[hgfghj]

That ship had a 10,000 TEU capacity and was actually hauling a little under 5,000 TEUs. An empty container weighs a little over 5,000lbs, and a full one can be up to 67,000lbs.

If you do the math, you find that it’s just an astronomical amount of momentum, and there’s no effective defense for a bridge that needs support in more than 30 or so feet of water.

[semi-extrinsic]

Throwback to the scene in The Day After Tomorrow where the cargo ship comes to an almost instant halt after impacting a bus wreck under water. For some reason it managed to stand out as ridiculous even in that movie.

[Gare]

Speed 2: Cruise Control on the other hand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBxaGB65TB8

[peteradio]

Somebody should do a side-by-side of that scene with this threads scene in gif.

[HarryHirsch]

there’s no effective defense for a bridge that needs support in more than 30 or so feet of water

You put in sheet piling 50 meters upstream, and you fill the box with rocks. That's state of the art practice, nowadays, but that bridge was 50 years old.

[nwiswell]

The sheet piling didn't need to be 50 years old.

In 1977 (and in 1972, when construction began), vessels of this size did not exist, and certainly were not allowed in the harbor[1]. But over time, they were given authorization, despite the fact that they could collapse the unprotected bridge like a load of toothpicks.

The real crime here is that there was no retrofit to protect the pylons. It was almost certainly considered and rejected due to cost.

[1]: https://logisticselearning.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Co...

The ship in question here was 10K TEU.

[jameshart]

According to the marine traffic track shown in the YouTube analysis above, the ship looks to have been heading through the channel, but then nosed in right under the bridge. Would have sailed right past upstream dolphins, and rammed the pylon from the inside anyway.

[kazinator]

I think the only reasonable goal would be to design the bridge to minimize damage to it, so that one damaged section doesn't bring down others.

Building a bridge to actually stop the ship is not only infeasible, but it would likely kill (more) people onboard.

[bobthepanda]

the modern practice is layers of defense; in addition to building a bridge that doesn't fail at a single point of failure, you also generally design what's around a bridge pier to stop or at least slow down the ship (by, say, running aground onto a bed of rocks around a pier)

[samstave]

Thank FN gosh that those TEUs were likely ~mostly empty returns.

If thems be full, that guy would be illegally parked for far longer.

--

What is the traffick-routing-around plan look like? (both sea and land, helicopters cry in lack of TEU)

[samstave]

Jeasus - seriously - if that was an inbound shipment then it would be worse - this appears to have been leaving - which would infer that the TEUs were more empty than full.

[JumpCrisscross]

> there’s no effective defense for a bridge that needs support in more than 30 or so feet of water

You deflect it. Failing at that, you direct the force into destroying the ship.

Of course, the best solution is no in-water pylons. But that isn’t always feasible.

[Repulsion9513]

> direct the force into destroying the ship

Nice immovable object you've got there.