BALTIMORE — With a fully-loaded, 965-foot cargo ship wedged in the remnants of a collapsed bridge blocking the path in and out of one of the busiest ports in the country, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ orders couldn’t be more clear.
“The president called me yesterday and we spoke for a few minutes and he made it clear this was the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers number one priority and I was to call him directly should we need any additional resources,” said Lt. Gen. Scott Spellmon, “We have all that we need to get this mission done.”
A mission, which Spellmon says comes with its own perils.
“These edges, sharp edges on the steel, those are razor sharp and they go all the way to the bottom,” said the Corps’ commanding general as he pointed out what was left of one of the bridge’s supports aboard a 61-foot vessel during a tour of the site.
The Corps has its top five structural engineers in Baltimore and more than a thousand other experts solely focused on how to remove thousands of tons of debris without jeopardizing more lives.
Working with the bridge’s original builders, they must plot out the exact dimensions and weight of each piece of the original structure, both above and below the water’s surface.
“We’re going to have to pull this out piece by piece just like that bridge went up,” said Spellmon, “and then what we have to determine is whether those steel members are in tension. Are they trying to come apart or are they in compression—-trying to push together. They were designed for one or the other, but that bridge is in a much different configuration right now. It’s unstable.”
With less than two feet of clearance between the hulls of mega container ships and the river bottom, virtually none of the debris can be left behind when the channel reopens, and there’s the talk of removing up to four thousand tons of debris from atop the Dali still pinning it in place, as well as securing its cargo.
“Before we even attempt to move that vessel, the Coast Guard will be working with their maritime counterparts. We have to stabilize all of those containers on the top. Obviously, we don’t want anything else falling into that channel,” said Spellmon “So the level of analysis that we’re doing on the steel, the Coast Guard and the industry is doing the same level of analysis on those containers and on that vessel.”
It’s a massive undertaking, which requires the best this country has to offer and the stakes could hardly be higher.
“We say our vision in the Army Corps is to engineer solutions for our nation’s toughest challenges,” said Spellmon, “We certainly have one here.”
Pressed for a timetable on reopening the channel, the corps says there’s simply no way of knowing that right now with so much work that lies ahead.
