Baltimore bridge

[WhoaJayShettybambalam]

Is anyone watching the news? It’s awful. Those poor people on the bridge.

firstly i'm so sorry to hear of this senseless loss of life.
i honestly thought that bridge construction would have included one or more foundation failures.
amazing the footage available and the vehicles that passed through moments before the collapse!!

I suspect there must be some anticipated failure built into the design of structures like bridges. But I can’t see how this kind of bridge, or sections of it, could have stayed up without a pier. It was sections of bridge between supports only below. There were no cables.

That looked like a heck of an impact, and pretty direct. And the momentum of a ship that size must have been colossal. Poor sods on the bridge. Though thank goodness it wasn't rush hour, when so many more would have been killed.

So were the vehicles on the bridge at the time belonging to the construction workers, there is no mention on the news about any general public cars going in the river or unknown people being missing.

Yes, as far as I understand it the vehicles were the construction workers. I heard radio footage of someone from the port authorities ordering the closing of the bridge to traffic in the run-up to the collision, after the mayday call had gone out.

@Westfacing I presume police made it to the bridge to stop traffic, that's an insanely fast response, I think it started to lose power 4 minutes before it crashed??

There's no way the police where I am could act that quickly.

I've been thinking this morning about the families back in Mexico, Guatemala and other Middle American states who probably depended on the workers' wages and may not even know yet, and wondering if the employer has a scheme in place for letting them know.

The report I saw said first responders shut the bridge. So not sure exactly who that would be?

But I agree it was a very swift response and one that has almost certainly saved many lives.

It's probably the sort of location where it's not unusual to have a police car parked waiting for calls.

First responders are fire ambulance or police. Fire crews tend to get out the fastest unless ambulance or police already nearby.