May 15, a day after a preliminary report revealed new details about what happened in the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge after a cargo ship strike, members of Congress asked officials behind the federal response questions about the ship’s power outage, the safety of other bridges and how to pay for a new bridge.
How might the ship’s power problems have been avoided? How prepared for massive ships was this bridge and how prepared are others across the country? How should the federal government recoup costs for a new bridge?
About 10 hours before it left port, the Dali experienced a pair of blackouts, or complete losses of power, while the crew undertook engine maintenance, the National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) preliminary report said.
During her testimony, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy distinguished among the Dali’s four power outages.
“Preliminary information indicates that the March 25 blackouts were mechanically distinct from those that occurred on March 26,” said Homendy before Congress. “Two were related to routine maintenance in port. Two were unexpected tripping of circuit breakers on the accident voyage.”
Figuring out what caused the breakers to trip as the Dali approached the bridge is at the center of what Homendy described as an investigation of “unprecedented” scale for her agency, which probes transportation disasters with the goal of preventing future tragedies, not holding anyone accountable.
“Switching breakers is not unusual but may have affected operations the very next day on the accident voyage,” Homendy testified. “So the configuration of the breakers remains under investigation.”
The Key Bridge collapse spawned numerous questions about the safety of maritime operations around American ports and infrastructure.
Coast Guard Vice Adm. Peter Gautier said in the hearing that those questions warrant immediate attention, and that officials can’t wait until the conclusion of federal investigations into the disaster in Baltimore for answers.
“While we look forward to the results of these investigations, it is evident, looking more broadly, that the size and complexity of ships has grown over the years, placing greater demands on our marine transportation infrastructure that may not have kept pace with the increased risk that these vessels pose,” he said. “It’s time for us to more broadly understand these risks.”
Gautier told lawmakers he was convening a “nationwide Board of Inquiry” to evaluate the efficacy of the Coast Guard’s risk management resources and how they’re being put to use in major ports.
Describing the probe as a critical step to ensure “safe and secure flow of commerce on our waterways,” Gautier said it would “establish a holistic national level approach to develop risk profiles, identify ways to address vulnerabilities and propose actions to reduce the risk of major incidents.”
Homendy said she was “very encouraged” to hear the Coast Guard’s plan for a board of inquiry for ports across the country.
President Joe Biden has pledged that the federal government would pay entirely to rebuild the bridge. But if Congress is fronting the cost of a new bridge, anticipated to approach a price tag of $2 billion, how can it expect to get some money back?
Shailen Bhatt, administrator of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), told lawmakers that under existing rules, any insurance funds recovered after an “emergency relief” event go back into the emergency relief fund. That program covers most of the costs of repairs to damaged roads and bridges following natural disasters and external catastrophic failures.
The roughly $1.7 to $1.9 billion emergency relief request related to the Key Bridge collapse is the second-largest ever received by the FHWA, according to Bhatt.
“I can pretty much with certainty guarantee this will not be 100% federally funded eventually, because we will recoup all of the insurance payments … and they will go back into the [emergency relief] funds,” Bhatt said. “But as the ranking member mentioned, we don’t want to wait through all of the litigation and the NTSB investigations, insurance issues, for that.”
The NTSB’s preliminary report noted that the Key Bridge had four dolphins, or islandlike structures in the water, designed to protect its piers — two on each side of the bridge.
But those devices didn’t stop the drifting Dali from striking one of the bridge piers, which was surrounded by timber, concrete and steel. The surrounding protection remained relatively tight to the pier itself, Homendy said Wednesday, and the dolphins were “rather small.”
She said the NTSB has been comparing the Key Bridge with others that “have pier protection that comes out farther, so that a vessel can’t get to the column” and larger dolphins.
“In this situation, you have a bridge that began operations in 1977. If it was built today, it would be built differently,” Homendy said. “That has to be taken into consideration.”
Source: Baltimore Sun, The New York Times
