FIRE IN THE HOLE! | Baltimore to Blow the Key Bridge Off MV Dali

In today's episode about what's happening with shipping, it's time to

blow

up the dolly

bridge

. I'm your host salmer kagano welcome to today's episode so the unified command authority in Baltimore informs us that the US Army Corps of Engineers along with the rescue teams have a plan to use detonations of control to remove the large section of

bridge

hanging over the port side of the left side of the motorboat Dolly into the Federal Channel. Let's take a look at this operation. We'll talk about the Catch the Date and give some background on what to expect when they

blow

up the Dolly powerboat bridge.

If you're new to the channel, take a moment, subscribe to the channel, and hit the bell to be alerted about new videos as they appear. Sal, the Army Corps of Engineers came out with this where they are talking about how they are going to remove this section as you see in the photograph, this is on the left side of the port side of the motor boat Dolly and they are saying that the most safe and quick way to remove this piece of the bridge is to make precision cuts in the steel and then use small charges to detonate it, so that the bridge section bends off the dolly and falls into the water, and they are using industry standards .

To do this now, what you will see is basically a series of small puffs that will sound like

fire

works, it won't be a big explosion and you will see the bridge structure just bend and collapse. about himself and the Army Corps provided an animation about that, but before we get into that, let's take a look at what's going on with Dolly right now. This is an image of Dolly from a few days ago, the section you are going to see. do the detonation control is in red there that is on the port side of the ship the left side of the ship when you look forward you are actually looking down along Dolly from the east to the west the section towards the side of Starboard facing The right side of the boat when looking forward, that is the section in yellow and that section has been removed.

I also want to highlight one key thing here: look at how low the bow dolly is, it's a little lower fore and aft AF and this has to do with it. Probably the weight of the bridge is pushing the bow into the mud now when you hit it. They take this weight off Dolly, she should come back up, however there could be hull damage, which means flooding, which may require pumping, may require some ballast issues, remember there is also a natural gas pipeline which is under the mud, so they have to be careful when removing the boat that crosses it, so all of those factors will be at play here.

Image from above on the bow of the dolly. First, look at the number of containers around 100 have been removed and 83 Dolly containers have been unloaded in those forward sections. Now not all the containers have been lowered. Some of them are pinned and crushed under the bridge, but many of the front containers were removed and this helped open up the work area. so they can remove elements of the bridge but they also don't want to damage the containers that could potentially be damaged in a bridge control detonation here you see the weeks 55 uh excuse me 533 in action this is the crane that was removing the large section of the bridge on the side starboard, that section in yellow that I had there before these photographs, by the way, come from the Chesapeake Bay, Dead Rise, uh, Marine Photography, so I'll have their website in the show notes below and talk a bit. about them at the end of the video, if you don't follow them on Instagram, you should have some amazing photos that they've been able to post here about Salvage.

You know, Dead Rise is making great pictures, don't forget our friends at Minor. and mullet Captain Andy and his crew have been doing live video, but they caught much of the salvage work while it was in progress here, you can see the weeks 533 Crane in action lifting large sections of the bridge on the starboard side, uh, they can see them. The sections are broken off and those sections are loaded onto barges and then sent to Tradeo Atlantic for salvage. This photograph comes from the unified command. It shows you the section of the bridge where they're going to do the control detonations that you'll notice in this. section orange marking numbers this is where the loading and cutting will be done to allow the bridge to collapse, so you can see much of the preparation work being done here, the scale of the damage to the Dolly's bow is significant, this indicates massive structural damage to the ship, the structural integrity of the ship is compromised, you can see that indentation in the bow, this is right on the starboard side of the ship, we haven't really been able to see the port side of the ship because the bridge it's still on it, it has this big concrete pillar that came from the dock they hit, so this ship isn't going anywhere fast, even when it is freed and moved from the channel, major repairs will have to be done to the ship out of fear. that the arch could be compromised, so this is the video released by the US Army Corps of Engineers.

I'll have the connection, they have audio to go with it, but I'm just going to talk about it so you guys have looked at it. this structure, the problem is that this structure fell on a large piece of Trust and if you cut this piece, the problem is that it will break like a rubber band and collapse, what they need to do is make several cuts at the same time and then be able to lift it , they can't do that, there is no crane around that can lift it in one piece, plus it is structurally damaged, so they have analyzed it and what they are going to do is make a series of cuts in the bridge. uh do these power cuts and then insert explosives into the structure, they'll envelop it and then they'll execute a control detonation and what you'll see is a series of these little explosions and then that will cause the bridge to fall off the dolly. and in the water along it, then you could take Dolly out and at the same time pick up the much smaller pieces from the water, make the cuts in the section that is still in the water and open the Federal Canal and take Dolly to a dock in Baltimore for cargo offloading and damage assessment now I made it sound very easy it is not it is an extremely complicated and dangerous item uh the ship's crew will still be on board they are still on board this is a working ship , there are still refrigerated containers the machinery must be operational when the explosion occurs the ship's crew will duck uh, there is no really big dam, you know, there is a danger here of shrapnel coming out, but the crew will sink, uh, remember that these ships are routinely shot at in the Middle East in the Red Sea by the Houthis and we haven't seen many casualties, three dead, several wounded, so this crew will be able to hunker down, they will have containers between them and a lot of steel.

We'll be perfectly safe once the explosion happens, then they'll re-evaluate what the right move is. Some of the debris may be against Dolly. They may have to remove part of the bridge before they can get Dolly out. hoping to get it out before May 10th, that may have been optimistic for Mystic due to weather issues over the past weekend so we may not see her moved on the 10th, however once the bridge is destroyed on the port side, you can expect to see fairly rapid movement. Lastly, I want to talk a little bit about some of these great photographs that Dead Rise took.

I can't tell you how much I enjoy the photography that is coming out with this one, here is the Lyn Moran, one of the many tugs that are operating in and around the area, the number of ships that are operating are dozens and Dead Rise has been able to go out and get these really cool images, but probably the best ones are the ones from the cruise that Mark had the opportunity to write about. The other day I was with the Coast Guard doing a crew change on one of the auxiliary buoys out there. If you want the Coast Guard to have an unacknowledged role, it is to keep Aida sailing and the auxiliary buoy crews who have been laying buoys for Mark.

These new channels that are opening up are really doing a great job and then there is some great footage of the Salvage Crews that is available. I just want to recommend again if you get the chance, go out and watch, Dead Rise Out, it's great. site uh I'll have the website so you can check it out. They're on Instagram, it's really amazing. uh, CHP Bay is one of America's truly beautiful untold places. I used to live in Maryland. I used to go out. the bay I used to do this I used to go out in Chesak Bay log canoes and race them so it was always a lot of fun so I want to take that opportunity and promote Mark and especially with the unified commands doing a lot images.

As we post this, they really are progressing at a great pace, so we can expect to see a lot of excitement coming out of this site here in the coming days. The last thing I want to talk about, which I think is really important. What we also do not emphasize enough is that during the rescue operation the UniFi command was able to recover the last of the six missing people. This is obviously crucial for the family members involved. Closure is extremely important. You already know a lot of people. Ask why this was left out, not left out.

One of the problems is that in a recovery operation, I've been a

fire

fighter for 25 years and when you're doing a recovery operation, a lot of things go into hand. inand with the Rescue and that operation and don't think for a minute just because it wasn't talked about that the search for the last of the six missing Bridge workers wasn't important, I mean, it's tragic, I mean. the loss of six lives should be first and foremost in our thinking that this happened. It's amazing that we only lost six people. If this had happened during the day at rush hour, we could have been talking about dozens, if not hundreds, of people.

It's great for the family members that we're getting a little closure at this point and I tip my hat to the U.S. Coast Guard Army Corps of Engineers Unified Command of the Department of Maryland Don John uh uh resolv Marine scansa Moran uh weeks uh Chapman I can't name all the groups that exist there's a lot going on here and again you know I was a critic of the unified command uh Authority I thought they really needed to put one person in charge but I think behind scene there's one person in charge who's running this and I take my hat off to the harbor master, uh, Captain McConnell, who's been running a lot of this behind the scenes.

This is an incredible effort, the fact that we are seeing ships moving and we are seeing a salvage operation at this speed and a magnet is an incredible achievement. I hope you enjoyed today's episode, if you did please take a moment, subscribe to the channel and hit the button to be alerted about new videos as they appear, like them, share them on social media and if you can support the page, how do you do it? Hit the super thank you button below or head over to Patreon, become a monthly or annual subscriber, or more importantly. Head over to Dead Rise Marine Photography and don't forget about Minorcan mullet cat Mandy.

They've been doing a great job photographing and following this event and really documenting what's been happening until our next video.