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Major Bridge in Baltimore Collapses After Being Struck by Cargo Ship

bgaidan said:
It's not like they have to worry about not damaging anything or blocking the ship channel. I'd bet they'll use big demo shears and chop up as much as they can down to chunks they can lift or drag out of the way. With the amount of money being held up by this, I'm expecting to see some massive lifting rigs getting moved in very soon.
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bgaidan said:
Yeah, and Kiewit, Skanska, Dragados, Ferovial and the otehr big boys are all foaming at the mouth waiting for the announcement on the replacement plan.
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I'm sure they are - problem is most of their assets are centered around the Gulf oil activities (I only know of Kiewit's capabilities personally). But yeah, they are probably plotting movements and writing huge contracts to answer the POs.

I thought about the idea of sending divers down to torch the bits but the unknown stresses as noted would be a no go. Fawk that.
 
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dwygrsshpr said:
I'm sure they are - problem is most of their assets are centered around the Gulf oil activities (I only know of Kiewit's capabilities personally). But yeah, they are probably plotting movements and writing huge contracts to answer the POs.

I thought about the idea of sending divers down to torch the bits but the unknown stresses as noted would be a no go. Fawk that.
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I think Kiewit's gas and oil work is completely separate from their civil group. This type of work is what they live for. Super aggressive schedules, and super high margins. I guarantee they're already putting a team together for a proposal on it - designers, JV partners, funding, etc. look at what they did with the Oroville dam a few years ago...this would be like 5 of those. :laughing:

I worked for Flatiron several years ago and my division VP was the one that ran the I-35 bridge reconstruction project in Minneapolis. I heard lots of stories about how money gets spent on a high risk/high reward job like that. I think the early completion bonus on it was upwards of $30m and they got all or most of it.
 
Norm said:
Trying to cut apart the bridge and lift it out is going to be a messed up gig, talk about hazard pay. They will have to dive and cut the bridge up, then hoist it out in small bits. That's going to be super hazardous work for the divers with all the twisted frame.
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bgaidan said:
It's not like they have to worry about not damaging anything or blocking the ship channel. I'd bet they'll use big demo shears and chop up as much as they can down to chunks they can lift or drag out of the way. With the amount of money being held up by this, I'm expecting to see some massive lifting rigs getting moved in very soon.
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It all depends on the viability underwater. Good vis and you can have ROV's call out crane moves to get a shear where they want it.
Bad vis, it always get handed to the badass deep sea divers and Broco rods.:flipoff2:

Plus there will always be spots you can't get a shear to, or the ROV gets stuck/trapped and here comes the badass deep sea divers again.

They should be able to fly what's under water with Blueview setup on a ROV. That will give them a 3d picture of what it looks like. It doesn't spit out a photo quality picture ,but it's not too far off either. It works in shitty vis though. And I'm sure it's even better now than it was in 2006 after Katrina/Ritta.


bossplow2010 said:
I’d be surprised if they go in there and just start cutting away all willy nilly, there’s still an investigation to be performed, and the integrity of the containers/ ship is a concern.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they attempt to float sections to help move them out of the way as well.

Fun fact; boats use laminated glass too :dustin:
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There's one big problem with floating such big and heavy pieces, where those pieces are. The water depth. A 10t (20,000lb) lift bag is almost 15'-20' feet tall when filled, including the rigging. And bigger lift bags are even taller. I think I remember hearing in one of the videos posted that the water depth was 25' in the channel. That means your hooking the lift bags to the bottom of the thing you're trying to lift (and that alone is a bad idea because it's easy to put a hole in one). The second it becomes neutral, the center of gravity will want to flip it upside down.
Not saying it's impossible, but it would be very sketchy at the least.

shortbus4x4 said:
Navy divers and something that goes boom. They get the practice cutting bridge stuff with plastic explosive and the bridge gets cut into smaller pieces.
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Would Navy divers automatically be the ones called automatically? Federal type deal or something? I honestly don't know. I would think whomever gets the contract to remove the bridge sections would also contract the dive company.

Any endangered fish or aquatic life in that body of water? That could put a big no on blowing stuff up.

Plus when it comes to stuff like this, Navy divers suck. It's just not their thing.



Honestly I bet the way they remove it is the simplest way. Bring in a couple dynamically positioned (so no anchor spreads) heavy lift barges and start chopping from the top down. There's a whole lot of bridge above the water line right now , that's easy to get to. The roadway pert may be far enough under the mud to leave.

Once they get the part where the ship was supposed to go through cleared, they can start bringing ships through again
 
gt1guy said:
There's one big problem with floating such big and heavy pieces, where those pieces are. The water depth. A 10t (20,000lb) lift bag is almost 15'-20' feet tall when filled, including the rigging. And bigger lift bags are even taller. I think I remember hearing in one of the videos posted that the water depth was 25' in the channel. That means your hooking the lift bags to the bottom of the thing you're trying to lift (and that alone is a bad idea because it's easy to put a hole in one). The second it becomes neutral, the center of gravity will want to flip it upside down.
Not saying it's impossible, but it would be very sketchy at the least.
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Channel depth for Panamax ships would be in the 47' range and post Panamax is upwards of 52' or 56' or something.....fuck... that's just memory from my first job after college building a new port facility in Houston. :laughing:
 
It works for boats/ ships, I’m sure it will work for a bridge.
We should get a couple, only $16,000 for the 35
Ton bags…
diverescueintl.com

Subsalve Salvage Pontoons - Dive Rescue International

The totally-enclosed Subsalve Salvage Pontoons cylindrical bags are ideal for shallow water salvage, reducing the draft of a vessel or raising an object
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IMG_7435.jpeg
 
gt1guy said:
Fuck now I have to watch all the posted videos again:flipoff2:

What is Panamax?
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Sized to fit through the panama canal. I'm probably a couple feet off on the depths because I would have been dealing with chanel and birth depths vs. actual draft, but close enough. :flipoff2:
 
gt1guy, you're most likely right on the plan for the bridge removal.
I was reading they will probably bring in heavy crane barges, cut the bridge off the ship, remove the ship and then keep removing bridge.
 
gt1guy said:
Any endangered fish or aquatic life in that body of water?
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So what I hear you saying is we're going to have endangered Baltimore Bay sea bass for dinner.:flipoff2:

Do they make cranes that can float over and then anchor to the sea bed? Like an oil rig.
 
I will be surprised if the two I posted will not be on site doing the lift.
 
shortbus4x4 said:
So what I hear you saying is we're going to have endangered Baltimore Bay sea bass for dinner.:flipoff2:

Do they make cranes that can float over and then anchor to the sea bed? Like an oil rig.
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Yes there are lots of derrick barges with big cranes that run anchors. but to get them to hold position, the anchors have to be run out away from the barge in a "anchor spread". And because the barge can't pick up (or set) their own anchors, each anchor ends up with a pendent line running up to the surface with a buoy on it that an anchor tug uses to set/retrieve. The shallower the water, the shorter the distance you need to run out the anchors.

Anchor spread is fine until they get the center cleared out and resume vessel traffic. Then they become a hazard.

Spud barge like posted above just drop the spuds straight down into the mud eliminates the need for anchors. A dynamically positioned barge would work too. It uses thrusters and GPS to hold it in place.

There's also jack up barges that drop their legs and can jack the whole barge out of the water.

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Chzbrgr said:
Last season our best striper fishing was inside the key bridge. They were all up in the old dilapidated piers. Charter boats were running from southern maryland right up in to the inner harbor. We'll see what this season brings.
Inner harbor.jpg
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If they start blowing up sections of the bridge with explosives.........all you'll need is a net to scoop them from the surface.:flipoff2:
 
scooter2374 said:
Within 12 or so miles of the coast they have to switch to cleaner burning shit, or they used to have to.
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Yes. Still the same. It's alled MDO. Marine Diesel Oil. A little heavier than #2 diesel. Can't remember how it's graded tho. Bunker fuel is heavy pitch black shit with a gravity around 10. A real nasty job replacing seals in their positive displacement pumps.. MDO uses a regular vane pump. Loaded/unloaded many barges of both products. As well as fueling ships.
 
scooter2374 said:
All wind and tide related, with that much sail area on both port and starboard, it wouldn't take much more than a breeze to get that thing moving given enough time and distance.
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I get the sail aspect got sure. How much time and distance would be needed to miss that badly?

Also 2 minutes of the black box recording is missing?
 
Well, it really is dependant on where you are. The tide can rip through places like Hell Gate on the East river in NYC at 11 knots or 13ish mph, it can take very little time for either to push your bow enough to matter.
 
Thefishguy77 said:
I get the sail aspect got sure. How much time and distance would be needed to miss that bafly?
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thats relative to the speed the ship had before loss of power ,weight tide and the windspeed... really hard to arm chair quarterback that one with out load documents and a wearher station on the bridge (either the boat or the defunct structure)
 
Slander said:
Also terrorists would have done this during rush hour for maximum effect and well, terror


Who knows these days though, I guess we see if a few years when the ntsb report comes out. It will be interesting and cool to see how they clean this mess up in the meantime.
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Not like the ship captain gets any choice in when they have to leave the dock
 
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