Following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key bridge overnight, WMAR-2 News spoke with associate professor Rachel Sangree at the Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering.
"I would say there is no repair," she tells us. "For those three stands that collapsed, they'll have to be cleaned out of the river and the bridge will have to be rebuilt."
Sangree says rebuilding the bridge will likely take a few years.
The bridge collapse doesn't appear to be from an error in structural design, according to Sangree.
"This was a three-span continuous truss bridge, which means that all three spans of that truss were connected together," said Sangree. "The benefit of having a continuous truss is that it's a more efficient design, so we can use smaller members or span a longer distance using less material, which is helpful for a traffic bridge crossing a large shipping lane, but meant that when the cargo ship hit one of the stands, the two connected stands collapsed as well."
President Joe Biden said Tuesday, the federal government would fund the entire cost of bridge reconstruction. The Army Corps of Engineers has already activated its Emergency Operations Center, clearing the way for more than 1,100 engineering, construction, contracting and operations specialists to provide support.
The bridge was built in the 1970s and opened on March 23, 1977.
