Officials in Baltimore opened a temporary channel on Monday to help restore some traffic in and out of the Port of Baltimore, one of the nation’s busiest commercial shipping hubs.
The alternate channel will allow some essential vessels to bypass wreckage from the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge, which has been blocking the harbor’s main channel since it was hit by a giant cargo ship last week.
The temporary channel was announced late Sunday by the state and federal agencies leading the disaster response and confirmed in a news conference on Monday afternoon.
“Today was an important milestone in the process of beginning to pull the wreckage out, beginning to open up channels,” Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland said. “We know we still have more work to do.”
Some barges and tugboats that had been trapped in the harbor will pass through the channel on Monday evening, Rear Adm. Shannon Gilreath of the U.S. Coast Guard said. Still, at a depth of 11 feet, the new lane can accommodate only a fraction of the traffic that typically passes through the port.
The authorities are surveying a second alternative channel on the other side of the bridge, Admiral Gilreath said, which would have a depth of “around 15 to 16 feet,” allowing somewhat larger vessels.
Officials said that the opening of a third alternate channel, with a depth of 20 to 25 feet, was dependent on the daunting work being done at the moment: the clearing of heavy bridge debris.
“Once that’s opened, that should allow us to move almost all of our tug and barge traffic in and out of the Port of Baltimore,” Admiral Gilreath said. “I don’t have a timeline other than we’re going to do it as fast as we possibly can,” he added, explaining that clearing that third channel involved cutting through and lifting heavy steel girders.