Cleanup continues after the Key Bridge collapse

Key Bridge recovery efforts continue tonight Crews have already removed hundreds of thousands of pounds of metal from the water today Fox 45's Maxine Striker had the opportunity to go out on the water with the Army Corps of Engineers to see the progress firsthand three weeks after the collapse of the Key Bridge work continues here to clear the channel you can see that massive 5,000 ton span of the bridge still lying across the top of the dolly but the focus still remains on recovering two of the construction workers still in the water as their families await closure on a foggy morning along the Patapsco River megon from Best of Traffic Roger good copy the keybridge collapse site eerily comes into view from the deck of the US Army Corps of Engineers steel debris vessel the Reynolds we have the absolute best team we possibly could on here it's far from Colonel estd P's first trip out here concrete was each time she says it's just as striking while a 5,000 ton span remains on the Dolly's bow it's evident in just the past 24 days progress has been made there was a tremendous span that was going right into the water that was 1500 tons with the um reinforced concrete roadway that had to be dug out that was laying and deep into uh the mudline so the effort to remove that span was just incredible it's incredible to think about what you can't see under the water and that's the really complex work yes so you've had those two big spans that everyone saw right in the channel right in the middle you've got two other spans that are collapsed on top of each other and mangled in such a way that we're not going to be able to cut those we're going to have to be digging portions of that out the next step in the complex and dangerous operation opening a 280 foot wide 25 foot deep limited access Channel to allow about 80% of vessel traffic to come through they hope to have that done by the end of the month the big effort that we're taking now is to remove that portion that's hanging off of the pier as for refloating the dolly more than 100 containers still need to be removed for the Army Corps to move into the next stage of their operation cutting the massive truss on board the nation's top Salvage experts are on the job the largest crane on the east coast is removing the wreckage and bringing it here to trade Point Atlantic this span right here more than 500 tons was removed this week and you can see it's just caked in mud from being pulled out of the water so far 1,000 tons have been removed and brought here to be cut up into smaller pieces but not to be forgotten are the construction workers a fourth victim's body was recovered this week in a vehicle submerged in the water while two are still missing we we've had the opportunity to exercise our system twice successfully where under the water there was indication that there might be a missing person and we were able to immediately bring in those divers to conduct that operation and Jason says they're just as committed to Bringing closure to the families as they are to the engineering operations at hand I think about the wives that are missing their husbands and thinking about how they they just so much want to know where they are and to give them that closure which is very hard to capture and so we think about them knowing that there's some there could be there or there or there and the salvers know this it's a part of their plan they're always on the lookout for this it's like they're wired for it things do look a lot different I was out here just one week ago and you can see the progress here on the water there's more cranes more work being done but it is a complex and tedious process still so much work ahead of them as they work towards that goal of opening the port's main Channel by the end of May in Baltimore Maxine Striker Fox 45 News I'm Mary Bubala thank you for watching here's another video for you to watch also take some time to subscribe to our YouTube channel

Channel: WBFF FOX45 Baltimore

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Length: 4min 32sec (272 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 18 2024