Again, a moment to pause & appreciate the cool professionalism of those in & around the Key Bridge at 1:24 am Tuesday. Ship’s pilot radios in that ship has lost steerage & will hit bridge. Someone (maritime control?) transmits urgent alert to Maryland/Balt police dispatch… —>
2/ Police dispatched with just a few crisp phrases—ship has lost steering, close the bridge to traffic—and race to do just that. No time for confusion. No time for … ‘What do you mean, close the bridge? Who says?’ 4 minutes, alert to collapse. Bridge successfully closed… —>
3/ That’s amazing. Again, a system worked—a government system. All those people just ordinary frontline workers in anonymous, sometimes invisible jobs. Maritime radio operators. Police/fire dispatchers. Bridge police & state police. All working 11p to 7a o’night shift. —>
4/ Cool, direct, urgent, successful. Maybe not a college degree or a 6-figure salary among them—and they used their training & experience at the most critical, high-pressure moment to save lives. All day, every day—that happens & we don’t see it. That’s your ‘deep state.’ —>
5/ Just in Port of Baltimore, 45 cargo container ships come & go every 24 hours. 16,000 ships a year. They require all this guidance all the time (and US has 8 LARGER ports). Each ship with 5,000 containers loaded & unloaded. Not to mention… —>
6/ The 8 construction workers on the bridge—patching potholes in the middle of the night, so the road stays maintained, at a time that reduces inconvenience to us (and yes, is easier for them too because of low traffic). Every night… —>
7/ Every night, 5 or 6 days a wk, men & women just like them do that dangerous work on interstates & bridges in all 50 states. Here’s the moment: An officer who closed one of the approaches says on radio…‘Can we notify the construction workers? Can we call the supervisor?’ —>
8/ The officer was ready to drive out & warn the workers when someone on the radio — seconds later — said, The bridge is down. The whole bridge. That unnamed officer had been immediately thinking about how to save those guys out on the bridge—workers just like him. Thanks. —>
9/ Thanks to all these folks who make the world run, and run safely 99% of the time, and work with skill, grace, clear-headedness in invisible but essential jobs. Even as disaster unfolded Tuesday after midnight, they were at work.
@cfishman I wish there was some sort of alarm on that ship that could have alerted those workers so they could have bolted
@cfishman Agreed the response was exceptional but why was there no way to alert the workers on the bridge? Maybe they could have started running…
@cfishman That’s got to be a great comfort to their families—they weren’t forgotten, there just wasn’t enough time to save them.
@cfishman Thank you for this! I was wondering why the workers weren’t notified. Hopefully lessons learned and procedures will be implemented to protect them in the future.
@cfishman By not requiring funding for radios or cell communication to the construction workers, the unnecessary expense of notifying them was also saved.
@cfishman This is why all public works (PW) must be on Project 25 (P25) first responders land mobile radio systems. Further, PW must be included in emergency training scenarios such as this.This is a painful lesson learned, but I’ll wager they were not on the interoperable P25 LMR system
@cfishman Heartbreaking. That happened and heroes did appear. Prayers for the loss of life. The city and the crews
@cfishman Wow. Makes it so much more sad knowing there was time to close down the bridge but no one was able to warn those workers. I don't know why, but that really hits me.