Officials plan to move cargo off ship that struck Baltimore’s Key Bridge
BALTIMORE, Md. (DC News Now) — Officials in Baltimore said they have things ready to start moving undamaged cargo on the ship that hit the Francis Scott Key bridge and caused the bridge to collapse last week.
Gov. Wes Moore and members of the Unified Command along with state and city leaders held another update on Wednesday afternoon.
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Officials also gave a description of what conditions divers are working with in the water. The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers said because of there is four to five feet of mud in the water, that’s already 50 feet deep with the loose bottom of the Patapsco River, divers are working in basically cloudy conditions in the water.
Officials said they are using sonar tools help to map debris and guide divers in the water.
“The water is so murky that salvage divers cannot see more than 2 feet in front of them. We can’t use conventional cameras to map the area. Therefore, we need to use sonar. Unified command is using high tech devices that emit sound to help us map a three-dimensional rendering of the collapse site,” Moore said.
In some other updates, Moore said no contaminants or fuel were found in samples taken up and down the river from the bridge collapse site.
Baltimore bridge collapse will cost millions
Officials also said eight commercial vessels have now passed through the two temporary alternate channels that were opened up this week.
As officials continue to work to clear and reopen the channel, unified command said they are staged to begin lifting the first of the undamaged containers off the bow of the ship.
“We need to lift those undamaged containers off to give us space to safely operate to begin to plan to remove portions of the bridge that are now also embedded into the ship but we need a weather window to do that,” said Rear Adm. Shannon Gilreath with the U.S. Coast Guard.
Officials said they are also waiting for a better weather window to do a 350 ton lift off a section near the main channel where the collapse is.
“Divers are working basically in darkness because if they use lights, if we lit it up, it would be like they were driving through a snow storm with their high beams on,” U.S. Army Corp Of Engineer Col. Estee Pinchasin, said. “They have to be guided by detail verbal instructions and directions from operators and vessels up at the surface.”
Recovery efforts continue after Baltimore bridge collapse
Moore and other officials continued to stress that bringing closure to families is still a priority, but they want to do it safely.
The Maryland Senate unanimously passed the PORT Act which provides temporary relief programs to help people impacted by the closure of the port of Baltimore. The House has a hearing on the PORT Act scheduled for Thursday, April 4.
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