A David Badaro’s Report | What We Should Learn From the Baltimore Bridge Collapse

A David Badaro’s Report

What We Should Learn From the Baltimore Bridge Collapse The Francis Scott Key Bridge that collapsed this week in Baltimore after colliding with a disabled cargo ship is a tragedy. Lives were lost. Property has been destroyed. The closure of the Port of Baltimore has had a massive financial impact on the state and the East Coast supply chain; The bridge serves as an import transportation route along I-695, with more than 11 million vehicles using the bridge each year, an average of more than 30,000 vehicles per day.

Demands for accountability and reparations are omnipresent. Insurers will potentially have to pay billions of dollars in claims. Based on a statement

from President Biden, the federal government is willing to pay for the construction of a bridge to replace the collapsed bridge.

The new bridge is estimated to cost $350 million or more. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has expressed his concern over all of these issues and the complexity of the situation in the coming months.

Nothing good seems to be coming from any such incident. Anytime an accident of this magnitude occurs, root cause analysis will look for the cause of the incident and ways to prevent the disaster. Such knowledge will make not only the Port of Baltimore safer in the future, but possibly every other port across the country as well, as new waterway safety measures are identified and, perhaps, implemented.

Yet in any root cause analysis, one must weigh the costs of avoiding a disaster, the costs of a disaster should it occur, and the probability of such a disaster occurring.

Over a 55-year period (from 1960 to 2015), 35 bridges collapsed worldwide due to ship collisions, killing 342 people. This means that approximately two such incidents occur every three years, and approximately 10 people lose their lives per incident. More than half of these events occurred in the United States (18).

Yet most ship collisions with bridges do not result in the catastrophic consequences seen in Baltimore. A Coast Guard study published in 2003 found that during a 10-year period from 1992 to 2001, there were 2,692 shipwrecks on bridges in the United States, or an average of about five per week. The majority of such incidents (over 85 percent) resulted in zero or minimal damage.

The takeaway from the Baltimore Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse is that risks are omnipresent. Precautions can be taken and all safety protocols can be followed. Yet “things happen,” almost always unplanned, creating an environment that can lead to tragedies.

That's why the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) exists. They look at the aftermath of any transportation accident to determine why it happened and provide recommendations that will lead to safer transportation in the future. The list of checks they carry out at any given time is long and concrete, covering all modes of transport.

It highlights the risk that exists in the country's transportation systems, and why each of us plays a vital role in being alert and vigilant when we are on a flight or driving in our vehicle. The probability of a bad event happening is very small, but it is not zero.

Transportation accidents and deaths occur every day across the country.

On an average, more than 16 thousand vehicle accidents occurred a day

in 2021, of which just over 100 resulted in death. Deaths in air travel occur at an even lower rate, with 358 deaths in civil aviation in 2022, none of which were on commercial flights. Any of these events would be viewed as a tragedy by those affected.

After the initial reaction to the Baltimore Francis Scott Bridge collapse subsided, and plans began to rebuild the structure and restore order to the Port of Baltimore, the lesson learned is that risks cannot be avoided, but managed. May go. The clever action of the police in closing the bridge as soon as the ship was informed of Mayday probably saved dozens of lives.

These first responders are the heroes of this incident. The fact that the incident occurred at 1:30 am saved countless lives as there were fewer people crossing the bridge than if the accident had occurred at 7:30 am during rush hour.

Whatever recommendations come from the NTSB, it is certain that given the volume of waterway traffic around the nation's ports and the number of bridges that exist, incidents like what happened in Baltimore are rare.