DUNDALK, Md. — Response efforts to the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse may prove more difficult than first anticipated, outlined U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral Shannon Gilreath at a press conference Monday afternoon.
Last Tuesday, the Dali, a vessel roughly the size of the Eiffel Tower, collided with the Key Bridge, causing the bridge to collapse.
Now, thousands of tons of steel must get up from the wreckage; the process of lifting that debris is underway.
"[Crews] cut up and lifted a piece of the north section of the Key Bridge," said Maryland Gov. Wes Moore. "The entire operation took 10 hours. And in that time, they were able to cut and lift a 200-ton span of the bridge."
"Today was an important milestone in the process of beginning to pull the wreckage out, beginning to open up channels," Moore stated later in the press briefing.
Bridge girders are tangled below the waterline, Gilreath explained, making it difficult to determine where to cut debris so it can be lifted away from the scene.
"It's turning out to be more challenging than we originally thought it might be," Gilreath told reporters.
Gilreath reiterated that reopening the deep draft channel is still priority one, and stressed safety for response teams.
"It's not a, 'there's this many lifts a day,' it's 'cut sections, lift those sections, put them on a barge, move to the next section, cut those sections, lift those.' It's a continuous process," said Gilreath.
Meanwhile, a temporary channel opened, Moore said, with more temporary paths on the way, reopening the water to at least some shallow vessels.
"The temporary channel will be marked with government lights to aid navigation, and will have a controlling depth of 11 feet," Moore said Monday.
Paul Weidefeld, secretary of the Maryland Department of Transportation, told reporters that the first of two diverted cruise ships, which left before the bridge collapse, docked in Norfolk, VA.
"About 60 buses transported approximately 2500 Carnival cruise passengers back to the Maryland cruise terminal, where some left their vehicles. Everything ran very smoothly, thankfully."
More Royal Caribbean passengers are expected to return later this week.
This Friday, President Biden is expected to travel to Baltimore to survey the damage.
READ MORE: President Joe Biden set to visit Key Bridge collapse site Friday
