DEAL: LAMAR JACKSON HAVE REACHED AN AGREEMENT CONTRACT WITH THE 49ERS FOR THREE YEARS TO….
On March 26, six construction workers plunged to their deaths in the collapse. Four bodies have since been recovered.
Salvage crews are hoping to recover the two remaining bodies once more of the debris has been removed. They’re also working toward their goal of opening a temporary channel later this month that would allow more commercial traffic to resume through the Port of Baltimore, which has remained largely closed since the March 26 collapse. Officials plan to reopen the port’s main channel by the end of May.
So far, over 1,000 tons (907 metric tons) of steel have been removed from the waterway. But the work is tedious, dangerous and incredibly complex, leaders of the operation said Monday during a visit to the salvage yard at Tradepoint Atlantic, the only maritime shipping terminal currently operating in the Port of Baltimore.
Before removing any pieces of the bridge, divers are tasked with surveying the murky underwater wreckage and assessing how to safely extract the various parts. Coming up with a roadmap is among the biggest challenges, said Robyn Bianchi, an assistant salvage master on the project.
“There’s a lot of debris, there’s rebar, there’s concrete,” she said. “We don’t know what dangers are down there, so we have to be very methodical and slow with that.”
At the same time, crews are working to remove some containers from the cargo ship Dali before lifting steel spans off its bow and refloating the vessel.
“It presents a dynamic hazard,” said Joseph Farrell, CEO of Resolve Marine, which is working on refloating the ship. He said once that happens, the Dali will return to the Port of Baltimore. “Getting it out of there is a priority.”
The facility, which occupies the site of a former Bethlehem Steel plant northeast of Baltimore, has ramped up operations to accommodate some of the ships originally scheduled to dock at the port’s other terminals.
