By LEA SKENE and TASSANEE VEJPONGSA (Associated Press)
BALTIMORE (AP) — The U.S. Coast Guard has opened a temporary, alternate path for ships involved in the clearing of wreckage at the site of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, as part of a phased approach to opening the main path leading to the important port, officials said.
Teams are working on the complex task of removing steel and concrete at the location where the bridge collapsed into the Patapsco River after a container ship lost power and crashed into a supporting column. On Sunday, dive teams surveyed parts of the bridge and checked the ship, and workers in lifts used torches to cut above-water parts of the twisted steel superstructure.
Officials said the temporary path is open only to ships that are helping with the cleanup effort. Authorities believe four workers fell to their death in the collapse.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said at a Monday afternoon news conference that his top priority is recovering the four bodies, followed by reopening shipping paths to the port. He said he understands the urgency but that the risks are significant because of the mangled steel of the fallen bridge that crews have described as “chaotic wreckage.”
“We have to move fast, but we cannot be careless,” he said.
U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral Shannon Gilreath said divers examining the steel girders beneath the surface found that the steel is tangled and intertwined, making it difficult to figure out where they can be cut to make them manageable to lift out of the water.
“What we’re finding is it is more complicated than we hoped for initially,” Gilreath said.
Moore said crews used a large crane to cut up and lift a 200-ton (180-metric ton) span of the bridge, a task that took 10 hours. He said the piece was considered a “relatively small lift.”
“The scale of this project, to be clear, it is enormous, and even the small lifts are huge,” he said.
Moore said crews will lift another 350-ton (317-metric ton) piece from the bridge later Monday as weather allows.
Officials earlier said the temporary path would have a controlling depth of 11 feet (over 3 meters), a horizontal clearance of 264 feet (80 meters) and a vertical clearance of 96 feet (29 meters). A video released Sunday showed the Coast Guard dropping buoys in the water.
“This marks an important first step along the road to reopening the port of Baltimore,” Capt. David O’Connell, the federal on-scene coordinator of the response, said in a statement Monday. “By opening this alternate route, we will support the flow of marine traffic into Baltimore.”
President Joe Biden will visit the site Friday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre announced Monday afternoon. He will meet with state and local officials and get an “on-the-ground look” at federal response efforts, Jean-Pierre said.
Also Monday, the Small Business Administration opened two centers in the area to help companies get loans to assist them with losses caused by the disruption of the bridge collapse. One of the centers is in Dundalk, a suburb of Baltimore on the northeast end of the bridge.
Yvette Jeffery, a representative for the agency’s disaster recovery office, stated that impacted businesses can get loans up to $2 million. She explained that the effects could vary from supply-chain difficulties to reduced foot traffic in communities heavily reliant on the bridge.
The bridge collapsed when the crew of the cargo ship Dali lost control and power on March 26. They issued a mayday, which allowed a brief period for police to prevent vehicles from entering the bridge, but not enough time to evacuate a team of eight workers from the structure.
Two workers survived, two bodies were recovered in a submerged pickup, and it is believed that four more men have died. Divers have been unable to search for their bodies due to hazardous weather conditions and tangled debris underwater.
The Dali is operated by Synergy Marine Group and owned by Grace Ocean Private Ltd., both based in Singapore. The Danish shipping company Maersk chartered the Dali, which lost power while leaving port.
Synergy and Grace Ocean filed a court petition on Monday to limit their legal responsibility. This is a standard yet critical procedure for cases under U.S. maritime law. A federal court in Maryland will ultimately determine the responsible party and the amount owed.
The petition aims to cap the companies’ liability at around $43.6 million. It estimates the value of the vessel at up to $90 million and the freight it was carrying at over $1.1 million in income for the companies. The estimate also accounts for two significant expenses: at least $28 million in repairs and at least $19.5 million in salvage.
In addition to clearing the shipping channel to reopen the port, authorities are working to decide how to reconstruct the major bridge, which was finished in 1977. The bridge carried Interstate 695 around southeast Baltimore and served as a symbol of the city’s working-class origins and maritime culture.
It is anticipated that Congress will consider financial aid packages to assist individuals who lose jobs or businesses due to the prolonged closure of the Port of Baltimore, which handles more cars and farm equipment than any other U.S. facility.
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Contributing to this report were Associated Press journalists Mike Pesoli in Baltimore; Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina; and Sarah Brumfield in Washington.
