‘When’ Port of Baltimore reopens is unclear as ‘how’ begins to take focus

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ANNAPOLIS — It will largely be up to the U.S. Coast Guard’s cleanup operations when cargo ship traffic in and out of the Port of Baltimore can resume following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, and top federal and state officials on Wednesday refrained from committing to a timeline.

U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen said during an evening press conference that the federal government will pay to clear the waterway, which is expected to cost between roughly $40 million and $50 million, according to preliminary estimates.

After debris has been removed, the first step will be to reopen one of the multiple shipping lanes along the Patapsco River, he said.

While ship traffic through the river into most of the Port of Baltimore has been “suspended until further notice,” the port is not fully closed and remains open to trucks, a spokesman for the Maryland Port Administration wrote in an email.

The remnants of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge, though, have cut off the vast majority of the Port of Baltimore from other regional waterways. How soon the waterway reopens will depend on how quickly responding agencies can complete their investigations and remove the collapsed bridge sections and other debris from the water.

As Tuesday’s search and rescue mission for six missing construction workers turned Wednesday to a recovering operation for those presumed dead, emergency responders began boarding and collecting evidence from the cargo ship that collided with the bridge and brought it down.

By evening, state and federal responders said they had recovered the remains of two of the missing workers, who had been trapped in a pickup truck.

The state identified the victims as Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, 35, of Baltimore, and Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, 26, of Dundalk.

Responders had also transitioned to a salvage operation because of dangerous diving conditions and the belief that vehicles were buried under large amounts of concrete and debris from the bridge.

“There’s no definitive timeline on this,” Secretary of State Police Col. Roland Butler said during an evening press conference. “Please be patient. Please keep the family members in mind.”

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The ship crew members remained aboard as of Wednesday afternoon and public briefings about the incident remained focused on the preliminary investigation into the events leading up to the catastrophe.

Both U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Coast Guard Vice Adm. Peter Gautier said during a news conference Wednesday that it was too soon to determine how long it will take to reopen the port or replace the bridge.

Removal of bridge pieces, construction vehicles, ship cargo and other debris in the river currently impeding ship travel will fall to the U.S. Coast Guard, with support from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Responding agencies are expected to have to begin removing the various debris to find the four people still missing.

The ship is still holding more than 1.5 million gallons of fuel, and more than 50 of its cargo containers contain hazardous materials, Gautier said. The vice admiral said the ship and its cargo remained stable and that there wasn’t a threat to the public.

State Sen. Johnny Ray Salling, a Republican representing Baltimore County who served in the Army as a combat engineer, said he expects the Army Corps of Engineers, and additional contractors it may employ, to lead efforts to clear the Patapsco River, likely using cranes on barges to lift debris from the water.

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Removing parts of the bridge, some of which remain atop the ship, may require engineers to cut and remove smaller pieces that machines can handle.

Salling said the removal process likely won’t begin until the National Transportation Safety Board concludes its investigation.

Benjamin Schafer, a civil and systems engineering professor at Johns Hopkins University, said Wednesday that he was still in “speculation mode” about how long it could take to clear and reopen the port and, eventually, rebuild the bridge.

“It’s weeks and months to remove the debris and reopen the shipping channel. I’d be shocked if it’s weeks, but I don’t think it’ll take even a year,” Schafer said during a webinar meeting. “It’s years to not just rebuild the bridge, but to actually recreate that whole transportation network.”

Schafer said that civil infrastructure projects of this magnitude rarely take less than 10 years to complete and tend to cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

Buttigieg, though, said that while it took five years to build the Francis Scott Key Bridge in the 1970s, it won’t necessarily take that long to replace.

Gov. Wes Moore on Wednesday was briefed about “efforts to initiate bridge replacement,” according to his office, though specifics weren’t immediately available.

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The Port of Baltimore, which started in the 17th century as an access point for tobacco trade with England, now generates more than 15,000 jobs and contributes to another 140,000, according to the Maryland Port Administration.

While the Port of Baltimore isn’t among the world’s largest, it’s vital for the local economy and plays a key role in both the regional and national economy by handling more automobiles and light trucks than any other port in the country.

The port is responsible for several billion dollars in personal wages and salaries, billions in business revenue and hundreds of millions in state and local tax revenue each year.

“Nobody imagined the port being closed. No one,” state Senate President Bill Ferguson said to reporters Wednesday. “It is this economic behemoth … but it’s in the background and it just happens, until it doesn’t.”

Ferguson and state Del. Luke Clippinger, a fellow Baltimore City Democrat, on Wednesday introduced emergency legislation to use rainy day funds to provide income replacement for workers and support small businesses affected by the port’s partial closure.

The bill will also free up funding for the port industry as a way to keep businesses from permanently moving their operations to another port in the region.

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Ferguson said the bill’s exact price tag wasn’t clear as of Wednesday. The cost of his proposal to assist workers, businesses and the broader industry will soon become clear as lawmakers have less than two weeks to pass the measure before the General Assembly session concludes April 8.

The Senate president said that he’s anticipating federal funding to backfill costs in the bill, but that “we can’t afford to wait for it.”

While the waterway to the port’s public and private marine terminals remains closed, cargo ships were expected to be diverted to other ports in the region or to the Tradepoint Atlantic global logistics hub at Sparrows Point, formerly home to a Bethlehem Steel mill.

After assisting search and rescue efforts, Tradepoint Atlantic announced Wednesday that it had resumed full operations and planned to accept additional ship traffic and related cargo.

On Wednesday morning, Tradepoint Atlantic accepted a regular shipment of Volkswagen vehicles that was the first cargo arriving at the Port of Baltimore since the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge early Tuesday morning.

“Yesterday’s events were tragic and will forever change the landscape of the Baltimore region,” Kerry Doyle, managing director of Tradepoint Atlantic, said in a statement. “Our primary focus is providing the facilities needed to expedite channel clearing efforts so that the Port of Baltimore can resume normal commercial activities.”

(This story has been updated.)