This Francis Scott Key Bridge coming down overnight in Baltimore is going to effect hazardous material shipment as the trucks that deliver them are not allowed through the tunnels. They will have to go all the way around the 695 loop or find another way. Cargo ships are unable to get to port until bridge is removed from channel and investigation continues.
If nothing else it is probably going to add cost increases for Lithium batts, etc.
Crazy how quick that sucker came down, looks like something from a movie.
Condolences to the families involved.
Peace out.
Is this big enough that it would affect battery prices? The stores we buy from don’t use that port. I don’t think. Their big boat shipments, if they go Pacific, come in through Long Beach, and if they go Atlantic, through Newark.
But if it’s really bad who knows. Snowball effect. I haven’t looked at it yet but “collapse” isn’t a great sign lol
OK fair enough, you know better than me on that.
The port is only part of the chain.
If you bought it a truck brought it. That truck costs more to get it there? More $$$
Something you use/buy will be affected if you live in the USA east coast and maybe elsewhere.
This may be a surprise to some, but insurance companies also have insurance. A thing called reinsurance, because a “local” catastrophe like this can ruin many small or medium sized insurers. Underwriters are used to assess the risks and the premium for it. A famous name is Lloyds.
That makes sense. Now that you mention it, I might have read a little about reinsurance when I was reading about the Titanic insurance scam conspiracy.
For the uninitiated, the conspiracy is that the company that owned the Titanic substituted it’s sister ship the Olympic for the maiden voyage and then sank it on purpose for the insurance money. No, I don’t believe that happened, but it is one of the better conspiracies I’ve read.
Insured by the USA
Got no problem with my tax dollars going to this, a
lot more money gets spent on other stuff wayyyy less important than a major artery in the highway system.
Now, how long it takes from now till the ribbon cutting?
Anyone’s guess.
Good news for the steel companies, can you say 24/7 output?
Now we should take a poll in how long it takes people to hoard stuff out of fear, know it will happen.
And another reason to jack up oil.
Just shows how important proper infrastructure is.
Streets, railroads, all this can save life, give us new technology from research/developing and helps to get economy growing.
A shame that many (I mean, many!) countries does not put much effort to maintain and build these. This is also something that the opponents of such construction projects should think about - a thing especially here in Germany. They also benefit directly (and in the long term) from infrastructure.
It seems strange to me that when big bridges collapse many times there is a well below average number of cars and people on the bridge compared to how many people use them every day. Like the Key Bridge, Fern Hollow in Pittsburgh, I-35W bridge in MN and even the Cypress Street Viaduct in Oakland. Yes there were deaths and injuries on most of those but at numbers far lower than their average traffic numbers would suggest.
One exception was the Silver Bridge/ Point Pleasant Bridge over the Ohio of Mothman fame. It was loaded with cars at the time.
I think that the Oakland A’s vs SF Giants world series game kept the number of cars down during the 1989 earthquake. I used to wonder before the quake what would happen to it when I was stuck below it during rush hour traffic.
Did you guys listen to the police radio before the bridge collapsed? They barely closed the bridge in time. In the video just before impact you can see the last few cars crossing the bridge less than 45 seconds before it collapsed.
Like, damn. Talk about in the nick of time. Sadly not fast enough for those maintenance workers, you can see their trucks still on the bridge when it’s hit. On the police radio they were about to go warn those guys too. Having literally just finished closing the bridge. But then bam. Done.
