By MIKE PESOLI and JEFFREY COLLINS (Associated Press)
BALTIMORE (AP) — While workers kept at the complex and careful task of taking away the steel and cement from the fallen Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, some nearby took time on Easter Sunday to think about the six workers presumed to have fallen to their deaths.
As cranes sometimes moved into position and workers measured and cut the steel to get ready to lift parts of bent steel, Rev. Ako Walker led a Mass in Spanish at Sacred Heart of Jesus, approximately 5 miles (8 kilometers) up the Patapsco River from the collapse.
“Yes we can reconstruct a bridge, but we have to consider the way in which migrant workers are treated and how we can enhance their situation as they come to the United States of America,” Walker said of the men who were from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador and were patching potholes.
The bridge collapsed early Tuesday when the crew of the cargo ship Dali lost power and control. They called in a mayday, which allowed just enough time for police to stop vehicles from getting on the bridge, but not enough time to get a crew of eight workers off the structure.
Two workers survived, two bodies were found in a submerged pickup and four more men are presumed dead. Weather conditions and the tangled debris underwater have made it too dangerous for divers to search for their bodies.
Each part of the bridge removed from the water will be lifted onto a barge and floated downstream to the Tradepoint Atlantic logistics center, where it will be inspected, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Shannon Gilreath said.
All the actions of the salvage workers impact what happens next and ultimately how long it will take to remove all the debris and reopen the ship channel and the blocked Port of Baltimore, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said.
It can also change the course of the National Transportation Safety Board investigation, which Moore said is important to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
“We need to have answers on what happened. We need to know who should be responsible for this. And we need to make sure we’re holding them responsible,” Moore said Sunday on CNN.
The crew of the Dali, which is as long as the Eiffel Tower is tall, remains onboard the ship. The vessel is entangled in 3,000 to 4,000 tons of debris. Most of its containers remain intact, but a few were torn open or knocked away by the falling debris.
The Dali is managed by Synergy Marine Group and owned by Grace Ocean Private Ltd. Danish shipping giant Maersk chartered Dali, which was on its way out of port when it hit the bridge’s support column.
In addition to clearing the shipping channel to reopen the port, officials are trying to figure out how to reconstruct the major bridge, which was completed in 1977 and carried Interstate 695 around southeast Baltimore and was a vital link to the city’s centuries of maritime culture.
It took five years to build the original bridge. President Joe Biden’s administration has pledged to pay the full cost to rebuild and state and federal transportation officials said they will work as quickly as possible.
But it's currently not possible to determine exactly how long it will take to build the new bridge. Engineers have not been able to inspect the condition of the ramps and smaller bridges leading to the collapsed structure in order to fully understand what needs to be done.
It is expected that Congress will consider aid packages to assist individuals who lose their jobs or businesses due to the extended closure of the Port of Baltimore. The port handles a larger amount of cars and farm equipment than any other U.S. facility.
“This is important to people in rural North Carolina, Kansas, and Iowa. This is significant to the global economy, and should not be a topic tied to any political party. We are discussing a tragedy that affects an American city,” Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
The Small Business Administration will open a center in Dundalk, Maryland, on Monday to help small businesses obtain loans to compensate for the losses caused by the bridge collapse disruption.
The workers were not members of Sacred Heart of Jesus, whose pews were filled on Sunday for mass. However, the pastor, Walker, reached out to the families because the Latino community in Baltimore is large and tightly connected, as he explained.
He stated that they were respectable men working not only to support their families in the U.S., but also to assist relatives in their home countries.
Walker hopes that their experiences will inspire people to support migrant workers who strive to enhance their lives and communities.
“In these challenging situations, we must be supportive of one another. Our lives should serve as small acts of kindness, hope, unity, and community building,” Walker said.
___
Collins reported from Columbia, South Carolina. Associated Press writers Sarah Brumfield in Washington, D.C.; Kristin M. Hall in Nashville, Tennessee; Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee; and Lisa Baumann in Bellingham, Washington, contributed.
