Comments by "SmallSpoonBrigade" (@SmallSpoonBrigade) on "Baltimore Bridge Collapse: Analysis of MV Dali's Collision Course" video.

@scottv1600 And that was a bit of bad luck as there's a decent chance it would have been zero fatalities if they'd been able to get instructions to run for the other main support pylon. This was a suspension bridge and the safest place on it was on the other support pylon where the roadway wasn't being held up by the parts that collapsed. And that's generally true of suspension bridge collapses, if you're at the tower, you've got a good chance, if you're in the middle, you're pretty much screwed.
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@votersvanguard4898 The vehicles are almost certainly ones that belong to the road workers as you can see in the video that no cars were driving across when it collapsed. Between it being super early in the morning and the mayday call, the bridge was closed just in time.
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@katherineberger6329 Yep, I would expect the government, or whomever is covering the insurance on it, to pay for a replacement for recovery later if applicable. That being said, clearling the debris from the waterway and reopening that section of the port is likely of higher priority. The bridge itself can probably be rebuilt in less time than one thinks, although the portion that was directly impacted by the ship may well need to be replaced and both of the supports pillars will likely need a lot more protection like on some other bridges.
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@LUNUSt Hindsight? Oh please, this has happened a number of times over the last few decades to various other bridges, enough times that just because this bridge hadn't previously been demolished that it shouldn't have been an expected eventuality. We're just lucky that the death toll appears to be 6 and that it was just the road workers on the bridge rather than more car traffic passing over the bridge.
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@corkortekaas7624 TBH, that seems rather foolish and more down to penny pinching than anything else. Having a tug there to prevent this sort of thing isn't necessarily that expensive in the grand scheme of things, considering that the bridge itself lacks appropriate fortification like some other bridges have to reduce the likelihood of it being taken out by a ship or barge collision. It's also worth recognizing that this was a suspension bridge through this section, so if either of those towers was destroyed, it would pretty much immediately drop the entire deck along that span, as opposed to some other designs where only portions would collapse immediately giving some time to mount a rescue or for anybody unfortunate enough to be on the bridge to get to a location on the bridge where the drop would be more likely to be survivable.
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There's not much to speculate at this point. There are details that the NTSB will likely uncover to explain things like why the ship broke down so soon after getting underway, but the basics of what happened aren't that difficult to work out based on the excellent video quality that's available of the entire thing.
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@JWRogersPS Essentially yes, from what I've read, it was the anthem of a musicians club and presumably a lot of drinking happened at meetings.
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@KjartanAndersen And part of that is probably the fault of whomever it was that sets the rules for the port. Considering how close that bridge is to the port and how narrow it is, it seems awfully irresponsible to not have tugs escorting the ships through that portion. After that, the waterway appears to widen significantly and have fewer significants things to impact. Around here we've got boats that are required to escort oil tankers through much of the passage just to have the ability to get a quick start in preventing an oil spill from getting out of hand if something should happen. And the area isn't anywhere near as tight.
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Yes, if you look at the bridge, if it had happened a couple minutes earlier, there would have been ample time to get the roadworkers to safety as the other main support made it through fine, simple standing there likely would have prevented those deaths. And it would have made it a bit easier to get the traffic stopped on either end.
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