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Baltimore Bridge Accident

eziofan

eziofan

Ephemeral Spectre
Joined
Nov 14, 2005
Messages
355
Just watching the tragic Baltimore bridge accident. On the video stream you can see many cars and lorries passing over the bridge just before the collision. It certainly brings home the part that fate plays in our day to day lives.
This will spawn many tales of how close people came to becoming a statistic.
 
eziofan said:
Just watching the tragic Baltimore bridge accident. On the video stream you can see many cars and lorries passing over the bridge just before the collision. It certainly brings home the part that fate plays in our day to day lives.
This will spawn many tales of how close people came to becoming a statistic.
Click to expand...
It's recently been reported (either on the BBC or Guardian) that the boat lost power just before the incident, the ship's crew contacted the authorities on land and the flow of traffic was stopped - if that's the case (PA has already retracted one story) that's a small bit of positive news.

It's staggering that it can happen; you just wouldn't have thought it possible. And as you say, the sheer randomness of fate.

And had the incident been during rush hour, one can only imagine what the result might have been.
 
Floyd1 said:
You'd think that if it is (?) a heavily used route for ships, that there would be barriers around the bridge piers to at least limit the chances of them being run in to.
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Barriers would not be in the way for long if a large ship hit them. Mass and momentum, etc.
 
The huge container ship "Dali" apparently had previous, having collided with a quay causing moderate damage at the Port of Antwerp in 2016.

dali.png


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...e-bridge-ship-previous-collision-antwerp-2016
 
As a fervid watcher of 'disaster' videos, I understood how much such an event can kill people and impact on many others.
It really is shocking.

My Fortean take on this?

The world has been experiencing a lot of computer interference.
All of these ships use a lot (or rely) on computer navigational control.
This (relatively) small ship has made a huge impact. The families of the dead or injured are front and center.

Distraction? Not 'non-existence' mind, that would be a hurtful insult to those who die and their family.
 
Stormkhan said:
As a fervid watcher of 'disaster' videos, I understood how much such an event can kill people and impact on many others.
It really is shocking.

My Fortean take on this?

The world has been experiencing a lot of computer interference.
All of these ships use a lot (or rely) on computer navigational control.
This (relatively) small ship has made a huge impact. The families of the dead or injured are front and center.

Distraction? Not 'non-existence' mind, that would be a hurtful insult to those who die and their family.
Click to expand...

It wasn't necessarily computer navigation but the power that went out on the ship. Let's wait to see what the investigation shows before speculating further.
 
I'm watching the local news on this (I'm only about a 2 hr drive from the location). It's been good to see a huge bipartisan governmental team effort. The governor of Maryland has mentioned there has been an outpouring of public and private support as well.

I'd add that we've had two bridge-road incidents in the US in the past year when the infrastructure failed because of fires (without deaths - I-95 Philadelphia and I-10 Los Angeles). The Philadelphia high traffic area was repaired, temporarily, within weeks to ease a huge traffic issue. That was unheard of. So that gives me hope. Of course, this is more substantial because it's over water but the emergency funding will likely be approved because this is a major interstate thoroughfare.

One note, the statement was that there is no bridge that has been built that can withstand the direct hit of a giant cargo ship.

Six people, who were working on the road repairs, are still missing.

To give those of you in the UK and internationally where this is, here is a map in relation to Washington DC. Baltimore is a MAJOR metropolitan area and seaport. The water body on the right is the Chesapeake Bay.
Screenshot 2024-03-26 at 6.24.49 PM.png
 
Stormkhan said:
As a fervid watcher of 'disaster' videos, I understood how much such an event can kill people and impact on many others.
It really is shocking.

My Fortean take on this?

The world has been experiencing a lot of computer interference.
All of these ships use a lot (or rely) on computer navigational control.
This (relatively) small ship has made a huge impact. The families of the dead or injured are front and center.

Distraction? Not 'non-existence' mind, that would be a hurtful insult to those who die and their family.
Click to expand...
I wouldn’t call 984 ft long relatively small..

I’m amazed at the height containers are stacked on these ships. They don’t look like they’re strapped together - do they just balance one on another?
 
Mythopoeika said:
Barriers would not be in the way for long if a large ship hit them. Mass and momentum, etc.
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The ship is 300m long (three football pitches) - the energy of that mass hitting the bridge even at a few knots would be gargantuan.

And I don't believe the containers are strapped together; they never look it. I assume that gravity does its stuff...

Sadly, I believe the conspiracy theorists are already postulating their nonsensical theories.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
The huge container ship "Dali" apparently had previous, having collided with a quay causing moderate damage at the Port of Antwerp in 2016.
Click to expand...

Any truth to the rumour that captain and crew were transfixed by the Moon appearing to melt into its own reflection on the surface of the water in such a way as to evoke an intuitive perception of the symbiosis of conscious and unconscious that fuels Man's half-blind stumble from the cradle to the grave?
 
hunck said:
They don’t look like they’re strapped together - do they just balance one on another?
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Yes, that appears to often be the expectation in practice for upper layers of stacks, but ISO shipping containers do have metal castings at each corner which allows containers to be locked vertically and horizontally (a cross between Lego & Sticklebrix) especially at the foundation layer.

This also allows containers to be affixed to the ship's decking through shipping container twist locks (90deg turn designs which are visually-similar to the physically-compatible attachment stud-points on the loading areas of road cargo trucks and trailers) plus there is also the (inconsistent) use of sideways clamps and deck-chains.
 
I've been involved in building structures with shipping containers. Even on solid ground, if you've got more than one layer, they tend to be connected together via twistlocks through the corner castings - these are on all eight corners of the box, and are designed to take other lifting and securing accessories as well*.

I find it hard to imagine that they are not connected on container ships. An individual laden container's weight may be very considerable, but I cannot believe that weight alone would provide enough structural integrity to ensure the cohesion of the whole in pitching seas, or - as in this case - an impact at speed. (I also assume - and this really is just an assumption - that lighter loads are stacked higher; makes sense from a structural point of view, but it also means that the units more prone to shift are higher up the stack.)

That said, I also wouldn't be surprised if the connectors themselves can't take the kind of forces involved in this collision.

*I've been involved in one project where connectors which I believe were specifically designed for the lifting of containers by Chinook helicopters had to be bought - at great expense - from the US. (I'm not sure why Chinooks don't pick up straight from the corner blocks like the usual Hiab, or - to be honest - why they were necessarily needed on this particular project. The structure involved overhangs - may be that the connectors simply had the highest rating available.)
 
cycleboy2 said:
...Sadly, I believe the conspiracy theorists are already postulating their nonsensical theories.
Click to expand...

Yes, they were straight out of the blocks.

Seems now that you don't even need to create some sort of narrative, you just point and shout - "Insert grievance(s) of choice here DID IT!"
 
Mythopoeika said:
Barriers would not be in the way for long if a large ship hit them. Mass and momentum, etc.
Click to expand...
Re: genex17 post above regarding the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco;

The south tower is anchored to bedrock underwater and surrounded by what’s known as a fender, a protective shield designed to prevent ships from hitting a bridge’s piers, Cosulich-Schwartz said.

There are a variety of fender designs, some made from wood. Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, a professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering at UC Berkeley, said the fenders are usually attached to the pier and act in the same way that a bumper does on a car.


On the Golden Gate Bridge’s south tower, the fender is a concrete ring, “extending 40 feet deep, the same depth drawn by a large ship. The concrete fender is filled with sand, similar to a highway crash barrel, and is 27 feet thick at its base, providing significant protection against collisions,” Cosulich-Schwartz said.

Astaneh-Asl said when the Golden Gate was completed in 1937, its protection system was considered the best of its kind at the time, and it’s still among the best.

“The Golden Gate Bridge was way ahead of its time,” Astaneh-Asl told SFGATE. “If a ship comes and hits this substantial fender, then probably the fender might crack. The fender will damage the ship; the bridge is safe.”
 
hunck said:
I wouldn’t call 984 ft long relatively small..

I’m amazed at the height containers are stacked on these ships. They don’t look like they’re strapped together - do they just balance one on another?
Click to expand...
They're not strapped together, but they interlock and have locking bars that clamp them together.
 
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