On the impact of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Patapsco River, Maine, on the ferromagnetic sea, and the port of Baltimore

VonSchmidt is more optimistic about the time frame. “What level of traffic? That remains to be seen,” he says. “I think it’s very possible that traffic moves in two plus weeks. He says that it will be wide open for traffic after that.

The first step is to remove the debris, open the shipping channel and build a new bridge. President Biden has pledged that the federal government will pay for the bridge’s rebuilding, which could take years.

VonSchmidt says that removing debris could be done in stages. “They might open the channel up in phases specific to the displacement of the vessels,” he says. shallow vessels would be allowed to transit before deeper draft vessels that could hold debris on the bottom.

That means moving in large floating cranes and sending down divers, he says. But first survey boats will need to “map out a grid of the bottom to find where all the debris is” and make a plan for removal, he says.

VonSchmidt thinks that there’s a focus on clearing the center span so that there’s no restriction in navigation at the moment because of the debris.

He says the next step is removing bridge debris. “Then you have to drag the bottom to make sure you don’t have debris that could cause a problem, which is why you should do it first.”

Before removing the ship, “They’ll get a salvage company in to secure the ship and make sure hazardous materials … Konrad tells people to not leak from the containers and not to have fires in the containers.

The Francis Scott Key Bridge was hit by a container ship early Tuesday morning in a chain of events. The bridge crumpled into the Patapsco River, its twisted metal draped over the ship and its thousands of containers. The workers and their cars fell into the water. Two of the workers are dead; four are still missing and presumed dead. And the whole disaster is now blocking one of the country’s busiest ports, the Port of Baltimore.

Baltimore’s port closure means lost work: From longshoremen to charter boats, the impact on Maryland’s economy is going to get better

David VonSchmidt, a naval architect and engineer, says it has to be done quickly. “The regional, if not the national economy, cannot afford any longer than that.”

Scott Cowan is president of International Longshoremen’s Association Local 333 and he said that many are out of work. He is the vice president of the ILA in the Port of Baltimore.

These are the workers who load and unload ships at the port. They operate cranes. They get and deliver cargo. They work on equipment and containers. They perform clerical work like timekeeping and recording the movement of cargo.

Maintenance men and mechanics will be working to maintain equipment in the facility. “But the bulk of our work is the unloading and loading. That’s where the labor-intensive jobs are, where we use a lot of people. … And that’s not happening right now.”

The length of time it takes to get the shipping channel cleared will determine how much port workers are affected and the amount of impact on Maryland’s economy. The closing of the shipping channel costs the economy $191 million a day.

The state has set up a dedicated unemployment line for workers affected by the port closure. Through Wednesday, the day after the collapse, fewer than 200 affected workers had made unemployment claims, according to a spokesperson for the Maryland Department of Labor.

And the Maryland Senate president, Sen. Bill Ferguson, said earlier this week that he will sponsor emergency legislation to provide income replacement for workers impacted by the port’s closure.

The impact will be short-lived, as long as the cargo will rebound here quickly, and we’ll be going into the Christmas season here shortly, taking goods into this country. We should be fine.

Source: From longshoremen to charter boats, Baltimore’s port closure means lost work

Baltimore’s port closure means lost work: “From longshoremen to charter boats, we don’t want to take a boat out of Baltimore,” says Bobby LaPin

Bobby LaPin is the owner and operator of Boat Baltimore, which offers sailing tours of Baltimore Harbor and the Bay. The sailboat Saeda is docked at the South Baltimore marina.

It’s a seasonal business, and he’d been gearing up to start cruises on April 1. Now he won’t open until May. So the sailboat remains anchored, a blue tarp pulled taut over its deck.

“We decided to push back our opening day … because we don’t want to add to clutter of boats in the harbor while there is a recovery mission still ongoing,” he says. “I also don’t want to take bookings for people that are simply trying to get on the boat so they can see the devastation of the bridge.”

Normally he’d be hiring deckhands and captains to work for the summer, folks who work the winter in Florida and the summer up north. He’s holding off on any new hires.

He expects the impact of the crisis on his business to be gradual, but that tourists and conventioneers will hold off on booking for a while. Since the bridge collapsed, he can’t take more lucrative bookings, like sailing to the bay, which he would do if the bridge hadn’t collapsed.

The first concern is to clear the channel so that shipping can start. “Then after that occurs, they have to build a bridge.” They have to block the channel to build a bridge. So, you know, are we even going to have a bridge again?”

The bridge will not have to be closed while it is being built, according to Benjamin Schafer, a professor of civil and systems engineering. “This has been a common challenge for bridge builders going back to at least the late 19th century,” and there are a number of construction techniques that will allow the channel to stay open, he says.

Source: From longshoremen to charter boats, Baltimore’s port closure means lost work

The Baltimore Peninsula waterfront waterfront waterfront operations manager Alex Snider says it’s going to be crazy for the next few years – “I’m going to miss it,” he told MAG Partners

Along the waterfront at the Port Covington Marina on Thursday, all the boats were anchored. The giant ships parked at Cruise Maryland have been directed to other moorings. The sleek new buildings of Baltimore Peninsula are just inland from the marina and offer apartments, office space and restaurants.

Alex Snider is the waterfront operations manager for MAG Partners, the company that’s redeveloping the peninsula. After the season for recreational boats starts in April or early May, the marina is usually quiet.

Snider talks about everything that’s planned at the marina, even though there’s a bridge collapsing and the port is closed. We’ve got the Baltimore Dragon Boat Club’s going to be rowing out of here this year. So it’s very busy.”

“It was a beautiful bridge,” he says. I’ve piloted boats, captained boats under that bridge hundreds of times. It’s going to be a weird few years, not having that there visually.”