Posted on August 19, 2024
NEW CASTLE, Del — Several years ago, Delaware state officials had to justify sinking millions into a costly bridge protection system that may never be needed. Months after Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed, they’re glad they made that decision.
“We jokingly call this the golden goose,” said Greg Pawlowski, a senior project engineer with the Delaware River and Bay Authority (DRBA).
He’s referring to the Delaware Memorial Bridge. A main thoroughfare just off I-95 connecting Delaware and New Jersey. Around 100,000 vehicles travel the two-mile stretch daily.
“This funds everything that we have,” Pawlowski said.
Which is why they couldn’t risk it ever coming down. According to Pawlowski, there is a 1 in 10,000 annual frequency of a collapse due to vessel collision. It’s an extremely rare occurrence that no one thought would happen, until it did, just over an hour south in Baltimore.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed the morning of March 26 after the Dali, a 947-foot container ship, lost power and struck the pier supporting the central truss of the bridge. It quickly crumbled into the Patapsco River killing six construction workers.
The investigation into how and why it happened is still ongoing. The National Transportation Safety Board is also examining pier protection and whether federal standards need to be updated.
This topic surfaced more than 40 years ago following a significant ship strike.
Previous bridge disaster sparked discussion around bridge protection
“The one system that pretty much pushed all this along was the Sunshine Skyway [Bridge] that’s when things changed, and the rules came out that said all new bridges at a certain period of time must have a system in place,” said Pawlowski.
“But not older bridges?” asked WMAR-2 News Mallory Sofastaii.
“Not older bridges,” Pawlowski confirmed.
The Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Tampa collapsed after a ship strike in 1980 that killed 35 people. Three years later, the Federal Highway Administration issued an advisory on the importance of designing “piers on new bridges in such a way that the risks of collision are reduced to an acceptable level.”
The Key Bridge was built in the 1970’s and the Delaware Memorial Bridge first opened to the public in 1951. While neither was required to make safety enhancements, Delaware recognized as cargo ships dramatically increased in size, and so do the chances of a ship strike.
“And our current system certainly isn’t adequate enough to take on a large ship, like the Dali,” Pawlowski added.
This realization by engineers resulted in the proposal for the Delaware Memorial Bridge Dolphin Protection System.
The DRBA is now installing eight solid-fill dolphins measuring 80-feet in diameter and strategically positioning them around the piers supporting the main towers of the bridge.
In Baltimore, four dolphins boxed in the Key Bridge, but they were just 25-feet in diameter and distanced from the piers.
“So in the case of the Dali with the Key Bridge, it missed one of the dolphins and hit the pier, could that happen here?” Sofastaii asked. “The location of them is set so that ships coming in on an errant direction will hit one or more of them,” Pawlowski replied.
Making the case for a costly bridge protection system and funding it
This design comes at an enormous cost, which Pawlowski’s team had to fight for.
“Well, the original cost was $45 million,” said Pawlowski. “COVID came around, we went through this finished up design, we bid it, and the price of steel had escalated so much that the bids came in, the lowest bid came in at $116 million. We ended up with a project that was about $92 million.”
“When you find out that this project is now going to be double what you budgeted for, did you experience a lot of push back or was everyone on board?” Sofastaii asked.
“Yes, there was a lot of push back. You have to recognize that there’s people saying, one, it’s costing double, where are we going to get this money from? Two, is it really worth it?” said Pawlowski.
The DRBA looked at the costs of building a new bridge. In Baltimore, it’s estimated to be nearly $2 billion. They thought about the impact to economic development, and Pawlowski said the key to approval came in the form of a federal grant.
In 2018, Delaware was awarded a federal grant for $22,249,850, about a quarter of the project’s final cost. Maryland also applied for these federal infrastructure grants.
WMAR-2 News reviewed awards dating back to 2013 and found the Port of Baltimore received over $16 million to increase handling capacity and better accommodate larger vessels, but there weren’t any projects focused on bridge safety, despite concerns over ship strikes being raised in 2006.
An aerial view of the Delaware Bridge construction project
Documented concerns surrounding Key Bridge and ship strikes
The Washington Post uncovered meeting minutes from Baltimore’s Harbor Safety and Coordination Committee where members acknowledged the Key Bridge was not designed to withstand collisions from larger vessels but there were no current proposals, and these projects were very costly. The topic disappeared from future meeting minutes in 2016.
Eight years later, the unthinkable did happen prompting federal and state agencies to re-evaluate protective systems while Delaware puts the final touches on theirs.
“I mean, until that happened, everybody kind of looked at you like you’re really spending a lot of money for what reason? And now, everybody’s knocking on our door, how can I get one and when?” said Pawlowski.
When asked why the agency didn’t make plans for bridge protection systems when concerns were first raised in 2006, Maryland Transportation Authority Executive Director Bruce Gartner said he wasn’t there during that time.
“The evaluation of the risk for the pier protection at that time was, you know, well, we’ve got certainty of the pilots and the ships, so I don’t know what more to say other than the focus now on moving forward is what we need to do for our structures,” said Gartner.
And because they didn’t have a pier protection project in the works, they didn’t apply for federal grant money. They’ve also had to prioritize more pressing projects such as immediate deck replacement on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.
“I think the NTSB, and the chair of the NTSB, basically, in her testimony to Congress basically told all of us, you need to be looking at, you know, pier protection now. So I think all around the country they’re doing that analysis,” said Gartner.
During that hearing in May, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said they’re aiming to release their final report within 18 months, however, urgent bridge safety recommendations may be released at any time.
Experts also question whether any kind of system could’ve prevented the Key Bridge collapse due to the size of the Dali.
Another factor is the design of the Key Bridge. According to the NTSB, the bridge was fracture-critical and lacked built-in redundancies, which means if a critical piece of the bridge support collapses, the whole bridge is susceptible to collapse. The Delaware Memorial Bridge is a suspension bridge with built-in redundancy. This is more in line with today’s bridge safety standards.
Delaware’s dolphin protection system is on track to be completed by September 2025.
