BALTIMORE – When Bobby LaPin was a young boy, his grandfather took him o
n his rickety boat to fish for bass and trout in the Patapsco River. Their route too
k them under the Francis Scott Key Bridge, where LaPin listened to the rumble of vehic
les above and the crash of waves against its massive support columns.
For LaPin, the bridge symbolized cherished afternoons spent with his grandfather
. Perhaps for that reason, he has struggled to get used to a Baltimore skyline without the steel truss bridge.
“It’s eerie not to see it out there anymore,” LaPin, 46, said. “When you grow up with
something and it’s gone, it’s devastating.”
When a container vessel the size of a Manhattan skyscraper rammed into the Key Bridge one year ago, it was far more than a sy
mbolic loss for the city. The maritime disaster killed six construction workers, tempora
ily shuttered one of the nation’s busiest ports, and spotlighted the vulnerabili
ties of aged bridges faced with increasingly larger cargo ships.
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Now, a year later, the reality of the disaster still weighs on Baltimore and its re
sidents, especially those in the working-class neighborhoods near where the four-lane bridge once stood.
Daily traffic delays plague east-west interstates, frustrating commuters. And businesses in neighborhoods iso
lated by the loss of the bridge are grappling with a sustained decline in revenue.
Still, many marvel at the pace of the recovery effort. The port of Baltimore rebounded after a seven-week closure and reported one of its m
ost financially successful years. Meanwhile, authorities are preparing controlled dem
olitions to get rid of the remaining sections of the original bridge before starting construction on the new one.
“This time last year, I don’t think anyone thought things would be where they are today,” LaPin said.
The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge
After midnight on March 26, 2024, the Dali, a 984-foot-long cargo ship, lost power while departing Baltimore’s harbor. The electrical breakers that fed most of the vessel’s equipment had tripped, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
An emergency generator came online and the senior pilot steering the ship ordered the anchor dropped. But less than a quarter mile from the bridge, the ship lost power again. Police quickly closed both sides of the bridge – a decision credited with saving lives.
Less than three minutes later, the Singapore-flagged ship smashed into one of the bridge’s piers.
While the NTSB has yet to release its final report on the incident, the agency has faulted the state of Maryland for failing to conduct a risk assessment on the Key Bridge. The NTSB, which says the assessment would have shown the bridge’s vulnerabilities to such a strike, has since called for reviewing dozens of bridges across the country to reduce the chances of another major collapse
John Flansburg, who could once see the Key Bridge from his front yard in Dundalk, Maryland, recalls being shaken from his sleep by the crash.
“The house shook,” Flansburg, 66, said. Outside, he could see police lights flashing on both sides of the river, but the bridge was gone.
At dawn, he saw the devastation: 50,000 tons of twisted steel and concrete lay across the river and atop the deck of the ship. A streetlight protruded eerily from the water.
“This is the worst tragedy that has happened here in my lifetime,” Flansburg said.
