Bridges aren’t ready for today’s huge ships

By Emma Roth , a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO.

For years now, civil engineers have understood that bridges have a problem: many of them are not designed to withstand a blow from the kinds of cargo ships that routinely pass through their waters. Those concerns came to a head on Tuesday with the devastating collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland. It’s the kind of failure engineers have been trying to prevent for decades — and even now, they’re not sure if the available solutions are enough.

“We don’t design for the deadly force that is generated by such an impact — millions of pounds,” Atorod Azizinamini, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Florida International University, tells The Verge. “The collapse has really nothing to do with the type of the bridge … the redundancy, or inspection.”

The Key Bridge was the second-longest continuous through truss bridge in the US, behind the Astoria-Megler Bridge connecting Oregon to Washington. But this week, the massive MV Dali cargo ship collided with the Key Bridge’s support column, causing a complete collapse that took place within seconds. Two construction workers were killed, while four others are presumed dead.

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