I’m surprised they haven’t linked it to ‘climate change’, but, surprisingly, the typical Warmists are silent
Baltimore bridge collapse reignites calls for fixes to America’s aging bridges
Bridge experts and U.S. presidents have decried the nation’s aging bridges and lack of maintenance for decades.
Calls for sorely needed bridge infrastructure fixes resurfaced Tuesday after a Singapore-flagged cargo ship struck Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge. And while the circumstances of Tuesday morning’s disaster – a massive cargo ship charging into a support beam for the bridge – is an unpredictable event, experts still say the nation’s maintenance and repair record on bridges is an important factor that needs to be addressed. (snip)
Rick Geddes, an infrastructure policy expert and director of Cornell University’s infrastructure policy program, said the bridge collapse highlights several critical issues.
“This disaster reveals how exposed America’s critical infrastructure is to sudden and devastating accidents as well as intentional destruction,” Geddes said. “Improved resilience should be on everyone’s mind as aging infrastructure is rebuilt. Enhanced protection against ship-bridge collisions will certainly become more salient.”
Still, it’s unlikely Baltimore’s bridge stood a chance against the 984-foot Singapore-flagged Dali cargo ship crash that led to its collapse despite the quality of its build. Because the ship collided with one of the bridge’s main support columns, there wasn’t enough support to hold its load, bridge experts told USA TODAY.
While there’s certainly no doubt that many bridges need repair or replacement – many are old and/or carrying way more traffic than built for – haven’t we already passed lots of legislation on fixing bridges? Obama’s Stimulus contained a lot of money for this, and, wasn’t some guy named Joe Biden in charge of the infrastructure projects? Many of the smaller stimulus bills also dealt with infrastructure. Was the Inflation Reduction Act supposed to deal with this, as well?
Trump tried to pass an infrastructure bill throughout his presidency, and Democrats refused to play ball and pass one.
Here’s an idea: if a bridge on a federal highway needs repair or replacement, have a bill that specifically allocates money to do that. Otherwise, states should deal with this. Otherwise, the money simply gets pissed away on graft and idiocy, rather than repair/replace.
As for the Baltimore bridge, that area is in big trouble. The Maryland DOT says 34,000 vehicles cross it a day. Now they all have to go elsewhere. The Baltimore Harbor Tunnel is the next closest crossing. That’s a lot of traffic to add, and 18 wheelers just barely fit in the tunnel. One bad bump over something that fell off a vehicle and they hit the ceiling. If they are carrying hazardous material they have to go to a different crossing.
Then there’s the shipping. As long as the bridge is in the water ships cannot make it into the port of Baltimore, meaning no goods coming in. Meaning there’s no work for a lot of people. The shipping will have to go to other ports, but, some might not be able to handle all that extra traffic, and may not have the infrastructure to move the goods where it needs to go. Baltimore is set up to move vehicles from the ships to the trains to elsewhere. Is the Norfolk area? How about the ports in NC and SC? I know there’s one in Georgia which does, and up in Newark, NJ area. How about the Delaware ports on the Delaware, primarily Newark, Delaware?
All the truckers will have to move elsewhere. Jobs involving the Baltimore port will dry up. This will be a mess.
I’m not going to jump into conspiracy theories. This is either just a tragic occurrence, where everything bad just came together, or an intentional act
Is it normal for ships to travel in a pattern that would take it that close to the support? Don't they usually go more for the middle? https://t.co/2fu0jA5bg8 pic.twitter.com/0u2eC6Xmvv
— William Teach2 ??????? #refuseresist (@WTeach2) March 26, 2024
Further, it seemed to be going pretty fast in the harbor approaching the bridge. Anyhow, how long will it take to replace? My vote is 20 years, what with DEI and ‘climate change’ considerations. Heck, it will probably take 2-3 years just to clean the bridge out of the river. Maybe they’ll put choo choo tracks on it
So Joe Biden, once again confused, asserts that he has traveled over the Francis Scott Key Bridge by train "many times," despite the fact that there are NO train tracks on that bridge….
????????????#baltimorebridge#Baltimore#BaltimoreStrong#BaltimoreBridgeCollapse pic.twitter.com/Z0nRnBVvCM— Richard (@ricwe123) March 26, 2024
The evidence so far points to a tragic accident. The ship had a full crew and a local pilot team. Non of them reported any intentional action to cause this and most were actively trying to prevent it. Very unlikely that they were all in on some grand conspiracy to ram a single bridge that can easily be bypassed. The real harm here is the bridge sections blocking port access to other ships. Ships outside can be rerouted to other ports. Most likely cause is loss of ships power as they approached the bridge and no time to recover and regain steering.
The part they haven’t mentioned yet is that they dropped anchor in an attempt to slow the ship. They dropped that anchor in an area marked for no anchors because of underwater pipelines and cables. They must have gotten lucky and not snagged one of those.
Meanwhile on the other side of the planet, it seems the terrorists who attacked Russia a few days ago were trained and sponsored by Ukraine… using American money and training.
America is the largest international sponsor of terrorism on the planet. We blew up a pipeline, killed 150+ women and children in a shopping center in Russia, gave billions to Iran to fund their terrorism, gave hundreds of millions to Hamas to fund their terrorism. Under the Biden administration, we are not the good guys. Trump’s campaign slogan should be, Make America the Good Guys Again.
Mr Teach suggests that the bridge may have been intentionally destroyed!!
Let’s see… who hates that big Black and Blue city of Baltimore?? Who hates every Blue state (such as Maryland)?? Who hated the Hispanic workers on the bridge?? Who hates President Biden and the Dems??
Who wants to tie any catastrophe to President Biden??
Could it be… The Donald??!!?? Or Vladimir Pootin?? Xi?? Netanyahu?? The Far-Right??
BTW, few bridges are designed to take a direct hit from a large cargo barge.
Meanwhile, there is no citations to support that Ukraine and the US conspired to kill Moscow civilians, although all is fair in war, right?
There are no citations to support that the US blew up the Nordstream piplelines.
A commontater commented that “America is the largest international sponsor of terrorism on the planet”, funding Hamas and Iran with hundreds of millions of dollars, even billions of USD. The commontater fails to note that while it’s true that Hamas terrorists diverted UN, Israeli and US humanitarian relief funds is disingenuous to claim “America funded Hamas”. There is no evidence that the $6 billion held in South Korea, transferred to a Qatari bank, in exchange for American hostages was used by Hamas.
The American nuRight’s devotion to Trump has devolved into the hatred of America. It would be sad if not so dangerous.
Elwoods devotion to destroying Trump has devolved into hatred of America and anybody who supports Trump. It would be sad if not so dangerous.
I’d settle for Elwood loving America more than he hates trump but I believe that to be an impossible request. I think idiots like Elwood get little woodies off of their Trump hatred.
Brandon’s OBSESSION! with me ignores that Mr Trump is self-destructive and that decent society has let him get away with his destructive behavior for decades. Previously, he was only cheating and defrauding his wives, individuals and companies, now he’s a threat to the nation, if not the world.
We love America so much that we recognize that this great nation is threatened by Trump.
Trump devotees don’t hate America but they don’t recognize that Trump does not care one iota about America or the people.
“…reignites calls for fixes to America’s aging bridges.” Oh, yeah! Cue the “shovel ready” projects, again! Then the FED can “increase the money supply”, again.
Then, naturally, no bridge will be fixed, again. And all our actual money will just be worth less, again.
We’re doomed
How much was wasted with Obama’s so-called “Recovery Act”, and Biden’s so-called “Infrastructure” plan, along with all the smaller plans passed supposedly for infrastructure needs along the years?
Is it 90%, or only 85%?
Then-president Trump signed larger spending bills than President Biden.
These spending bills during recessions are to stimulate the economy, that is, to get money into the hands and pockets of citizens.
We know, we know, nuConservatives believe that all government spending is evil and wasted but in fact infrastructure in being upgraded, but the needs are great. America neglected roads, bridges, tunnels, drinking water infrastructure, highways, power generation and distribution, universal internet access, sewage, mass transit (planes, trains and automobiles), schools, police, fire…
Twaddling libturd, Rimjob, just gotta twaddle.
“At about 1:30, a container ship struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which I’ve been over many, many times commuting from the state of Delaware either on a train or by car,” he said. “I’ve been to Baltimore Harbor many times.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge doesn’t have any tracks on it — just two lanes for car traffic in each direction. So despite what he claims, Biden never once took the train over that bridge. So the big question is, why would he say that?
Because like Elwood, he’s a dirty liar. Seems all democrats are these days. They’re looking to win this election by lies and cover-ups. AGAIN!
MyLilObsessive refuses to understand that President Biden misspoke. Yawn…
Brandon’s hero misspeaks and lies every time he opens his mouth.
“Your Social Security will be destroyed by the people coming in. There’s too many of them. It’s not sustainable.” 16 Mar 2024
“Biden has implemented a formal policy that illegal aliens who intrude into the United States are granted immunity from deportation.” 15 Mar 2024
“In February alone, nearly 1 million jobs held by native-born Americans disappeared.” 12 Mar 2024
“Eighty-two percent of the country understands that (the 2020 election) was a rigged election.” 7 Mar 2024
President Joe Biden “directed New York AG Witch Hunt” into Donald Trump’s real estate. 20 Mar 2024
“Haley’s plan cuts Social Security benefits for 82% of Americans.” 18 Jan 2024
Nikki Haley “opposed Trump’s border wall” and “Trump’s travel ban.” 5 Jan 2024
“They want to make our Army tanks all electric.” 21 Dec 2023
The Lincoln Project is “using A.I. (Artificial Intelligence)” in its “television commercials.” 19 Dec 2023
New Hampshire has “a worse drug problem per capita than any other state.” 11 Nov 2023
You get the idea, we hope…
Rimjob: President Biden misspoke.
Not AGAIN!
#LGBFJB
#Trump2024-
Bwaha! Lolgf
First of all I don’t have a hero we leave that nonsense up to leftists. We have political people we support we have religious people we pray to but we don’t have heroes.
So even though you couldn’t stop yourself by trying to insult me and made a fool of yourself by doing so everybody including you and me misspeaks at one time or another. The difference is what Biden was trying to do was insert himself into the story and therefore deliberately lied. That’s not misspeaking that’s lying. He wanted to let people think that he was personally invested in the tragedy but he is not. Except for the fact that it’s his negligence that caused the accident to begin with.
Brandon claims their cult doesn’t have a cult leader!
And now Brandon claims President Biden caused the catastrophe when we all know it was Fat Donnie’s fault. LOL.
I don’t think this was intentional, rather a tragic product of indifferent/inadequate/inept/deferred maintenance of a large ship due to a series of causes. Yes, the track of the ship was normal up until she lost power therefore control. The Dali was under way down channel and under supervision of a Baltimore pilot team. The power loss is yet to be determined, but it would interrupt engine power as well as rudder and thruster control leaving the ship at the mercy of the current, wind, and physics. Probably still a fertile area for conspiracy theories, though.
As to the condition of the bridge, this bridge should have had annual inspections per FHWA regs and was reported to be up to standard. Some idiot reporter will, no doubt, obtain copies of inspection reports and will, without the knowledge of how to interpret them, start to exaggerate the condition. Building a structure to withstand this type of incident is difficult, expensive and probably somewhat impractical.