Lessons from Skyway disaster failed to help protect Baltimore bridge

After the Sunshine Skyway bridge was hit by a freighter and collapsed in 1980, new protection measures were installed around the supports that hold the bridge up.

Engineers put in place island-like mounds of rocks that shore up the tallest support columns and huge, disc-like structures called dolphins that act as bumpers blocking wayward ships. Engineers around the country followed suit to help strengthen bridge protections.

But when a ship struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore on Tuesday, video of the bridge’s catastrophic collapse seemed to show that the structures protecting the supports of the bridge were minimal compared to the Skyway. Engineering experts and maritime lawyers say not enough safeguards were in place.

“From what I have seen so far, there was basically no protection around the two main piers in the channel,” said Joseph McHugh, a forensic consultant with more than 40 years of highway, bridge and building construction experience. “With the kind of traffic that bridge gets and the large vessels that frequent that port, I just think someone dropped the ball here.”

McHugh said the Skyway’s safeguards seem strong. He isn’t sure why the bridge in Baltimore wasn’t better protected — Baltimore, like Tampa, has one of the busiest ports in America — but that engineers probably aren’t to blame. He said that more funds need to be given to bridge and infrastructure projects.

“We all pay a certain tax on every gallon of gasoline that we put into our vehicles, and all of that money is supposed to go to infrastructure,” McHugh said. “But of course, politicians often take money from that and use it elsewhere.”

Steve Yerrid, a lawyer who represented the harbor pilot who crashed the Summit Venture into the Skyway 44 years ago, told the Tampa Bay Times that the piers of the Francis Scott Key bridge were “naked.”

“There were no big concrete abutments surrounding it, no dry land like the Skyway has,” Yerrid said. “I feel for those people that lost loved ones, because there’s nothing worse than losing someone prematurely and, worst of all, unnecessarily. That bridge should have been protected.”

Some Maryland officials knew it decades ago. The day of the Skyway disaster, the director of the state’s toll and bridge agency told the Baltimore Sun that the Francis Scott Key Bridge had some concrete dolphins protecting piers on both sides, but that they would not protect the bridge from a strike from a ship that large.

Lessons from the Skyway bridge disaster were highlighted in guidelines published by the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials in 1991. The group explained requirements for new bridges, gave guidance for retrofitting old structures and recommended stronger protections.

Jose R. Cot, a maritime lawyer in New Orleans, said the kind of dolphin protection around the Sunshine Skyway isn’t mandated by law, but that increased safeguards are a standard in the bridge building industry and have been for decades.

“They are guidelines in the industry that certainly point to what should be done to protect bridge piers from situations like this,” Cot said.

Cot said adding layers of security protections can increase the cost of bridge projects, which may be why the guidelines weren’t made mandatory.

Since the fall of the Skyway, Yerrid has educated himself on bridge protections and advocates for safer practices. He wonders why updates weren’t put in place for the Baltimore bridge.

“I would love to hear the explanation as to why that wasn’t done for 44 years after we knew how to do it,” Yerrid said.

Maryland officials did not respond Wednesday to questions about protections in place at the Francis Scott Key Bridge. A spokesperson referred the Times to statements made by U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, but did not clarify which of the many statements they were referring to.

During a White House news briefing on Wednesday, Buttigieg said the Key “was simply not made to withstand a direct impact on a critical support pier from a vessel that weighs about 200 million pounds.” Asked if the bridge should have had dolphins or other protective measures, Buttigieg demurred.

“I don’t want to get ahead of any investigation,” he said. “Part of what’s being debated is whether any design feature now known would have made a difference in this case. We’ll get more information on that as the investigation proceeds.”

At the time of the Skyway collapse, there was little federal oversight of measures designed to keep bridges safe from ships. The original Skyway had much smaller, fender-like barriers made of aging timber.

Adding dolphins around the base, while expensive, was among the first suggested improvements after the disaster. Plans for the new Skyway called for 36 dolphins at a cost of $36 million. They would contain up to 6,700 tons of crushed rock and be able to withstand nearly 30 million pounds of pressure — more than enough to have stopped the Summit Venture.

By the time the bridge opened in 1987, only four dolphins had been completed. But their impact was proven the day before the Skyway’s grand opening, when a 70-foot shrimp boat with a malfunctioning autopilot rammed into one about a third of a mile from the site of the 1980 crash.

Dolphins have been credited with stopping other ship disasters. In 2011, a runaway barge on the Mississippi River bounced off a dolphin below a rail bridge in La Crescent, Minnesota, causing only superficial damage to the bridge itself.

Other bridges near major shipping ports also have protective measures. There are dolphins around the Dames Point Bridge in Jacksonville and barrier islands surrounding the pylons of the Sydney Lanier Bridge in Brunswick, Georgia. The Delaware Memorial Bridge, a gateway to Philadelphia’s port, is in the midst of a nearly $100 million collision mitigation project that includes eight 80-foot dolphins.

Florida Department of Transportation spokesperson Michael Williams said the state “maintains continuous coordination” with agencies that have a stake in shipping channels, including local law enforcement, port authorities and the U.S. Coast Guard, to make sure safety measures are “comprehensive.”

“The safety and integrity of our bridge infrastructure is a fundamental commitment that we rigorously uphold,” Williams said in an email.

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