Key Bridge in Baltimore collapses after being hit by a container ship

This is just crap thought process. It didn't happen peak morning. "What if" comments make no sense whatsoever in anything.

And then the speculation that "its unlikely maintenance related". You can tell that by a few second of video? I'd love to know your expertise.

Do you know if the bridge was lit up properly? Do you know if any safety measures such as warning buoys were faulty? or any other aspect of safety design built into the structure - I haven't a clue, I have zero expertise as you do and most posters and I certainly can't see from a few seconds of very very grainy video coverage.

leave the tabloid rubbish to the tabloids and let the experts do the real work

Some one got out of bed the wrong side!

Its completely normal to be thankful that it didn't happen during a time when casualties would be in the hundreds.

Now to your other point, yes it could be down to lack of navigation lights, but the bridge still took a direct hit. Its not due to poor maintenance of the bridge structure.

This is a discussion board, posters are discussing. If you want expert analysis go elsewhere.

So the 20 figure seems to just relates to the number of construction workers on the bridge at the time, but doesn't include how many cars or people inside who were on the bridge.

CBS article on this

A Mass Casualty Incident isn't defined by the number of casualties. It's defined by the ability of the emergency responders to cope with the number of casualties. An ambulance with a crew of two responding to a car crash with three casualties would be a Mass Casualty Incident. In this case, it would have been down to the difficulty in getting to the casualties (in the water, or on the unstable remnants of the bridge) - overall, you need a lot more than one responder for each casualty, and you need specialists that aren't immediately at hand, so the first responders would have declared it a Mass Casualty Incident, because they couldn't handle it themselves.

One of the very few things that I found positive in Trump's original campaign promises (last time round, that is - this time out his manifesto seems to be mainly "because I'm worth it") was that he said he'd ensure improvements in infra structure like roads and bridges. As I said above, it was an aspect of the US that had previously struck me as bizarre in such a wealthy country.

Of course, as usual with Trump, I don't think he really delivered on it.

Biden's administration delivered Infrastructure spending of around $110bn as part of the giant "Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act." Maryland would've been responsible for this bridge. I expect we'll learn plenty about this in the coming days.

Maintenance is unlikely to have been a cause, poor design was.

Zero protection for the bridge supports as someone else already posted.

Even if only traveling at 5 knots and unladen, the ship had a gross tonnage of 95,000t.

Poor design? Maintenance?

No "protection" was stopping 95,000 tonnes.

Ship must have lost power or had muppets in charge.

Omar comin'

I agree, it's a tragedy but mass casualty seems an excessive term. Four people lost their lives in a car crash in Armagh the other day. Is it a mass casualty incident?

What nobody is currently talking about is that Baltimore port is effectively shutdown for the foreseeable until the ship and wreckage are cleared. Thats going to have a serious economic impact for the city and region.