How fast will it take to move the shipping channel? David von Schmidt, captain John Konrad, a naval architect and engineer, says he’s optimistic
Von Schmidt is a bit more optimistic about a timeframe. “What level of traffic? He says that remains to be seen. “I think it’s very possible that traffic moves in two plus weeks. He said it would be open for traffic shortly after that.
How long will all that take? Benjamin Schafer, a professor of civil and systems engineering, said it would take weeks and months to reopen the shipping channel. I don’t believe it would take a year, I’d be shocked if it was weeks.
Removing debris could be done in stages to speed up the process, Von Schmidt says. He thinks they might open the channel in phases based on the displacement of the vessels. So, shallower draft vessels would be allowed to transit before the deeper draft ones that could snag debris on the bottom.
He says that means moving in large floating cranes and sending down divers. First survey boats need to find where all the debris is, and then make a plan for removal, he says.
Von Schmidt says he assumes that the focus will be on “completely clearing the center span so that there’s no restriction in navigation, because right now with that debris, it’s restricted navigation.”
The next step is removing “the tangled bridge debris,” he says. You need to pull the bottom again to make sure you don’t have any debris that is going to cause a problem.
Before removing the ship, “They’ll get a salvage company in to secure the ship and make sure hazardous materials … Konrad says that don’t leak from the containers, do not have fires, and that’s it.
Captain John Konrad, CEO of gCaptain, says that the first thing that will likely be done is to make sure that there’s no more damage to the bridge.
“It has to be done very quickly,” says David Von Schmidt, a naval architect and engineer. The regional economy can’t afford it any longer.
Baltimore’s port closure means lost work: From longshoremen to charter boats, it is a saddest time of year for the shipbuilding crisis in Maryland
“Quite a few are out of work right now,” says Scott Cowan, president of International Longshoremen’s Association Local 333 in Baltimore. He is president of the dockworkers and ILA in the Port of Baltimore.
These are the workers who load and unload ships at the port. They operate cranes. They receive and deliver cargo. They do maintenance and repair work on equipment and containers. They record the movement of cargo, as well as timekeeping.
“Some of our maintenance guys and mechanics are still going to work to maintain the equipment in the facility,” says Cowan. We do most of the work unloading and loading. That’s where we use a lot of people for labor-intensive jobs. Right now, that’s not happening.
How long it will take to clear the shipping channel will depend on how deep the port workers are affected and how large the impact is on Maryland’s economy. Cowan says that the loss of economic activity due to the closed shipping channel is $191 million a day.
The state has set up a dedicated unemployment line for workers affected by the port closure. The day after the collapse fewer than 200 workers had made unemployment claims, according to a statement by the Maryland Department of Labor.
And the Maryland Senate president, Sen. Bill Ferguson, said earlier this week that he will sponsor emergency legislation to provide income replacement for workers impacted by the port’s closure.
The impact on the longshoremen in Baltimore isn’t a lasting one: “I believe the cargo will rebound here quite strongly and we’ll be going into the Christmas season here shortly.” So we should be fine.”
Source: From longshoremen to charter boats, Baltimore’s port closure means lost work
Baltimore’s port closure means lost work: From longshoremen to charter boats, the fate of the Baltimore port bridge,” says Bobby LaPin
Bobby LaPin is the owner and operator of Boat Baltimore, which offers sailing tours of Baltimore Harbor and the bay. He docks the 45-foot-long sailboat Saeda at a marina in South Baltimore.
He was ready to start cruises on April 1. Now he won’t open until May. The sailboat is anchored and a blue tarp hangs over its deck.
The opening day was pushed back because they didn’t want to add a ton of boats in the harbor while the mission was still ongoing. “I also don’t want to take bookings for people that are simply trying to get on the boat so they can see the devastation of the bridge.”
He normally hires deckhand and captains to work during the summer for people who work in Florida and the summer up north. He’s holding off on hiring for now.
He thinks that the impact on his business will be hard to tell, but he expects visitors and conventioneers to stay away for a period of time. And since the collapsed bridge is blocking access to the Chesapeake, he can’t take longer, more lucrative bookings, where he’d sail out to the bay.
“Obviously, the No. 1 concern economically is going to be to clear the channel so shipping can start. And then after that happens, they have to build a bridge,” he says. There is a requirement to block the channel when they build a bridge. So, you know, are we even going to have a bridge again?”
It won’t be necessary to close the channel while the bridge is under construction, says Benjamin Schafer, a professor of civil and systems engineering at Johns Hopkins University. “This has been a common challenge for bridge builders going back to at least the late 19th century,” and there are a number of construction techniques that will allow the channel to stay open, he says.
Source: From longshoremen to charter boats, Baltimore’s port closure means lost work
The Baltimore Peninsula waterfront waterfront marina: what’s happening there, where’s going to be the next boating season for the Baltimore Dragon boat club?
There were boats at the Port Covington Marina moored along the waterfront. Next door, the terminal at Cruise Maryland sits empty, the giant ships now directed to other moorings. The sleek new buildings of Baltimore Peninsula are just inland from the marina, with apartments, office space and restaurants.
Alex is the operations manager of the waterfront for the company that’s developing the peninsula. He says this is a quiet time of year at the marina before the recreational boaters season begins in April or early May.
Even with the bridge collapse and the port closure, Snider talks about everything that’s planned at the marina in the months ahead: “There’s a sailing club that’s going to be here, we’ve got a kayak launch. We’ve got the Baltimore Dragon Boat Club’s going to be rowing out of here this year. So it’s very busy.”
He says that the bridge was beautiful. I’ve been the captain of boats under that bridge hundreds of times. It’s going to be a weird few years, not having that there in the picture.