March 26, 2024: Tragedy on the water

Lee and I have passed, and been passed by, many huge container ships in our travels. Each time we have commented on the size and weight of the vessels steering clear to avoid their prop wash and intimidating presence. Unlike Jack Robert, whose dry weight is about 10 tons, a cargo ship easily weighs anywhere from 50,000 – 220,000 tons. When JR lost power on the Atlantic we were able to stop quickly, drift for a bit and stop out of danger by dropping the anchor. The crew on the Dali did not have the luxury of this time, and tragedy struck shortly after 0130.

We have motored under many tall suspension bridges, including the Francis Scott Key bridge outside Baltimore. Each time we did so we marveled at the size, the engineering and the strength of the bridge, secure in the knowledge we could pass under safely as cars whizzed across above us. Will we think differently in the future? Perhaps.

“HISTORY

Baltimore’s Key Bridge was built in the ’70s, but has a deep and patriotic history 

MARCH 27, 20247:43 AM ET

By 

Rachel Treisman

Artwork of Francis Scott key Composing “Star- Spangled Banner” after watching the failed British bombardment of Fort McHenry in the Baltimore Harbor in 1814.

AP

Baltimore’s Key Bridge, which collapsed after being hit by a cargo ship early Tuesday morning, isn’t just a vital transit and shipping route. It also has a special historical significance.

The structure was built between 1972 and 1977, opening to the public on March 23 of that year. But its history goes much deeper than that, according to the Maryland Transportation Authority. 

Scholars believe it stood within 100 yards of the site where its namesake, Francis Scott Key, witnessed the failed British bombardment of Fort McHenry in September 1814″. (www.NPR.org)

The bridge had a main span of 1200 feet and was the second-longest continuous truss bridge in the world when it opened, and it remained the second longest in the United States and third in the world according to the Society of Civil Engineers. It had a total length of 8,636 feet.

This blog post is not dedicated to the bridge or Francis Scott Key. It is dedicated to the people who were on the bridge when it collapsed….the people who were doing dangerous work maintaining the bridge so we could travel on it and under it safely and unconcerned…..the people whose families will never be the same due to a moment in time when a boat could not stop.

Our hearts break for these families and for the crew of a ship, the ones who likely looked up in horror and foreboding when they knew they did not have control of this beast on the water, and we will pray for their healing. And each time we pass, or are passed by, a container ship we will think of the people and know our lives are now just a little bit different than before.

“And when great souls die, after a period peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly. Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration. Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us. They existed”. (Maya Angelou.Oct 29, 2022)