The US built a 1500+ mile road from the US to Alaska in less than 9 months after the start of WWII. Watch these clowns take that long to get the port of B-more open from one bridge collapse. The numbers I can find are: ~15-16k direct port/terminal workers ~130,000 related workers - meaning truckers, and others related to the ports There is also a huge Domino sugar refinery plant there that needs imported raw sugar, who knows how long they can run before shutting down. Hopefully the .gov's involved realize their only focus after recovery and maybe a little forensics on the bridge and ship is getting the shipping lane open. Like in a few weeks. I am skeptical, since Maryland.... I dont even have much experience there but The Wire and run amok dirt bikes is enough....
Baltimore and the state are run by complete idiots. Your assessment is not off. I think that shipping lane could be open in a few weeks, but it's time to bring in the barges with cranes and torches now. Autopsy can be done on the ship after they tow it back to the dock.
While IMO (in general) the gov is normally slower than molasses in January, I think they'll move pretty fast on this to get the port open. I was listening to one of the networks yesterday and the governor of Minnesota was talking about the things they did to alleviate the traffic bottlenecks after they had that interstate bridge collapse. They added extra lanes on the shoulders of other routes and they had the bridge itself replaced a year after the accident. Granted, it was a much smaller bridge, but I think they'll get the port open within a few months if not faster. The bridge I think will take at least three years.
City Gov will have nothing to do with any of this. Mayor Chia Pet is pretty inept. State of Md, the Feds, and the private sector will be all hands on deck to get the bridge debris cleared and the channel opened up. We have lots of marine assets here including a big coast guard repair base a couple miles from the bridge, the Army Corps of Engineers has offices here, and there marine construction/salvage companies that specialize in this kinda thing. And they will bring in assets from all over the east coast. And we’re a deep blue state in an election year. They’ll have the channel open by mid April.
The rebuild of the 35W bridge in Minneapolis just shows they can actually get shit done in a hurry If they want to.
The government moved fast getting the interstate reopened in Philly, but everything in the area was pretty much already concrete or asphalt. Even moving / removing the bridge wreckage is going to disturb some clam, crab, or other endangered marine species and you can bet the environmentalists will be out there to slow it down as much as they can. Of course, the other environmentalists will all be shouting about the increased fuel burn as already stated above. Many of the truckers will likely get re-tasked to other ports, as those ports take in the diverted shipments. Finding another east coast port with acres of space to park newly arrived cars will be challenging. Oh, and moving the customs inspections teams to those ports will also take time if they can even do that between the government bureaucracy and the unions. I predict a slowdown in European car imports.
You're roaming around Twitter huh? The pilot called Mayday. Just talked to my coasty friend about it. Highly unlikely it was intentional. He did however say that its weird. That ship has 4 generators and one emergency generator. The e generator is supposed to come online and take the load when it senses a power loss. This emergency switchboard runs vital equipment like one of the steering pumps. There is a switch a near the e generator that has to be set by a human to either manually start or automatically. Maybe it wasn’t in auto. And someone had to run and start it locally?
Compared to a state like Maryland or Baltimore city....yeah. 1000% Let the US Navy and Army Corps of Eng do what they do and the port would be open next week, no problem. And it would be good training for the pending war with China, Russia, ________ as clearing ports of wreckage is a key military skill that they dont get to practice very often. If they let these local clowns be involved they will sit around for 2 months trying to figure out which union hall to use to plan the graft from before then even think about cutting metal off the bridge.
You have to find a floating heavy lift crane not under contract, get a contract to use the cranes, move the cranes into position, do underwater surveys of the wreckage, engineer a process to cut and remove the wreckage without killing the divers cutting and rigging, get barges to put the pieces on, have a place to dispose of the pieces (which requires more cranes, rigging, and land to stick the pieces. A salvage company can handle most of that stuff from a management perspective but it takes time to get the pieces in place. There aren't a lot of these things around in the world.
Eh, not my experience. I grew up in the maritime industry and worked on the water for a few years. Officers and crew are not the same quality. Captains, officers, and engineers tend to be European and crews tend to be Filipino or Asian in my experience. If they collide in port it's due to either weather, a mechanical issue, or the Pilot's screwing up. Pilots know the local waters and conditions intimately. They tell the captain the speed to run, where to turn, what the tides are doing, etc. While not directly commanding the ship the Captains and helm rely on the Pilot for 100% of navigational decisions once a ship is navigating channels.
Eff calling in the Navy. They don't have the capability or experience to deal with this. Call Smit and have them handle it.
IF erryone is busy I'll deal with it. I need a 40' barge, a shit load of Nitrox tanks, and all the C4 and det cord you've got. And a couple blasting caps. Stop. I dont think you heard me. I said ALL THE C4 YOUVE GOT. If we cant lift this thing out of the way i can turn it into powder in a couple days.