Mississippi River bridges that were built around the time of or before the recently collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore should be assessed for their vulnerability to a boat collision, city mayors said and towns along the river.
Norma Jean Mattei, past president of the American Society of Civil Engineers, also made this assessment on March 28, participating in a press conference organized by The Mississippi River and Towns Initiative, a coalition of more than 100 mayors along the Mississippi River from Minnesota to Louisiana,
The Key Bridge, which was built in 1977, was struck by a container ship and fell into the Patapsco River on March 26.
Mattei cited several bridges that may need evaluation: the Vicksburg Bridge in Mississippi, which was built in 1930; the Crescent City Bridge in New Orleans, opened in 1938; the Huey P. Long Bridge in Jefferson Parish La., which dates from 1935; and the Hale Boggs Memorial Bridge in the parish of St. Charles, Louisiana, which opened in 1983.
He said that until 1991, bridges were not required to be assessed for potential ship collision risk.
“Many of our crossings [on the Mississippi] they’re older and maybe they’ve never had a full-fledged ship collision assessment, so that’s a lesson learned,” he said.
While not all bridges will have to be evaluated, Mattei said there should be intervals when some should be evaluated and triggers, such as a change in frequency, should be established. or the type of river traffic.
“A trigger can be an increase in vessel traffic or the size or type of vessels,” he said. “We should look at those bridges where larger ships can pass compared to what we’re used to seeing.”
Mattei noted that the Mississippi River doesn’t generally see traffic of the type of massive container ship that hit the Key Bridge. However, as ENR reported in 2022, a $238 million effort is underway to deepen the lower river and will allow larger “Post Panamax” marine vessels to use the waterway and access the ports of ‘this area.
The term “Post Panamax” refers to the expansion of the Panama Canal in 2016 that created new locks to accommodate large ships.
Mattei noted that other factors, such as the speed of river waters, could also play a role in an assessment and boats coming into contact with a bridge.
Colin Wellenkamp, executive director of the mayors’ group, said $40 billion in the bipartisan Infrastructure Act is earmarked for bridges and “one of the priorities” is resiliency.
“There are needs here and there are resources that are being pushed out,” he says. “This is an opportunity to analyze risks and assess them.”
