber attack(?). CASE CLOSED.

Yeah, LOL! Look, I don't know a whole lot about ships - obvs. But I do know a few things, enough to know just how little MOST people seem to know about them. And I think a lot of people just don't really get how "analog" cargo ships like these are. Because you hear people talk and it sounds like they're expecting these things to be blinged out spaceships. They're all so incredulous that a ship can just lose an engine and be completely crippled and adrift, they're talking about "all the redundant systems and backups and auxilliaries" and how it's so unlikely that it ALL can fail.

This ship has one engine. ONE. One great big engine, turning one great big propeller. That's it. There's no backup engine. There's no "redundant systems". There's an electrical generator that's meant to be used whenever the engine isn't running to provide power, but it's just an electrical generator. These ships are SUPER simple on purpose because that's what makes them economical to operate.

The NTSB had a press conference yesterday where they talked about the ship's VDR, "voyage data recorder", and the lady had to take pains to talk down peoples' expectations because the reporters were asking questions like they expect this thing to be like the data recorder on a jet airliner where the position of every switch and control and condition and sensor on the whole plane is recorded and the temperature and pressure of every hydraulic line and all of this, and a VDR isn't like that. It records like...GPS position, and speed, and some technical things like rudder inputs and engine commands like speed up/slow down, but not really a whole lot else.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

The idea that there is an internet-connected kill switch without a local override for the main engine is a little far fetched for me.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

I don't think there's much internet-connected about the ship's engine or electrical system TBH. Vessels at sea have like satellite internet for email, and position reporting outside of radio range, and that's pretty much it as far as I know. And it's not GOOD internet. I don't think a hacker could actually do anything to a ship, operationally.

 

[Khamon]

her uncle on facebook ha ha ha ha ha

 

[Cristiano]

The idea that there is an internet-connected kill switch without a local override for the main engine is a little far fetched for me.

I could not resist (clearly I need sleep):

 

[Casey Pelous]

Yeah, LOL! Look, I don't know a whole lot about ships - obvs. But I do know a few things, enough to know just how little MOST people seem to know about them. And I think a lot of people just don't really get how "analog" cargo ships like these are. Because you hear people talk and it sounds like they're expecting these things to be blinged out spaceships. They're all so incredulous that a ship can just lose an engine and be completely crippled and adrift, they're talking about "all the redundant systems and backups and auxilliaries" and how it's so unlikely that it ALL can fail.

This ship has one engine. ONE. One great big engine, turning one great big propeller. That's it. There's no backup engine. There's no "redundant systems". There's an electrical generator that's meant to be used whenever the engine isn't running to provide power, but it's just an electrical generator. These ships are SUPER simple on purpose because that's what makes them economical to operate.

The NTSB had a press conference yesterday where they talked about the ship's VDR, "voyage data recorder", and the lady had to take pains to talk down peoples' expectations because the reporters were asking questions like they expect this thing to be like the data recorder on a jet airliner where the position of every switch and control and condition and sensor on the whole plane is recorded and the temperature and pressure of every hydraulic line and all of this, and a VDR isn't like that. It records like...GPS position, and speed, and some technical things like rudder inputs and engine commands like speed up/slow down, but not really a whole lot else.

One Big, Big engine .... (note the steps toward the left edge of the picture.) Starting that behemoth is not a trivial task. I doubt they lost power in that engine then managed to restart it in short order.

Typically, there are three Still Pretty Big diesel engines hooked up to generators. Those handle all the ships electronics, various electrically powered controls, and the "hotel load" (crew quarters, freshwater maker, water pumps, sewage pumps, sewage treatment, A/C, etc., etc. ....). I'd be willing to bet a quarter that the problem will turn out to be either the generators or the electric distribution system.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Is this going to be like a thing, now?


Of course, those little barges weren't really a threat, but - geez, you'd think people on the water would be doing their jobs a LITTLE more carefully nowadays.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

The USCG has opened a temporary new channel passing under the northern uncollapsed portion of the bridge.

Our brave first contestant:


This channel is not deep enough for big container ships. But shallow-draft ships, barges like this, and smaller vessels are now able to get in and out of Baltimore. BIG first step!

Crane ships have been on site for a couple of days now, and have been slowly cutting up and removing some of the bridge wreckage.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Steadily working on it. I caught the harbor livestream this morning as a barge was hauling away a pretty large section of the bridge truss that crews had cut from the wreckage. A crane is now also removing containers from the front of the Dali.

 

[Cindy Claveau]

Three ships have hit bridges in different countries – in just three months. Should we be worried?

I live in Kansas. What are ships?

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

I am not a Civil Engineer, but my Mechanical Engineering degree says to me that Bridges are made to hold a lot of weight and atake a lot of force in a vertical direction, but probably not exactly built to be structurally sound in a horizontal direction mostly designed to resist cross winds. Especially when a zillion ton ball of metal crashes into it.

It seems really weird that there are conspiracies about how and why it collapsed. The answer is clear, a big ass boat hit it.

And the bridge was also of a bad design. It clearly lacked bridge pillar protection which new bridges do have. Even worse, the type of protection required probably could have been retrofitted easily, it's being called concrete dolphin and looks like below. This is the Sunshine Sky bridge in Florida, and old truss bridge, and the newly one build aside it has these concrete dolphins clearly visible in the water to protect its pillars.

Jeff here has quite a lot to tell about the potential deficencies of the bridge which went down.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

It did have 4 dolphins installed. In the late 1970s, when ships were much smaller.

You can see three of them here. One is right next to the ship just aft of center.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

I see... anyway, then it was a real shame these dolphins were so small, so few and never updated amongst other things.