Baltimore Bridge Collapse Raises Questions About Bridges in Other States

As larger and faster container ships began to chug up the Delaware River in recent years, transportation officials feared the prospect of one going astray that would lead to a repeat, or worse, of what happened in 1969, when a tanker struck the Delaware Memorial Bridge and caused significant damage.

So last year, work began on a $93 million project to build eight massive cylinders that would stand guard in front of the bridge’s piers in order to protect a system that carries tens of thousands of vehicles a day.

“The tankers and cargo ships of 1950 aren’t the tankers and cargo ships of today,” said James Salmon, a spokesman for the Delaware River and Bay Authority.

The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore after a cargo ship nearly three football fields long crashed into it, claiming the lives of six people, has prompted questions about whether similar disasters could happen elsewhere.

But the work on the Delaware Memorial Bridge reflects the fact that some transportation and maritime experts have been mulling the hazards of new cargo ships squeezing under decades-old bridges for some time. The problem is that there are no easy answers, in part because ships just keep getting bigger.

Michael Rubino, a retired chief harbor pilot for the Port of Los Angeles, said the air drafts — the distance between the water to the highest point on a vessel — of some newer ships have gotten so big that some vessels need to fold down their antennae and masts to squeeze under a bridge.