Pennsylvania Department of Transportation Secretary Mike Carroll says Gov. Josh Shapiro has reached out to Maryland Gov. Wes Moore in the wake of Tuesday's catastrophic bridge collapse in Baltimore to offer the state's support and assistance.
"We stand ready at PennDOT, as a commonwealth, to be as supportive as we can be of our partners in Maryland," Carroll told WVIA on Tuesday.
More than a mile of the 1.6-mile Francis Scott Key Bridge crumbled early Tuesday after it was struck by a cargo ship. Early indications are that the incident was not terrorism, but caused by some of onboard issue — possibly a power failure, officials have said — adding that the ship put out a mayday call as it drifted toward the span.
The collapse left emergency crews scrambling to search the waters of the lower Patapsco River and outer Baltimore Harbor following the "mass casualty event."
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott told NPR two construction workers who had been working on the bridge had been rescued from the water and six more were still missing as of Tuesday afternoon, some 15 hours after the collapse.
"Right now our focus is on search and rescue," Scott told NPR.
Scott also told NPR he did not believe any vehicles were crossing the bridge at the time of the collapse, "but that could change." Maryland Transportation Authority Police hurriedly closed the span to traffic after the ship's mayday call, Scott said.
"Obviously our prayers go out to the people affected by the tragic accident in Baltimore this morning," PennDOT's Carroll said.
Officials in Maryland said the bridge, which carried I-695 over the harbor, was used by about 30,000 vehicles daily. It opened 47 years ago this week, on March 23, 1977.
Carroll said he does not expect the bridge's collapse to have an immediate effect on land transportation in Pennsylvania, but PennDOT has activated message boards warning drivers headed toward that area of Maryland about travel disruptions.
The other potential impact is maritime.
The Port of Baltimore is one of the nation's largest, and as of Tuesday afternoon vessel traffic had been closed until further notice.
Carroll said it was too soon to say whether or how much traffic could be diverted to the Port of Philadelphia as a result.
"I suspect that ports up and down the East Coast will be the receivers of the traffic bound for Baltimore, but I have every expectation that the folks in Maryland will respond quickly and try and return the harbor back to its ability to handle container ships in the very near future," Carroll said.
As for the incident itself, what protections are in place to prevent such a crash from happening elsewhere?
Carroll said that in ports such as Baltimore and Philadelphia, there are local pilots who board cargo ships to help them navigate the crowded waters, which seems to have been the case in Baltimore.
"It seems to me from the perspective that I have early on that there was some mechanical failure with that container ship, that resulted in the striking of the (bridge's) pier," Carroll said.
Carroll and PennDOT are no strangers to having a vital interstate highway suddenly out of commission.
Last summer, a northbound section of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia collapsed after a gasoline tanker flipped and caught fire underneath the elevated roadway.
As NPR reported at the time, all of the elevated northbound lanes caved in on the road below while the southbound lanes were heavily damaged. The 53-year-old truck driver died.
Crews had the roadway reopened to traffic in just 12 days while longer-term fixes continued. One of the elements in that successful effort was the use of a truck-mounted jet dryer from Pocono Raceway to help dry the newly laid asphalt — an idea proposed by Carroll.
