Clearing the wreckage in Baltimore is a difficult and dangerous operation

Before we can think about what it’ll take to rebuild Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, two big, difficult things need to happen. The ship that ran into it — the 984-foot, 95,000-ton Dali — has to be moved, and the wreckage of the 1.6-mile bridge has to be collected and taken out of the way. This monumental salvage operation underscores that the risk to human life did not end after the bridge collapsed. 

“We all have to understand as we’re looking at the scene how incredibly dangerous it is right now,” said Natalie Simpson, a professor of operations management and strategy at the University at Buffalo. The Dali appears to have run aground.

“It’s supposed to be floating and it’s not, and it’s loaded on the top with an unthinkable amount of tonnage. It is not structurally stable,” Simpson said.

One way to move a grounded ship is to take some of the weight off, carefully. The Coast Guard says a Navy crane is on its way and should arrive by 11 p.m. Thursday. We are not talking run-of-the-mill cranes.

“They will require special, great crane barges with lift capacities of at least 500, 600 tons. These crane barges are the size of a football field in some cases,” said Robert Mester, president of Northwest Maritime Consultants.

He’s helped salvage other collapsed bridges as well as World War II ships. The hole in the Dali needs to be plugged, and the pieces of submerged bridge need to be cut by divers using special oxygen-fueled underwater arc torches. 

That means a deceptively simple question needs answering: What was in all of those 4,700 containers, some of which have plunged into the water or were torn apart on the boat?

“That ship was carrying hazardous materials. We know that. That makes the work even more difficult,” Mester said.

Because there will be humans in the water doing that work.