In March, Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore was hit by a cargo ship and collapsed. Six people were killed in the incident.
Now, a barge has hit another bridge, this time in Texas. A portion of the structure collapsed.
A barge has collided with the Pelican Island Causeway in Galveston, Texas, damaging the bridge, closing the roadway to all vehicular traffic and causing an oil spill.The collision occurred at around 10 a.m. local time. Galveston officials said in a news release that there had been no reported injuries. Video footage obtained by CBS affiliate KHOU appears to show that part of the train trestle that runs along the bridge has collapsed.The ship broke loose from its tow and drifted into the bridge, according to Richard Freed, the vice president of Martin Midstream Partners L.P.’s marine division. Freed said the ship was owned and operated by Martin Operating Partnership L.P., a subsidiary of Martin Midstream Partners, and said that personnel were at the scene.
Last week, a barge struck the Fort Madison Bridge in Iowa and sank in the Mississippi River.
The incident occurred shortly after 1 p.m., prompting the closure of the near 100-year-old swing gate bridge, but it was reopened around 4:15 p.m., officials said. There were no injuries reported.The U.S. Coast Guard tells Fox News Digital that there were 15 barges being moved by a tug boat when one of them became loose and hit and collided with the Fort Madison railroad bridge.Video shows the barge stuck up against the double-decked bridge that connects Fort Madison with Niota, Illinois.
In April, the bridge across US Highway 59 was struck by another barge, shutting it down for hours.
A family out fishing in the Arkansas River in Oklahoma on Saturday afternoon caught the moment a massive barge crashed into a busy highway bridge, shutting it down for hours.“I looked over at my dad and asked if it was going to hit the bridge and he was like, ‘I don’t think so,’” said Dayton Holland.The crash happened in the Arkansas River near Sallisaw. The bridge is on U.S. Highway 59, a busy roadway on a Saturday afternoon.“There were cars driving everywhere on the road above,” said Holland.
No injuries had been reported for this incident, and the road was closed for only a few hours.
Now, this seems like an exceedingly troubling trend. Looking at the numbers, there have been 700 incidents of bridge strikes, and the number is rising because of a lack of skilled workers and supply chain issues.
USA TODAY’s data analysis revealed at least 2,600 bridge strikes occurring in U.S. waters since 2002, the earliest year for which such data is available. Three of these allisions were fatal, claiming 16 lives in all. The majority, however, were minor – a ship’s antenna or mast hitting a bridge, or a barge clipping a bridge’s protective fender.But maritime problems – which international governing agencies call “casualty incidents” – have been steadily rising over the past decade, according to a report by Lloyd’s List Intelligence, a global maritime data and analytics company.That’s especially true for those caused by machinery damage or failure.The Lloyd’s report cites 700 such reported events in the third quarter of 2022 – the highest in 14 years – and attributed the increase to several factors. Among them: fewer ship inspections and internal audits, an unavailability of dry docks and technicians to perform maintenance and repairs, as well as supply chain delays in getting spare parts.
Meanwhile, Dali, the container ship that slammed into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge in March, was just freed this week by precision explosive charges. The blast also dismantled the span of the Baltimore roadway that came down on it.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore announced at a news conference that a channel 50 feet deep and 700 feet wide was expected to be available to vessels at the end of the month and that it would be a key piece for “fully opening vessel traffic to the port.”…The removal was less Las Vegas showtime and more Swiss clockwork as the charges emitted short flames and a minor puff of smoke as they released the bonds that helped the bridge carry 34,000 vehicles a day.
This is good news for Baltimore, a top 20 U.S. port for shipping and ranks at the top or near the top for car importation.
We have been very fortunate that fewer people have died and that our infrastructure and supply chains seem to be recovering quickly. Perhaps our next Secretary of Transportation can focus on actual transportation issues (such as the ones identified above) and not DEI priorities. That would be most helpful.
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