On Sunday, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said that the container ship that caused the Francis Scott Key Bridge to fall in late March will be taken out of the Patapsco River channel “within days.” On Monday, salvage workers plan to put the ship back on the water.
Moore, a Democrat in his first term as governor, told host Kristen Welker of NBC News’ “Meet the Press” about the work being made in clearing the main shipping channel to Baltimore Harbor.
“I remember that first morning when the bridge fell, people were saying that, you know, this thing could take six, nine months to be able to repair the channel,” he said. “I’m proud that we’re on track and they will have that federal channel reopened, and within days we’re going to have that massive vessel – the Dali – out of that federal channel.”
The “American people will be made whole on this,” Moore said. “We just have to make sure we get it done quickly, on time, and on budget.” That is our main goal.”
The MV Dali, a Singapore-flagged neopanamax container ship, lost power while going through Baltimore Harbor on March 26. This caused the bridge to fall. The ship quickly got power back, but a second loss of power meant it couldn’t get power back in time to avoid hitting one of the piers that held up the Key Bridge’s main span.
A preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board said that the ship’s electrical system had been having problems before the accident. However, it’s not clear if those problems before the accident had anything to do with the crash.
The accident destroyed the Key Bridge so badly that most of it fell onto the Dali and into Baltimore Harbor. The accident killed six highway building workers who were fixing up the road on the bridge.
The bridge wreckage in the channel and on the Dali, which is stuck in the debris, shut down the main shipping route into Baltimore Harbor for a short time.
After the accident, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers worked to open temporary, shallower channels so that some people could get back into the port. The port is a major hub on the eastern coast for exporting coal and roll-on, and roll-off cargoes like vehicles.
Some ship and barge traffic could resume in the Patapsco River’s four temporary channels, with the deepest one measuring 35 feet. Several ships that had been stuck in the Port of Baltimore because of the collapse were able to leave before the deepest channel was closed so that the removal of the bridge wreckage could begin.
Explosives were used in a controlled demolition last week to take off the majority of the span from the top of the container ship. This was part of the ongoing work to clear the wreckage and reopen the harbor fully. They said the explosion went as planned and was a very important step in their plan to get the Dali out of the channel.
It is planned that the Unified Command, which is in charge of reaction and recovery, will refloat and move the Dali. To get the Dali back on the water, preliminary steps are being taken on Sunday before Monday’s high tide at 5:24 a.m., when it will start its journey with the help of tugboats to a dock at the Port of Baltimore, which is about 2.5 miles away.
“The refloat and transit sequence is deliberately designed to ensure all response personnel around the M/V Dali maintain control of the vessel, from refloat, transit to, and berthing at a local marine terminal,” said Unified Command.
