According to the latest federal data, there are at least seven bridges in the United States similar in size and span to Baltimore’s now-collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge, making them vulnerable to a similar future tragedy.
The Federal Highway Administration’s (FHA) National Bridge Inventory for 2023 identified several iconic bridges that contain “critical fracture members,” meaning damage to a single steel component could collapse the entire structure.
Well-known names like San Francisco’s Golden Gate and New York’s Verrazzano are among those on the list, as is Oregon’s lesser-known St. John’s Bridge.
Together, the seven bridges are responsible for the lives of motorists within the approximately 794,000 vehicles that pass each day.
What is even more worrying is that these seven bridges are supported by concrete towers, or ‘piers’, vulnerable to the type of impact from a transport ship that brought down the Key.
But, to build bridge ‘piers’ strong enough to withstand a hit from a container ship, as one senior civil engineer told DailyMail.com last week, ‘you’ll end up just building a castle in the middle of the river.’
Seven bridges the size and span of Baltimore’s now-collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge are vulnerable to a similar future tragedy, according to the latest data from the U.S. Federal Highway Administration. All seven (pictured above) are older than the Key Bridge.
First completed during the Great Depression, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge (above) actually managed to withstand a collision with a container ship in 2007. But this bridge, unlike Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, had defenses to absorb shocks.
Engineer Bilal Ayyub, former president of the Infrastructure Resiliency Division of the American Society of Civil Engineers, explained that the alternative safety solution is to create barriers that keep ships from approaching a bridge in the first place.
“You can’t design a bridge to withstand the energy that comes with a moving object as large as a barge,” Ayyub told DailyMail.com.
Instead, the former president said, engineers build steel guide-like systems, called “fenders,” around docks, or divert ships away from those crucial docks by dredging artificial “islands” around the structure.
“Basically, what they will do is raise the ground (underwater) so that a ship will run aground,” he explained. “It was basically designed to alert the operator that you know you’re approaching an object.”
While federal guidelines in effect today require safeguards such as these ‘defenses.’ ‘islands’, or slightly more distant artificial island barriers called ‘dolphins’, the seven bridges at risk predate those government rules.
TO Wall Street Journal FHA’s National Bridge Inventory analysis identified these seven bridges as similar in size and construction to the Key to Deserve comparison.
And many are local, and sometimes international, icons of their hometown.
But inconsistencies have been found in inventory inspection data, which could mean there are other American bridges facing similar risks.
The more than four-mile-long Chesapeake Bay Bridge (above), which like the Key is in Maryland, is currently being considered for a multimillion-dollar expansion ahead of traffic concerns.
The more than four-mile-long Chesapeake Bay Bridge, which like the Key is in Maryland, is currently being considered for a multimillion-dollar expansion before traffic concerns arise.
Around 72,000 vehicles cross it daily through the Chesapeake, according to 2016 toll dataand large container ships also pass underneath.
Most of the bridges at risk are located in the Pacific Northwest, including the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, Washington; the St. Johns Bridge, Oregon; and the Lewis and Clark Bridge, which connects Oregon to Washington state.
These bridges are also major traffic arteries that carry tens of thousands of vehicles each day: more than 90,000 vehicles in Tacoma Narrows, more than 22,000 vehicles in St. Johns, and approximately 21,400 vehicles cross Lewis and Clark.
Approximately 21,400 vehicles cross the Lewis and Clark Bridge (above) between Washington state and Oregon each day.
Every day, the Golden Gate helps an average of 89,000 vehicles cross the strait between the Pacific Ocean and the bay, and up to 10,000 cyclists, in 2023.
A little further south, in the San Francisco Bay area, there are two more roads, including the iconic Golden Gate Bridge, that meet the ‘pier’ size and design risk parameters.
One of them, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, is responsible for supporting between 280,000 and 300,000 passenger vehicles per day, or more than 13,000 cars during a peak hour of traffic.
First completed during the Great Depression, in November 1936, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge actually achieved resist a collision with a container ship in 2007.
But that bridge, despite its age, had defenses to absorb the blows.
Likewise, the Golden Gate Bridge has also been fortified with “the most robust protection system of any bridge on the West Coast,” said a spokesperson for the state agency that manages the structure. SF Gate last month.
The Golden Gate helped an average of 89,000 vehicles cross the strait between the Pacific Ocean and the bay, and up to 10,000 cyclists, every day in 2023.
But as experts noted, Baltimore’s Key Bridge had passed all its inspections, a strong indication that massive transport ships like the 984-foot, 95,000-ton Dali, which destroyed the Key on March 26, could ruin even a bridge. “that meets the code.” bridge.
New York City’s Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge was the seventh of the large at-risk bridges identified in the Journal’s analysis.
The structure, which connects the boroughs of Brooklyn with Staten Island, has an average traffic of approximately 200,000 vehicles daily, according to the parks department.