Sky News visits America's 'scariest bridge' as Biden views collapsed Baltimore bridge

10 days since key Baltimore

bridge

collapsed

President Biden was in the skies to see the impact. A president who touts his efforts to fix this country's aging infrastructure. A president facing a tough election in November. It was an extraordinary moment, a tragedy and now an economic logistical nightmare for the region, but it is strangely, well, worryingly, maybe not just 20 miles downriver from Key Bridge and in the same shipping lane there is another larger, more Old and busy and, according to the label, the

scariest

in America, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge actually has two built. in the 50s and the other in the 70s, there is a hard barge with different types of

bridge

s and with local fisherman Brian Hardman we passed by the stuck cargo ships that could not enter Baltimore to get a closer look at this ancient feat of engineering, so when those ships appear here they have to get to the left side of the red can and stand diagonally right in front, right in the middle of the bridge, that is their navigation point, very close up, here under one of the main pylons that support the bridge, you can see that there is a very A little bit of a protection, a wooden buffer area here beyond that, is the concrete end of the structure itself and then as we go forward, you can see the main metal support structure itself and if a ship were to hit one of these.

The point of impact would be high given the height of modern automobile cargo ships. Then there is corrosion. The bridge is used by 27 million vehicles a year. 11 million tons of cargo passes underneath and yet to me, if I look at it, it is classified as a critical fracture. it's like a dog sitting uh right in the mess of ships Professor Abby aay is a structural engineer whose opinion is shared by her peers whether one piece spans an entire section of the bridge or the entire bridge could work just as the key bridge did . The companions or the pylons on the Bay Bridge are unprotected as is the Key Bridge, so that worries me, um, for a bridge that is that long with that much traffic, it needs to be protected, Commissioner Jim Moran is a local politician .

The bridge has been a thorn in his side for years. The Bay Bridge, as some people know, has been ranked as one of the

scariest

bridges and we've been under it today and it doesn't look like it. he's in very good shape, not for a secular right and the state is spending a lot of money, you know, it's something that everyone is investigating, it's everyone's concern, you're a republican right, um, but do you see that he has managed this right yes I do he came out the door saying you know we're going to go the federal government is going to be here and we're going to stay here and you know they're helping mainly with money we appreciate you coming and stepping up and helping us with this.

We have asked the Maryland Transportation Authority to comment on the status of the structure. They haven't responded yet. They work on it non-stop. a painting crew on it when they go down one end and go to the other it's time to turn back the disaster just upstream from here last month has put a critical and frightening spotlight on infrastructure across the country sky

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