One problem with making bridges stronger? Ships getting bigger
ships began to chug up the Delaware River in recent years, transportation officials feared the prospect of one going astray that would lead to a repeat, or worse, of what happened in 1969, when a tanker struck the Delaware Memorial Bridge and caused significant damage.
So, last year, work began on a $93 million project to build eight massive cylinders that would stand guard in front of the bridge's piers in order to protect a system that carries tens of thousands of vehicles a day.
«The tankers and cargo ships of 1950 aren't the tankers and cargo ships of today,» said James Salmon, a spokesperson for the Delaware River and Bay Authority.
Tuesday's collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore after a cargo ship nearly three football fields long crashed into it, claiming the lives of six people, has prompted questions about whether similar disasters could happen elsewhere.
But the work on the Delaware Memorial Bridge reflects the fact that some transportation and maritime experts have been mulling the hazards of new cargo ships squeezing under decades-old bridges for some time. There are no easy answers, in part because ships keep getting bigger.
Many transportation officials say drawing parallels to the Key Bridge is difficult because what happened in Baltimore appeared to be such an unusual event — a confluence of factors at the worst time. As the ship, the Dali, hurtled through the harbor without a tugboat connected to it, it experienced a «complete blackout» and lost control, then struck a pier that
