Findings and Recommendations

There’s a swirl of important activity surrounding the one-year anniversary of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse near Baltimore.

For the bridge itself, plans have been drafted and money has been secured for the Key Bridge’s restoration. It’s scheduled for completion in 2028 at a (current) cost of $1.7 billion, with the federal government picking up the tab.

The Key Bridge is an important span among all the many other important spans that cover the nation. Transportation officials, truck drivers, logistics professionals, and business owners all will tell us the value of safe, smooth passage. It’s one of those rare near-universal agreements. How we get there has always been debated. So it goes.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recently released an interim report that uses the Key Bridge collapse as a foundation for how that one could have been prevented and how to prevent future disasters. It’s a cautionary tale, better late than never, that echoes the Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance approach to doing business and protecting life.

The report’s assessment of the Key Bridge event:

1. Had the Maryland Transportation Authority (MDTA) conducted a vulnerability assessment of the Francis Scott Key Bridge based on recent vessel traffic…the MDTA would have been aware that this critical/essential bridge was above the…threshold of risk for catastrophic collapse from a vessel collision when the Dali collision occurred.
2. Had the MDTA conducted a vulnerability assessment of the Francis Scott Key Bridge…the MDTA would have had information to proactively identify strategies to reduce the risk of a collapse and loss of lives associated with a vessel collision with the bridge.
3. The 30 owners of 68 bridges over navigable waterways frequented by ocean-going vessels are likely unaware of their bridges’ risk of catastrophic collapse from a vessel collision and the potential need to implement countermeasures to reduce the bridges’ vulnerability.

Number 3 is eyebrow-raising, especially the “likely unaware” part of that sentence.

Their recommendations include bringing relevant expert authorities on site to help “provide guidance and assistance to bridge owners on evaluating and reducing the risk of a bridge collapse from a vessel collision.”

Godspeed to all those bridge authorities.