The collision between a container ship and a bridge in the port of Baltimore provides an IQ test. Do you accept the obvious simple explanation, that the incident resulted from an accident and outdated bridge design? Or do you try to dredge up a bizarre conspiracy theory involving terrorism despite a total lack of evidence and the failure to pass the smell test?
Baltimore Bridge Disaster: Choose Your Explanation
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
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What I find particularly interesting is the concept that the bridge design is “outdated.” The Dali was going too fast and was too big. A ship that massive should have been escorted by tugs and/or traveled at a slower speed. As ship size increased, the bridge design should have been updated to mitigate the risk of collision. This was a textbook case of what could go wrong, going wrong. Big ship. Too fast. Unprotected support in middle of river.
Know how deep the water is around the bridge? 50 feet. No “extraordinary” upgrading was necessary. Protective barriers could have easily been installed. This wasn’t a bridge failure. This was an administrative/governmental failure by multiple generations of political hacks.
It looks like there where concrete barriers in front of the bridge support but no protection for a hit that comes in from an angle. The barriers should be further out , larger and guard against hits from an angle.
Engineers have been warning us for years that the US’s infrastructure is not being maintained adequately. Congress seems to think it’s much more important to maintain and expand our military. This isn’t the first such failure, and it won’t be the last. Will the military-industrial-congressional complex pay any attention to this? Probably not.
I hadn’t heard of any conspiracy theories around this, but I have to wonder if, somewhere, Salvador is smiling.
After all the rail accidents in the news and many flaws of Boeing causing the CEO to resign, my first thought after seeing the lighs on the ship go out twice: check the maintenance logs, equipment and crew training. Was this a case of a company cutting corners to boost profits?