“The bridge is gone!”.
Those were the first words I heard yesterday morning.
What in the world could “The bridge is gone!”
It literally meant the bridge was gone.
Clem had a great point when talking about this on The Rundown.
You never expect to see a 1.6 mile bridge completely collapse like a house of cards in seconds.
I mean it dropped like a sack of potatoes, just like that.
I couldn’t stop watching it, it didn’t look real.
It didn’t feel real.
Looked like something out of a movie.
6 hard working guys filling potholes to earn a living.
Nothing you’re free to do and you know it.
Such an incredibly sad incident that unfolded.
It’s sad 6 lives were lost but it truly is a miracle it wasn’t more.
These people not only did their job, but they’re heroes.
If they hadn’t acted so quickly this could have been a much greater loss of human life.
Incredible job by the dispatch and the units to quickly form a plan and get it into place.
As Riggs once said, look at the timestamps.
And thank god this wasn’t at 7 or 8 am during rush hour.
The losses would have been just unspeakable.
It was almost like a landmark out there, connecting the Glen Burnie/Pasadena area to the Dundalk/Essex area.
Losing that entire section for years will have such a negative impact on traffic.
And let me remind you again, people are dead.
35,000 cars would go over that bridge everyday, around 65,000 cars go through those tunnels in Baltimore everyday.
You’re adding 35,000 new cars to those tunnels.
Tractor trailers would take that route because they can’t go through the tunnels.
That is a massive issue now as well.
Plus countless cruise ships and of course an insane amount of other exports and imports.
This will cause massive changes in the shipping game, you know that is coming.
But this will jack up everything for quite a while.
Shipping channels will be behind and congested for months, the entire region is going to feel this impact.
Shipping will be changed forever.
Again, no one more than the families who are missing loved ones, I want that clear.
It’s just shocking to see an event like this in what is basically the backyard of Baltimore.
And then it comes down to building an entire new bridge.
And I haven’t even talked about how much this will cost, has to be Billions.
The liquor store I go to is called “Key Bridge Liquors”.
This thing wasn’t just a bridge, it honestly felt like a landmark.
It’s how I got to Jimmys Seafood every time I’d go.
It’s how I got to the baseball card shops I go to.
Imagine the Golden Gate Bridge just falling into the water, how weird would that be?
And unless you’ve driven UP it, you really can’t explain how big it was.
1.6 miles almost directly up it feels like.
You could look out and see Fort Carroll as you headed into Dundalk which was my favorite part.
Such a cool place.
But again, we’ve all been up there and wondered “what if…..”.
Your mind just naturally goes to it.
Unfortunately we found out what would happen and it’s a tragedy.
Now I’ve never lived in Baltimore city, I’m just outside it.
I’ve driven over this thing hundreds of times, hundreds.
I have friends who have taken this bridge basically every day of their lives.
It’s not really just a bridge to people who live in or around the Baltimore area.
I’m sorry that Baltimore lost one of its iconic structures in a matter of seconds.
It always just felt like it was in the background, no matter what it was always there.
Sometimes you couldn’t see it cuz of fog or something, but you knew it was there.
It’s an eery thought to think it’s not.
RIP to those who lost their lives.
