In the space of seconds, what took four years and $141 million to construct vanished.
Struck by the cargo ship Dali one week ago, the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed into the dark of the Patapsco River.
The size of the catastrophe and the ongoing recovery effort is beyond measure, starting with the loss of six construction workers who had been patching the surface of the bridge.
Working 24/7, it took crews until Sunday to remove the first section of the broken bridge, a portion that weighed 200 tons, “almost as heavy as the Statue of Liberty,” as Gov. Wes Moore said.
“The scale of this project is enormous,” Moore said Monday. “Even the small lifts are huge.”
Here, by the numbers, is an attempt to quantify the unquantifiable.
Height at peak: 185 feet
Length: 1.6 miles
Time to construct: 5 years
Time between impact and collapse: less than 1 minute
Time to build replacement, estimated: 2-15 years
Cost to build: $141 million in the 1970s
Cost to replace, estimated: at least $400 million
Launched: Dec. 27, 2014
Sister ship: the Cezanne, which has a different owner, departed Baltimore on March 16, also en route to Sri Lanka
Crew: 21 men, initially reported as 22, but one had rotated out before the collision
Number of containers it was carrying: 4,679
Capacity: 10,000 containers
How many contain hazardous materials: 56
How many destroyed on impact: 14
How many floating in the water: at least 2
Weight: 95,128 metric tons empty
Weight leaving Port of Baltimore: 112,383 metric tons
Value of ship as it left the port: less than $90 million
Repair cost: at least $28 million
Salvage cost: at least $19.5 million
Value currently: about $42.5 million
Number of Google searches in the U.S. for “Baltimore Bridge” on March 26, 2024: more than 10 million
Number of views of one video of the bridge collapse (https://twitter.com/BNONews/status/1772515766929097088/video/1) posted on X, formerly known as Twitter: 101.6 million as of Monday
Number of views of a post on X of Baltimore Fire Department unit arriving on scene and saying on radio, “Be advised, the entire bridge, the entire Key Bridge is in the harbor” (https://twitter.com/doyle0213/status/1772550665526517790): 150,800 as of Monday
Number of personnel assisting: 377, as of Friday
Pieces of equipment, includes:
– 10 tugboats
– 9 barges
– 8 cranes
Largest crane: Chesapeake 1000, capable of lifting 1,000 short tons (2 million pounds)
Sources: The Baltimore Sun, The Associated Press, Donjon Marine Co. Inc., Key Bridge Response 2024 Unified Command, National Transportation Safety Board, Petition to limit liability filed by owner and manager of the Dali, office of Maryland Gov. Wes Moore
Baltimore Sun reporters Darcy Costello, Hayes Gardner, Maya Lora and Lia Russell contributed to this article.