#bridge collapse

[odinsblog]

The crew of a massive container ship that crashed into the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore early Tuesday warned of power issues before the collision, which caused the bridge to collapse into the frigid Patapsco River, officials said.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said the warning from the ship’s crew likely saved lives.

“We’re thankful that between the mayday and the collapse, that we had officials who were able to begin to stop the flow of traffic so more cars were not on the bridge,” Moore said. He called those officials heroes.

Moore noted that the bridge was up to code at the time of the collapse. He said the collapse was a “shocking and heartbreaking” event for the people of Maryland who have used the bridge for 47 years.

(continue reading)

[reality-detective]

An alternate angle on the Francis Scott Key Bridge shows what appears to be a large explosion, which you can see 👀 from the other angles I posted. Something reeks like a possible Black Swan Event?

Does it seem like a barge bumping into a pillar would cause the whole bridge to collapse? 🤔

[destiel-news-network]

On the third anniversary of the Suez Canal incident, no less.

(Source)

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #11

March 22-29 2024

The Administration, with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in the lead responded to the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. Working with Governor Wes Moore and Mayor Brandon Scott (both Democrats) The Department of Transportation promises to clear the harbor and rebuild the bride. DoT has already released $60 million in emergency funds as a "down payment" and President Biden is expected to seek $1 billion from Congress.

Vice President Harris announced a number of actions and investments designed to improve the quality of life of the peoples of northern central America. driven by poverty, lack of economic opportunities, and out of control crime people in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras are taking great risks and trusting criminal human traffickers to try to reach the US. The Administration is working to improve conditions in the Northern Triangle so that is no longer necessary. Vice President Harris announced $1 billion dollars in new investments as part of the Central America Forward public-private partnership, since 2021 it has invested $5.2 billion in the region. Harris also announced $175 million dollars of direct aid from the US to Guatemala at a meeting with Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo.

The Department of Energy announced a $1.5 billion dollar loan to help restart the Palisades Nuclear Plant. This would mark the first time a nuclear power plant was brought back online after being decommissioned. The hope is keep the plant running till 2051, this 100% green power source is projected to prevent 111 million tons of CO2 emissions in its new life time, the same as taking 100,000 cars off the road. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer touted it as key for her state reaching its goal of 100% clean energy by 2040.

Vice President Harris launched a social media push to inform the public about the Biden-Harris Administration's SAVE Plan. The Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) Plan was launched last year as part of President Biden's efforts to bring student loan forgiveness to millions of borrowers. Currently 7.7 million people are enrolled in SAVE, under which anyone making $16 a hour or less has a monthly payment of $0 on their student loans. 4.5 million SAVE enrollees are making $0 a month payments and another 1 million pay less than $100 a month on their loan repayment, over 150,000 people so far have had their loans totally forgiven. Republicans are suing to try to shut down the SAVE Plan

President Biden took keep steps to ensure quality healthcare this week. Biden extended the window for low-income Americans to apply for Obamacare. The original deadline of July 31st has been pushed back to November 30th. Biden also rolled back Trump era rules that allowed subsidies for "Junk Health insurance" These plans offer very little coverage and often mislead consumers into believing they have insurance when they aren't covered. These short term plans also don't have meet Obamacare standards and can refuse coverage for preexisting conditions.

The EPA announced new regulations aimed at "turbocharging" the number of electric trucks on the road. The new rules aim to have 25% of new long-haul trucks, the heaviest often diesel trucks on the road, and 40% of medium-size trucks (box trucks and landscaping vehicles) be nonpolluting by 2032, currently just 2% are. The regulation would apply to more than 100 types of vehicles including tractor-trailers, ambulances, R.V.s, garbage trucks and moving vans. The new tailpipe limits are expected to prevent about a billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions by 2055.

the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services  announced that thanks to President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, 41 different drugs will coast those on Medicare Part B less money than it did last year.  An estimated 763,700 people on Medicare use at least one of these drugs every year. Some enrollees will save as much as $3,575 per dose.

The Department of Energy announced $6 billion for an effort to decarbonize energy-intensive industries. The investment in 33 projects across 20 states will eliminate 14 million metric tons of CO2 emissions each year when finished. Each project is meant to be highly replicable and serve as a blueprint for future private sector ventures. 

President Biden signed an Executive Order to Strengthen the Recognition of Women’s History. The Order will launch a review of all historic sites run by the National Parks Service to determine ways to better highlight the role of women, from all backgrounds, in American History.

The Senate Confirmed President Biden's nominees, Ernesto Gonzalez, and Leon Schydlower to federal judgeships in Texas. This brings the total number of federal judges appointed by President Biden to 190.

[alwaysbewoke]

[correctopinionhaver]

she slam her hull on my support column till i collapse into baltimore harbor

[rednblacksalamander]

I guess this is just how we handle disasters now. Great.

[geezerwench]

[prettyplumpkitty]

Oh my God.

I am devastated by this morning’s bridge collapse in Baltimore.

We’ve been visiting the city, most often this first week of April, for 7 years now. It is one of my favorites…Maryland holds a special place in my heart. We take a harbor cruise each visit & we always turned around in front of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. These photos are from our last visit in April 2022, taken from Fort McHenry.

My heart is with you, Baltimore.

[trombonepunk]

[reality-detective]

The Singapore ship that struck the Francis Scott Key bridge was experiencing power issues before impacting the bridge. I'm hearing reports the ship caught fire and sunk also, the crew is accounted for and safe. This story is still unfolding so who knows what is actually happening and if we're getting truthful updates. 🤔

[probablynotsamantha]

Saw this post but OP understandably turned off reblogs, thought I'd get it going again with an addition that the Sun was recently bought by Sinclair and IIRC people have been saying that the quality's gone down and it's shifted rightwards.

I've spent a decent amount of time in Baltimore (NEC my beloved) and yeah that bridge is a BIG DEAL. Ignoring all the traffic that goes over it (there is a tunnel that people can use, though it's a ways out of the way) the Port of Baltimore is blocked to basically all marine traffic for the foreseeable future. It was also a notable state landmark, which kinda sucks to lose.

Additional note: I've seen some people saying that this was caused by poor bridge design, that's not exactly true. That boat crashed into it with around 4 times the momentum of your average jumbo jet WHILE IN FLIGHT. You simply can't design things to sustain that sort of an impact. The bridge didn't have the dolphins (concrete structures designed to prevent boats from hitting supports) required today because it was built before those regulations (implemented due to a similar collapse) and before ships of this size even existed. Whether dolphins would be sufficient to stop a boat of that size I can't be sure, especially as this was a head-on collision and dolphins are more effective at redirecting glancing blows than stopping a head-on impact. However, I was able to find that the bridge whose that sparked the requirements for dolphins has new dolphins that aren't rated for an impact from a ship of this size, so it's quite possible the bridge would've been badly damaged and/or destroyed anyways.

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

By Lev Koufax

A group of Baltimore activists organized by the Peoples Power Assembly gathered along Broening Highway on April 7 to protest the arrival of President “Genocide Joe” Biden. The President visited the city to tour the recently collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge.

As Biden pretends to care about the six immigrant workers who lost their lives due to corporate greed and regulatory incompetence, thousands continue to die in the U.S.-backed genocide in Gaza.

[shannon-agins]

At 1:30 this morning, a fully loaded container ship hit the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, MD. The bridge is gone, just gone. Up to 20 people were still on the bridge when it collapsed, but it's been confirmed that 8 people were plunged into the water. 2 have been rescued, one declined medical intervention and the other was rushed to shock trauma.

Rescue operations are being handled by the coast guard, and authorities from Baltimore City, Baltimore county, Anne Arundel county, Harford county, and Howard county.

There will be MAJOR economic impacts for the US. The Baltimore harbor is completely closed currently, as it handles up to 90% of US car imports and the vast majority of raw materials imports and exports. Trucks cannot utilize the Harbor Tunnel, and HAVE to use the bridge or go completely around the west side of the beltway. There is no other alternative for these vehicles since I95 utilizes the tunnel system. Up to 10,000 jobs or more will be impacted locally.

It's been standing my whole life, and it's just gone. My favorite bridge because the view of the city, especially at the time of night when it was struck, is so pretty. One I gladly paid the tolls on just so I could see that view. And it's just gone.

[xeansicemane]

Oh jeeze - I'm just happy this happened 1am, the bridge was mostly vacant.

[tomorrowusa]

No matter how remote, bizarre, or ridiculous, Republicans will try to twist reality to fit their conspiracy theories.

Under Elon Musk, Twitter/X has spiraled out of control with MAGA freaks taking full advantage of the lack of content moderation. Just when you think Twitter won't get any worse, it gets worse.

The slow death of Twitter is measured in disasters like the Baltimore bridge collapse

As conspiracy theorists compete for attention in the wake of a tragedy, others seek engagement through dubious expertise, juicy speculation, or stolen video clips. The boundary between conspiracy theory and engagement bait is permeable; unfounded and provoking posts often outpace the trickle of verified information that follows any sort of major breaking news event. Then, the conspiracy theories become content, and a lot of people marvel and express outrage that they exist. Then they kind of forget about the raging river of Bad Internet until the next national tragedy. [ ... ] On Tuesday evening, I called Lisa Snowden, the editor-in-chief of the Baltimore Beat — the city’s Black-owned alt-weekly — and an influential presence in Baltimore’s still pretty active X community. I wanted to talk about how following breaking news online has changed over time. [ ... ] Here are some of the tweets that got attention in the hours after the collapse: Paul Szypula, a MAGA influencer with more than 100,000 followers on X, tweeted “Synergy Marine Group [the company that owned the ship in question] promotes DEI in their company. Did anti-white business practices cause this disaster?” alongside a screenshot of a page on the company’s website that discussed the existence of a diversity and inclusion policy. That tweet got more than 600,000 views. Another far-right influencer speculated that there was some connection between the collapse and, I guess, Barack Obama? I don’t know. The tweet got 5 million views as of mid-day Wednesday. [ ... ] Here are some of the tweets that got attention in the hours after the collapse: Paul Szypula, a MAGA influencer with more than 100,000 followers on X, tweeted “Synergy Marine Group [the company that owned the ship in question] promotes DEI in their company. Did anti-white business practices cause this disaster?” alongside a screenshot of a page on the company’s website that discussed the existence of a diversity and inclusion policy. That tweet got more than 600,000 views. Another far-right influencer speculated that there was some connection between the collapse and, I guess, Barack Obama? I don’t know. The tweet got 5 million views as of mid-day Wednesday.

When people are mostly interested in "flooding the zone with shit", it is useless to even try to refute their falsehoods.

It doesn't matter that the Dali is not US owned but instead has ties to Singapore and Denmark. And the construction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge took place almost entirely during the administrations of Republicans Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford when DEI did not even exist as such.

With conspiracy theories there are always loopholes and sub rosa circumventions to account for the obvious lack of clear evidence.

To MAGA Republicans, facts are irrelevant. All that matters is how fast their lies travel through online platforms. And one of those platforms, Twitter/X, has been lubricated by its far right owner to accelerate those lies.

If you haven't already, quit Twitter/X and encourage others to do so ASAP. Migrate to Mastodon or Bluesky and enjoy the comparative sanity on those platforms.