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The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore on Tuesday will cost truckers and other drivers time and money for the foreseeable future as they are rerouted to city tunnels, local roads or the westbound side of Interstate 695.
President Joe Biden bound the federal government would pay to rebuild the 1.6-mile stretch, which served as a major freight and transportation corridor. But that priority pales in comparison to a more pressing concern for the Port of Baltimore, the trucking industry and the region: Removing the collapsed ship and bridge from the shipping channel.
“Unless the waterway is cleared and deliveries can be made at the port, we’re going to have a massive diversion of ships to other ports,” Maryland Motor Truck Association President and CEO Louis Campion said in an interview. “The debris will just act as a blockade of the port and will just stifle economic activity.”
The busiest port in the US for cars and light trucks, the Port of Baltimore is a key economic engine for the city and state, directly employs more than 15,000 workers and indirectly responsible for nearly 140,000 more jobs in trucks, warehouses and other related industries.
This engine fires after the collapse of the bridge, an event that led to supposed deaths of six construction crew workers, According to reports. While longshoremen and truckers continued to move existing cargo to the port’s Southeast Baltimore terminals after the container ship crash that brought down the bridge, no port can operate for long without ships delivering imports and carrying out exports.
“If they don’t open the shipping channel, everything stops,” said Scott Cowan, president and CEO of the International Longshoremen’s Association Local 333, which represents Baltimore longshoremen.
Local truck drivers, communities prepare for challenges
Local trucking providers whose operations rely on Port of Baltimore routes will be most affected by larger fleets that can move resources on regional or national networks, Campion said.
“I already have some companies talking about some of the diversion that’s going to happen and what the impact is going to be on their costs,” he said.
Trucks rumbling down local roads β a scenario that typically presents congestion, safety and noise concerns for communities β will be difficult to avoid as the thousands of trucks a day crossing the bridge take various detours, Campion said.
“There’s going to be congestion everywhere as a result of this on all the major arteries through and around Baltimore,” he said.
Longshoremen will work as hard as they can
The port’s crane engineers are usually the last dock workers to leave the port’s Seagirt marine terminal, and some of them crossed the bridge on their way home just an hour or so before the 984-foot container ship tore it down, the local president said of the ILA.
Ports America Chesapeake, which operates the port’s container terminal, has joint plans to assign union dockworkers to maintenance, equipment and facilities during the shutdown, Cowan said.
“They’re going to try to work people as much as they can,” Cowan said. “Some of our members will continue to work and hopefully by the time things are done, the shipping channel will be open again.”
Once the existing cargo on the docks runs out, “which will be quick,” Cowan said, “it will be devastating for our members.”
“It’s going to be tough for a few weeks,” he said. βIt depends on how long it takes to open the shipping channel. … This could wreak havoc in the region.”
“The lifeline in the supply chain”
Pamela Miller, an owner-operator who has run the port for 40 years, expects nearby warehouses to be flooded with outbound exports and empty by the time they are delivered to the terminals.
“It will kill the economy,” he said. “Truckers from all over the country bring stuff.”
Miller, who is employed by PiCorp, pointed out that truckers have few alternatives to accessing the harbor or bypassing the damaged bridge.
Carriers and their shipper customers, on the other hand, cannot use the Port of Baltimore without a clear shipping channel to access it.
“This channel is the lifeline for the supply chain,” he said. “There is no other way.”