conuly

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conuly

That's... wow.

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From:

austin_dern

Yeah, it's stunning.

From:

tielan

That was so, so instant. One moment, there, the next moment 'pouf!'

From:

erinptah

My brother's a civil engineer, and his comment was (paraphrased) "yeah, we don't design bridges to withstand having a container ship ram directly into the pylons."

From:

kareina

It was like watching a domino set up falling. So lucky that it happened at 01:30, and not 13:30...

From:

conuly

Luckier still that the crew of the ship was able to get out a mayday and they were able to stop ongoing traffic.

From:

erinptah

Also worth shouting out the human effort involved: the ship knew it was in trouble, called the relevant authorities, and the local government had shut down traffic on the bridge before it got hit!

It's sort of rare that we can say "look at the tragedy that clearly, undeniably would have happened if we didn't take safety measures and collective precautions," but it doesn't get much clearer than this.

From:

silveradept

It is loud and spectacular, and that there are people who are presumed dead now is a tragedy, and at the same time, that could have been so, so much worse.

From:

hudebnik

I think I drove over that bridge a week and a half ago...

From:

conuly

I'm glad you weren't on it yesterday!

From:

moxie_man

At least it was the middle of the night and not rush hour. It could have been a much worse tragedy. But now, travel through that area will be a nightmare for a very long time and all those employed by the port operations in/around Baltimore will probably be laid off for weeks until the authorities can get that channel cleared of ship and bridge debris.

Alas, not the first time this has happened in the states as others on other sites have pointed out to me. Tampa, 1980, similar collision with 35 or so dead.