With massive cranes lifting containers around the crowded stacks of the Seagirt Marine Terminal in the background, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore uttered the words he said he’d been waiting to say for nearly three months: “The Port of Baltimore is reopened for business.”
Moore — on the sunny docks of the harbor flanked by state and federal officials Wednesday — celebrated this week’s relaunch of the full shipping channel for the first time since the Francis Scott Key Bridge fell March 26 after being hit by a container ship, the Dali.
The 50-foot-deep, 700-foot-wide federal channel opened Monday night. It was the end of an estimated $160 million response and the gradual expansion of shipping lanes as 50,000 tons of bridge debris were cleared from the water, and the Dali — now parked at the terminal — was finally moved from the crash site.
It also marked a new chapter in the Key Bridge disaster, one now focused on rebuilding a fallen icon of Baltimore’s skyline.
“Now we can see the Dali’s gone. Now we can see the wreckage is clear. We know that progress is possible. But I will not be satisfied until I can look over on the Patapsco and see the Key Bridge standing tall again,” Moore said.
Moore and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg greeted longshoremen whose work at the Port of Baltimore was uncertain during the pause in shipping activity. In a speech shortly after, the governor spoke about state and federal efforts to protect 3,000 jobs from layoffs, provide $37 million to businesses that rely on the port, and $6.4 million specifically to women- and minority-owned businesses.
Buttigieg echoed Moore’s thoughts on the all-agency response and spoke of the “inspirational” work to return the port to “full steam ahead.”
His speech was interrupted briefly when a port worker standing nearby in the heat fell — with the governor helping to catch him and then carrying his legs as multiple others brought him to a nearby police car. The temperature at the port was in the mid-80s on Wednesday. After a brief delay, the governor announced that the man was all right.
Port officials said roll-on, roll-off cargo at the port has mostly returned to levels from before the shipping lane was clogged, but it could take one to two months for other imports, particularly routes from Asia, to return to normal. Those types of larger foreign imports started resuming operations in recent weeks.
Buttigieg applauded the “remarkable resilience” of the response, echoing an interview with reporters before the event when he stressed the urgency of getting the port operational.
“There were impacts to the East Coast supply chain,” he said of the site, which handles more automobile imports than any other port in the country, among other major goods like farm equipment. “But I’ll also say that we were really impressed and heartened to see how quickly different players adapted even [in] really complicated situations,” Buttigieg said.
Moore spoke at length about the speed of the response, especially with some experts originally predicting a year of work before the shipping channel would reopen.
“Instead of 11 months, we got this thing done in 11 weeks,” Moore said.
The process, according to new estimates, has cost roughly $160 million.
Army Corps of Engineers Maj. Gen. William H. Graham said before the event that his agency has invoiced $64 million during the salvage efforts, with that figure expected to grow to up to $75 million. An additional $24 million in “indirect and direct” costs have come from work conducted by the Coast Guard, said Rear Adm. Shannon Gilreath.
Those costs do not include the $60 million in federal emergency relief funds that Democratic President Joe Biden authorized in the days after the bridge collapse. Maryland Transportation Secretary Paul Wiedefeld said the state has spent almost all of that, mostly in the process of opening the temporary shipping channels before this week’s reopening of the full federal channel. The state is considering whether it will need to request additional emergency funding, he said.
Biden has vowed to pay for the entire cleanup and rebuilding of the bridge — with latest estimates showing a $1.7 billion rebuild to be completed by 2028.
The bridge is likely, but not guaranteed, to be cable-stayed, but few details have been decided. The Maryland Transportation Authority is accepting proposals from contractors — who have until June 24 to submit them — and will select a builder during the summer.
The request for proposals that the authority sent out details requirements for the first phase of the project. The goal is for at least 26% of the work to be completed by businesses that are majority-owned by Disadvantaged Business Enterprises, meaning they qualify as “disadvantaged” based on their race, economic factors, or other criteria.
Proposed builders are required to identify several key staff members, including a project manager and design manager, as well as a vessel collision protection design manager — someone with 10 years of experience in designing protection systems that prevent ship strikes.
The new bridge will have four lanes (two in each direction) like the old bridge and will span the same area as the old one.
During a virtual event with community members Tuesday, transportation authority officials fielded questions, including some about ways to mitigate vehicular traffic. They said they were not currently contemplating adding ferry service as a temporary fix, nor would they be constructing a lane or two of the bridge more quickly than others in an effort to get a crossing up faster.
“For a bridge of this length and height, it’s not typical to build it in stages,” Brian Wolfe, the transportation authority’s director of project development, said.
The bridge will be constructed using a design-build approach, which is speedier than what is typical because it does not require all the plans to be in place before work starts. Still, it’ll be at least four years before the bridge is expected to open.
Asked whether it could open earlier, Wolfe said: “While we believe fall 2028 is aggressive … we also anticipate providing incentives to our design and construction partners to get the project completed sooner.”
Despite the celebratory mood Wednesday, some warned of the work that remains. Tom Perez, a senior White House adviser and former Maryland and U.S. secretary of labor, said he learned in a recent roundtable with business owners and workers who depend on the port that they remain “fearful.”
“They still feel angst because we still have more work to do. Nobody’s here spiking the football,” Perez said. “This is a milestone, it’s not the end zone. We have more work ahead.”
Baltimore Sun reporter Jean Marbellla contributed to this article.
