https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/03/26/how-key-bridge-collapsed-baltimore/

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To bridge experts, the collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge after being hit by a heavy cargo ship was as inevitable as it was devastating.

When a vessel as heavy as the Singapore-flagged Dali collides with such force against one of the span’s supercolumns, or piers, the result is the type of catastrophic, and heartbreaking, chain reaction that took place early Tuesday.

“If the column is destroyed, basically the structure will fall down,” said Dan Frangopol, a bridge engineering and risk professor at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania who is president of the International Association for Bridge Maintenance and Safety. “It’s not possible to redistribute the loads. It was not designed for these things.”

No bridge pier could withstand being hit by a ship the size of the Dali, said Benjamin W. Schafer, a professor of civil and systems engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

“These container ships are so huge,” Schafer said. “That main span has two supports. You can’t take one away.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/03/08/gaza-floating-pier/

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Construction will take up to two months and require 1,000 U.S. troops who will remain off shore, officials say. Once complete, it will enable delivery of 2 million meals daily.



The U.S. military anticipates that a floating pier, to be built off Gaza’s coastline in coming weeks, will enable delivery of 2 million meals daily to Palestinians facing starvation, the Pentagon said Friday, describing its plan to address the worsening humanitarian crisis there without deploying American personnel directly into the war zone.

Construction of the offshore pier and causeway connecting it to land will take as long as 60 days and require about 1,000 U.S. troops, Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, told reporters.

President Biden announced the initiative during his State of the Union address Thursday, as hopes dim for a another cease-fire in Israel’s five-month war with Hamas and his administration contends with withering criticism for the vast supply of U.S. weapons that have contributed to the conflict’s massive civilian death toll. It’s one element of a broader “maritime corridor” that the United States and other countries have pledged to establish amid growing concerns about the situation.

The perceived need for the floating structure is a reflection of the political land mines that have stymied efforts to get humanitarian aid to those trapped by the fighting.

Israel’s deep-water port at Ashdod is less than 25 miles from Gaza, but Israeli officials have refused to open its northern border crossing. Egypt’s El Arish port, just south of Gaza, has been a key arrival point for assistance. But all shipments must go through a laborious process of loading onto trucks that travel to an Israeli inspection site, only to be unloaded and reloaded again to then join an ever-growing line of vehicles waiting to enter the Palestinian territory.