Maryland leaders, port workers eye return to normal as Key Bridge clean up progresses

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Maryland Gov. Wes Moore took a victory lap in Baltimore on Tuesday, announcing the city’s port is ready for business again now that the harbor has been cleared of both the wreckage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge and the gigantic cargo ship that brought it down.

Mr. Moore touted state and federal efforts that brought the Dali back to port a day earlier, roughly eight weeks after the malfunctioning freighter struck the bridge.

It was a celebratory moment for Mr. Moore, who fulfilled his promise to find the remains of the six workers who died in collapse and to reopen the port’s main channel, which is on track to do so by the end of May.



“These achievements were not preordained,” Mr. Moore said at a morning press conference. “It was not preordained that we would have the ability to recover all six victims. It was not preordained that we would move as quickly and as safely as we have.”

The governor said at least 20 vessels and barges are expected to come through the port’s public terminals over the next week. That includes major cruise ships in Carnival Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean.

Royal Caribbean said it will resume trips out of Baltimore on Saturday. Carnival said it will begin its trips from the port again on Sunday.   

It’s also a good sign for the dock workers and longshoremen. A representative from the International Longshoremen’s Association, who asked not to be named, told The Washington Times that union members are excited to get back to work.

Around 125 people had to go on unemployment in the nearly two months since the Key Bridge went down, the representative said, and dozens more had their hours trimmed.

The representative mentioned that clearing the small, temporary channels last month did alleviate some of the workers’ angst by getting smaller ships into the harbor.

U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Shannon Gilreath said during Tuesday’s press event that the alternate channels helped move 500 commercial vessels in and out of the Port of Baltimore.

The union representative said bookings are starting to fill up at the port. He’s looking for things to return to normal by the end of June.

“I’m pretty optimistic,” he told The Times. “I’ve been here 45 years and I’ve been over that bridge plenty of times where ships have passed through without a problem. Who would’ve thought that bridge would have gone down like that?”

By the end of Tuesday, Adm. Gilreath said a 400-foot-wide, 50-foot-deep channel will be open for 24/7 use.

The main federal channel is also 50 feet deep, but is 700 feet wide. Officials said teams still need to clear the bridge’s hulking metal debris below the water’s surface before the channel can be fully restored.

The early morning collision on March 26 brought port activity to a screeching halt when the Dali — a ship based in Singapore and chartered by Danish shipping company Maersk — took out one of the Key Bridge’s support columns.

An eight-person construction crew filling potholes on the bridge went down with the structure. Rescue teams were able to save two of the workers, but six died in the collapse. It took several weeks to recover the six bodies.

Mr. Moore on Tuesday said that he won’t consider the job done “until I can look over the same site and see the Francis Scott Key Bridge standing again. That’s mission completion.”

• This article was based in part on wire service reports.

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