The vehicle transporter Tosca travels through an open stretch of the Federal Canal as crane vessels continue to work to clear debris from the Francis Scott Key Bridge more than two months after the catastrophic collapse.
Jerry Jackson | Baltimore Sun | Getty Images
The main passageway to the Port of Baltimore has been fully restored following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26, which killed six people and disrupted maritime traffic into the port.
The bridge collapsed in late March after the cargo ship Dali crashed into infrastructure and clogged a key shipping lane to the U.S.’s busiest automobile port.
The Port of Baltimore handled a record 1.1 million containers and $80.8 billion in foreign cargo value last year, according to state data. Six members of the road construction team, who were carrying out road construction work overnight, fell to their deaths in the incident.
On Monday evening, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said the Fort McHenry Federal Channel has been restored to its original operating dimensions of 700 feet wide and 50 feet deep for commercial transit through the Port of Baltimore.
“We have opened the Fort McHenry Federal Channel for safe transit. USACE will continue to maintain this important waterway as it has for the past 107 years,” Baltimore District Commander Col. Estee Pinchasin said in a statement.
The restoration follows a cleanup process that began March 30 and removed about 50,000 tons of bridge debris from the Patapsco River, allowing the canal to gradually reopen in the weeks since.
Salvage teams continue to work to remove debris from the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge after it was struck by the container ship Dali, now docked at the Seagirt Marine Terminal in Baltimore. (Jerry Jackson/Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
Jerry Jackson | Baltimore Sun | Getty Images
On May 20, authorities were able to refloat and remove the 300-meter-long Dali, which had been stranded under the rubble for almost two months.
The ship was chartered by the Danish shipping giant Maerskwas en route from Sri Lanka to Baltimore when it “suffered a power and propulsion failure and struck the south pier supporting the central trusses of the Francis Scott Key Bridge,” according to a preliminary investigation report from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. .
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2024-06-11 11:36:30
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