Critical Baltimore Shipping Channel Reopens 11 Weeks After Bridge Collapse

It took more than 2,000 people working for nearly 11 weeks, but the main shipping channel into the Port of Baltimore, which had been clogged by the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, has fully reopened.

In announcing the restoration of the channel on Monday, officials with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said a survey of the site confirmed that the channel was safe for transit at its original depth of 50 feet.

“We are proud of the unified efforts that fully reopened the Federal Channel to port operations,” Lt. Gen. Scott Spellmon, commanding general of the corps, said in a statement.

The 700-foot-wide channel, known as the Fort McHenry Federal Channel, in the Patapsco River, had not been fully accessible to ships since the Dali, a container ship as long as the height of the Eiffel Tower, lost power and slammed into the Key Bridge on March 26, causing the bridge to collapse and killing six men working on the bridge at the time.

The ship became stuck in the twisted crumple of the bridge, leaving about 50,000 tons of debris in the river to clean up before the channel could be reopened.

Like the ship, the cleanup operation was enormous, requiring pilots, sonar experts, dump-truck drivers, divers and engineers. It also included dozens of barges, tugboats, excavators, floating cranes and even small explosives.