Just saw some pretty wild video of an active bridge over Baltimore harbor completely collapse. Early reports are day that authorities are searching for at least 20 people. It's believed that the cause of the bridge failure was a cargo ship that made contact with one of the support columns. 

 

 

Holy Cow!!!

Looks like ship was in distress, losing power off and on and huge amount of smoke coming from it prior to hitting the bridge. 

 

 

31,000 cars a day cross the FSK Bridge, all of that traffic will now be forced to use one of two tunnels.

Side note, Thank God this didn't happen during rush hour when the bridge was loaded with commuters. 

This is basically one of my greatest “irrational” fears - that I’ll be on a bridge that collapses. Just horrific and yes, thankful this happened at the time of night it did to limit casualties. 

This shows the size and power of these container ships. The bridge folded like an erector set. Terribly sad situation. @Jumper_Dad mentioned the time of day; I think I saw something this morning that the rescue squad thought it was somewhere between 7-20 cars on the bridge when it collapsed.

Going to be a major supply chain ripple effect. Baltimore is a major coastal harbor. I have to think this would increase river traffic along the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. 

7 hours ago, gchs_uk9 said:

This shows the size and power of these container ships. The bridge folded like an erector set. Terribly sad situation. @Jumper_Dad mentioned the time of day; I think I saw something this morning that the rescue squad thought it was somewhere between 7-20 cars on the bridge when it collapsed.

Erector set is exactly what came to my mind when I saw it the first time.  The whole bridge got knocked out in a flash.  And yes on the ship, nearly three football fields long and probably carrying close to 100,000 tons.  

Two people rescued still 6 missing. 

20 minutes ago, Breds82 said:

Two people rescued still 6 missing. 

I think that's been the report since early yesterday. But as of late yesterday evening, the 6 missing are now presumed dead.

I am curious how they were able to stop traffic so quickly. The ship mayday call was just a couple minutes before it hit the bridge yet they were able to stop traffic going onto the bridge. How did they do that? Toll gates?

32 minutes ago, Voice of Reason said:

I am curious how they were able to stop traffic so quickly. The ship mayday call was just a couple minutes before it hit the bridge yet they were able to stop traffic going onto the bridge. How did they do that? Toll gates?

I believe the distress signal went out to emergency responders and they halted traffic.