How Do You Move a Massive Ship and Broken Bridge? It Could Keep Baltimore Port Closed for Weeks

In this article by USA Today, Global Resilience Institute director Dr. Stephen Flynn weighs in on the bridge collapse in Baltimore.

Excerpt:

It may be several weeks or a couple months before enough of the channel is cleared that the port can start to be incrementally opened up, said Stephen Flynn, a professor of political science and civil and environmental engineering at Northeastern University.

“It doesn’t have to be 100% clear in order to turn the lights back on and have the port moving again,” Flynn said, adding it could take a year or more to completely clear the wreckage.

Flynn said it’s vital that the efforts to remove the debris aren’t put on hold until after an investigation into the cause of the crash and bridge collapse is complete. They must be done in parallel because it is too costly, both for the shipping industry and for people’s lives, to wait.

“This is a really hard, messy problem… It’s a bit like a really complex, dangerous jigsaw puzzle,” he said. “Will it be solved? Absolutely. We have a lot of capability in the U.S.”