Videos show demolition crews cutting sections of Baltimore's Key Bridge

see the wreckage up close see a cargo that is almost the size of the Eiffel Tower and see that same cargo with a key

bridge

resting on it see shipping containers that were split in half like paper mache know that you have to navigate through strong winds and power lines to go out and see it up close you realize how daunting this task is, you realize how difficult the work ahead of us is with such a complex Salvage operation and Frankly, with a rescue operation unprecedented salvage, it is necessary to plan every moment and each time measures are taken to move a fragment of the remains, it is understood that this requires the situation to be reassessed.

I am Rear Admiral Shannon Gil, speaking on behalf of the Unified Army. command, as I mentioned last night, our number one Unified Command priority is to reopen the port of Baltimore and to do that we have divided it into three phases, phase number one is reopening the shipping channel, number two is removing the ship and number three. is to remove the

bridge

debris from the rest of the waterway, we are starting to move forward in those phases, in phase one that we talked about, we need to do the evaluations of the bridge both above the waterline and below the water.

The evaluations continue as the governor said we were there today and we could see the engineers and the divers and the survey votes in the water in these difficult wind conditions doing their job to evaluate that bridge and figure out how we can cut it to pieces that we need to be able to get it up and go back to UniFi command, the governor, the comedone, all the elected officials could see those engineers working on those same plans. Engineers from the Army Corps of Engineers, Navy salvage supervisor we had. State engineers there, there were some private engineers that helped us and we had some Coast Guard engineers there and they are all working diligently to uncover the port, the ninth busiest port in the United States, now paralyzed, the container ship Dolly trapped under an estimated With 2 to 3,000 tons of twisted metal before the U.S.

Coast Guard can reopen this vital shipping channel, authorities are rushing to clear debris stretching 700 feet. We are about 250 meters from the site of the bridge collapse. Behind me you can see one or three cranes ready to lift the remains of the container ship Dolly, work is now underway on a temporary canal for smaller ships to move through, if we can open another one that will help the economy here and move traffic in and out of the port of Baltimore, even if it is not. The deep draft we want to take advantage of that opportunity. Container ships bound for Baltimore are now being diverted to other ports.

Cargo will be redistributed between the Port of Virginia, the Port of New York and the Port of Philadelphia. Baltimore runs more cars on farm equipment. than any other port in America Baltimore is the largest in the country and certainly by far the largest on the US East Coast and there is no single place that can replace them the port generates over $5 billion in worker salaries approximately 650 million in the state and local tax revenues and more than 50,000 jobs, including approximately 8,000 dockworkers, such as crane operator John Zafia. We are all wondering how long it will take to clear the main channel so we can get the boats back in and get to work.

Maryland lawmakers are now crafting a bill that, if given the green light, would allow a temporary financial aid program administered by the Department of Labor, designed to help workers who regularly arrive at the port and are now waiting Please reopen Mark Nicole skanga with new photographs and new reporting thanks but