The effects of Tuesday’s collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore Harbor will be felt in New Jersey, with more ships detoured to the nation’s second-busiest container port, and a renewed focus on safety, an engineering expert said.
The Baltimore bridge carried I-695, the “Baltimore Beltway,” across the Patapsco River. It collapsed after a container ship known as the Dali, which was leaving Baltimore Harbor, lost power several times, causing a lack of steering that sent it heading at an angle toward one of the Key Bridge’s supporting piers, said W. M. Kim Roddis, a professional engineer and Professor Emerita at George Washington University Civil and Environmental Engineering Department.
As of Thursday, four people who were part of a pothole repair crew working on the bridge are missing and presumed dead.
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey officials confirmed the Dali had been in the Elizabeth port last week. Vessel records show the Dali was at the APM Terminal in Port Elizabeth on March 19 and departed two days later for Norfolk, Virginia.
The immediate effect of the bridge collapse is cargo ships displaced from Baltimore will be calling on New Jersey and New York and Philadelphia, experts said.
Baltimore ships could be diverted to ports in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania including the Port of New York and New Jersey’s four container terminals at Port Newark/Elizabeth Marine Terminal, Port Jersey Marine Terminal in Bayonne, Howland Hook Marine Terminal in Staten Island, and Red Hook Marine Terminal in Brooklyn, Roddis said.
Container ships also could utilize Philadelphia’s Southport Marine, Packer Avenue Marine and Tioga Marine Terminals, she said.
Port Authority officials expect some cargo destined for Baltimore is likely to be diverted to New York and New Jersey, which has capacity to handle the displaced ships. In 2021, the Port of New York and New Jersey handled approximately 20% more cargo than it is now, allowing the port to provide additional East Coast capacity as needed, officials said.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul issued a joint statement Thursday directing the Port Authority to further evaluate all available resources to minimize supply chain disruptions and take on additional cargo.
“Along with our federal partners, we will continue to work together to support our neighbors in Baltimore and consumers nationwide,” they said.
Port Authority officials said they’ve been working on it.
“The Port Authority is in touch with our counterparts in Baltimore, and we stand ready to assist with emergency resources and any other assistance that may be needed,” said Bethann Rooney, port director. “The Port of New York and New Jersey is proactively working with our industry partners to respond as needed and ensure supply chain continuity along the East Coast.”
Could it happen here?
Ships calling at the Port of New York and New Jersey are guided in by tugboats and have on-ship local pilots, Port Authority officials said.
In New Jersey, a ship the size of the Dali would have required two local pilots and assistance from at least four tugboats, Port Authority officials said. The Dali was being controlled only by pilots as it left Baltimore harbor Tuesday morning.
“The tugs that take a ship from dock into the shipping channel could have stayed with the ship until it was through the harbor gate bridge, which would have prevented the ship’s aberrant course, Roddis said.
In Baltimore, the angled course of the ship allowed it to miss protective devices at the bridge pier known as “Dolphins,” which are made up a piling and cells filled with material such as sand or concrete that act as bumpers to deflect or slow vessels, Roddis said.
“When the ship collided with the pylon it exerted a huge crushing force on the pier, bursting the pylon apart,“ she said. “This pylon was the only support for the bridge on that side. Once the pylon was lost, the bridge fell.”
Navigation charts show four Dolphins, one in front of each of the Key Bridge support piers on the shipping channel, exiting and entering the harbor, Roddis said.
A similar bridge that takes the New Jersey Turnpike Hudson County extension over Newark Bay near Port Newark has a similar type of system known as fenders to protect its bridge piers.
“There are fenders, we have a ongoing inspection system, we check every aspect of the bridge, said Michael Garofalo, Turnpike Authority chief engineer. “We’re relatively confident of our protection system.”
Future emphasis on safety?
The National Transportation Safety Board is doing a failure investigation of the Baltimore crash, and obtained the ship’s “black box” Wednesday, the Associated Press reported.
One result of the investigation could be a memo to ports to change procedures, so the tugs stay with ships until they are through the harbor bridges, Roddis said.
“That could have prevented this catastrophe,” she said. “I also suspect that NTSB will issue a memo for bridge owners to evaluate their systems to prevent/mitigate ship strikes on bridges.”
A Key Bridge replacement will probably have significantly more protective dolphins and likely be a cable-stayed bridge, she said.
That design is similar to the new Twin Goethals bridges between New Jersey and Staten Island and the proposed twin spans that could replace the New Bay Bridge under the first phase of the Turnpike Authority’s $10.6 billion, three-phase widening plan.
Murphy said he asked Diane Gutierrez- Scaccetti, his chief of staff and former state transportation commissioner, to get an inventory of how many of those types of bridges the state has.
When asked about whether two new rail bridges under construction in the state — the Portal North Bridge over the Hackensack River in Kearny and the Raritan Bay Bridge — were protected against vessel strikes, he said “the answer has to be ‘yes.’ But I don’t have a specific answer.”
Both are lower to the water than the Key bridge was and the new Raritan Bay Bridge is a lift bridge, where the center section lifts up to allow marine traffic to pass.
The state also offered assistance to Maryland.
A Coast Guard MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew from Atlantic City was dispatched to the scene, joining other teams from Curtis Bay and Annapolis for an active search and rescue, according to the Coast Guard.
NJ Advance Media staff writers Susan K. Livio and Ted Sherman contributed to this report.
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Larry Higgs may be reached at lhiggs@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on X @CommutingLarry.
