Ready to help
Port of Virginia will lend a hand as Baltimore begins its recovery
If there was any question as to why the commonwealth continues to invest in improvements to the Port of Virginia, it was answered on Tuesday when a malfunctioning container ship slammed into a support tower of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, collapsing it into Baltimore Harbor.
Hampton Roads facilities will handle additional commercial traffic as federal and state officials investigate the accident and set about the challenging task of removing and rebuilding the bridge. Being able to step up in this critical moment demonstrates the value of our port and the need to ensure its continued ability to serve national, as well as local, interests.
Early Tuesday morning, the Singapore-flagged Dali container ship struck a pier column supporting the Key Bridge after losing power. Even at a relatively slow speed, the ship carried considerable weight and the support buckled from the collision, collapsing the entire bridge in only 40 seconds.
Officials say that six construction workers who were repairing potholes on the bridge are presumed dead, but that a mayday call from the ship prior to the accident allowed authorities to stop traffic, potentially saving many lives. The bridge carries more than 30,000 vehicles each day so as tragic as this disaster was, it could have been worse.
While the Key Bridge was a critical transportation corridor for the city, it also crossed the Patapsco River over a vital shipping lane.
The wreckage effectively severed the harbor from the Atlantic Ocean, cutting off the Port of Baltimore. Though federal and state officials pledged to work around the clock to remove the debris and reopen the channel, there is no timeline for when that will happen.
In the meantime, commercial traffic headed to the city’s port will be rerouted to other East Coast destinations, including to Hampton Roads.
The Port of Virginia issued a statement on Tuesday that it was prepared to accept diverted shipping traffic, and confirmed that the Dali had been at port at Virginia International Gateway in Portsmouth before heading north to Baltimore.
The Maryland port was the nation’s 17th largest by tonnage in 2021, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Though one of the smallest container ports on the East Coast, per Reuters, it handles the most automotive imports of any U.S. port.
Its closure, however temporary, is likely to further roil international shipping, which has endured a series of calamities since the pandemic caused chaos throughout the supply chains. These include a drought that is slowing passage through the Panama Canal and Houthi attacks on vessels headed through the Suez Canal.
Few things underscore the interconnectivity of our world than problems with commercial shipping, since an issue in one place can cause prices to spike on the other side of the globe. But that also demonstrates the value of redundancy, and the importance of investing in the Port of Virginia so that it can continue to serve as a vital U.S. gateway to international markets.
Since 2016, when the expanded Panama Canal opened to much larger container ships, the port has followed an ambitious improvement plan to compete with other East Coast locations. That includes replacing cranes and boosting capacity, streamlining road and rail access to move goods more efficiently, transitioning to 100% green energy use to reduce its environmental footprint, and dredging the harbor and widening it to accommodate larger vessels.
These have come at a cost, of course, and have made effective use of federal, state and even local funding. But those are investments in the economic health of our region and the larger commonwealth, since the Port of Virginia is responsible for about $63 billion in annual economic activity and 565,000 jobs for the state, according to 2022 analysis conducted by William & Mary.
What happened in Baltimore this week was heartbreaking. It’s reassuring to know that our region will help shoulder the load in the interim until the Port of Baltimore is fully operational once again.