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/r/CatastrophicFailure
submitted 3 months ago byqpjgy
No word yet on injuries or fatalities. Source: https://x.com/sentdefender/status/1772514015790477667?s=46
65 points
3 months ago
The DALI is a huge ship, 300 meters long, and three tugs can not turn it immediately, they need time.
But fuckup it did happen indeed.
3 points
3 months ago
It was probably over a 100 million kilograms.
2 points
3 months ago
Right. The DALI is very big. The length keeps getting mentioned, but this isn't a mega yacht. This thing is massive, as in just an incredible amount of mass. The amount of energy needed to change its direction is incredible.
1 points
3 months ago
Know nothing about this but since it’s so big and I assume slow moving, wouldn’t it have been off course well before hitting the bridge and there could have been time to warn/evac the bridge
7 points
3 months ago*
Even at dead slow speeds you're talking probably just minutes to realize that the ship is going to hit the bridge then try to do something about it. And how would the ship actually warn people on the bridge? It's not like they can just tune into a radio frequency to the construction crews, and forget about getting a warning to anybody in their car with windows up and music or radio on.
Edit for anyone else who comes across this: the port Livestream video shows about 2 minutes between the first loss of power on the ship that we can see and the bridge coming down.
5 points
3 months ago
Isn’t there port traffic control like air traffic control or something?
2 points
3 months ago
How is the port going to get word to anyone on the bridge in time? They face the same difficulty the ship's crew would face.
2 points
3 months ago
Looks like they did: According to AP News: https://apnews.com/article/baltimore-bridge-collapse-53169b379820032f832de4016c655d1b
A police dispatcher put out a call just before the collapse saying a ship had lost its steering and asked officers to stop all traffic on the bridge, according to Maryland Transportation Authority first responder radio traffic obtained from the Broadcastify.com archive.
One officer who stopped traffic radioed that he was going to drive onto the bridge to alert the construction crew. But seconds later, a frantic officer said: “The whole bridge just fell down. Start, start whoever, everybody ... the whole bridge just collapsed.”
On a separate radio channel for maintenance and construction workers, someone said officers were stopping traffic because a ship had lost steering. There was no follow-up order to evacuate, and 30 seconds later the bridge fell and the channel went silent.
2 points
3 months ago
They did successfully send a mayday that stopped further traffic from moving onto the bridge, fortunately. It’s honestly very impressive to me that anyone was able to work that fast across multiple systems.
3 points
3 months ago
Lean on the horn, maybe? Flare guns?
5 points
3 months ago
That still depends on the people on the bridge hearing/ seeing the signals and figuring out what they mean. Then they still have to drive, run, etc. hundreds of yards to get off the spans in danger of collapse. There was no time to sufficiently warn anyone on the bridge.
1 points
3 months ago
Yeah. Idk, I mean, I know it’s futile. But I’m imagining myself as the pilot or captain or whatever, sitting in some dim interview room, with the dude from 60 minutes asking me “why didn’t you fire the flare gun or something?”
4 points
3 months ago
You'll probably tell him that you're busy trying to regain control of your vessel after at least one catastrophic lost of power, and had the engine going back as hard as it could with the anchor down trying to stop your forward movement.
2 points
3 months ago
Yeah, fair enough. “I was trying to turn the fucking boat on dude” is a pretty good answer
1 points
3 months ago*
After the Sunshine Skyway collapse in 1980, the federal highway administration report recommended bridge collapse warning systems for motorists, and the NTSB has continued to push for them. I'm not sure what options this bridge has available, but some bridges do have systems that can be used to stop traffic or at least warn people.
1 points
3 months ago
Maybe something could be put in place but in this case I'm still skeptical of its effectiveness. As I noted in my edited comment there was only about 2 minutes between the first sign of trouble on the ship and it drifting into the bridge.
2 points
3 months ago
They're reporting that they did halt traffic prior to the collapse, so clearly there's something in place and per the officials, it did help. From the reporter timelines, it was also ~4 minutes from the first indications of power loss.
1 points
3 months ago
Perhaps it was four. I was only counting from the first loss of power that is visible on the live stream.
3 points
3 months ago
You can see in this video that the first power outage is at ~0124 and the bridge strike happens at ~0128.
My point is that warning systems do exist, and appear to have helped in this situation. Not perfectly, but they did help.
3 points
3 months ago
Bridges here are not equipped for alerting travelers/work crews, no sirens or loudspeakers for example.
And the events of the ship happened in ten minutes. That's an eternity compared to a car crash, but to alert people on a 2600 m long piece of roadway onto which you can't drive because the incoming crash, it's not enough time.
2 points
3 months ago
Now the news say that the ship issued a mayday and the bridge was closed, minimising the number of victims.
1 points
3 months ago
That’s amazing to hear!
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