The Port of Baltimore has been closed since the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed on March 26. The container ship that struck the Key Bridge, the Dali, has been stuck on the Patapsco River ever since.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told BBC News that he was “fully confident that by the end of May” teams would have “the vessel out of the way, the wreckage out of the way and the channel ready to go for normal operations.”
According to Buttigieg, the six-week closure of large portions of the port has had an impact on supply chains, particularly as it came at the same time as war-related disruptions to shipping in the Red Sea and weather-related disruptions to the operations of the Panama Canal.
He said that shipping companies, port owners, and transport firms have been taking the impact of the collapse well.
"They've done a good job of stepping up to make sure that there are temporary responses," Buttigieg said. "But there's no substitute to permanently getting the port of Baltimore back to normal."
The US Army Corps of Engineer had previously said that the channel would re-open "on or about" 10 May, but officials have repeatedly warned of potential delays caused by weather and the extreme complexity of the clean-up operation.
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Source: BBC News
