1 week, 6 lives and millions of dollars lost

In the space of seconds, what took four years and $141 million to construct vanished.

Struck by the cargo ship Dali one week ago, the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed into the dark of the Patapsco River.

The size of the catastrophe and the ongoing recovery effort is beyond measure, starting with the loss of six construction workers who had been patching the surface of the bridge.

Working 24/7, it took crews until Sunday to remove the first section of the broken bridge, a portion that weighed 200 tons, “almost as heavy as the Statue of Liberty,” as Gov. Wes Moore said.

“The scale of this project is enormous,” Moore said Monday. “Even the small lifts are huge.”

Here, by the numbers, is an attempt to quantify the unquantifiable.

The Francis Scott Key Bridge, March 23, 1977 – March 26, 2024

Height at peak: 185 feet Length: 1.6 miles

Time to construct: 5 years Time between impact and collapse: less than 1 minute

Time to build replacement, estimated: 2-15 years

Cost to build: $141 million in the 1970s

Cost to replace, estimated: at least $400 million

The Dali

Launched: Dec. 27, 2014

Sister ship: The Cezanne, which has a different owner, departed Baltimore on March 16, also en route to Sri Lanka

Crew: 21 men, initially reported as 22, but one had rotated out before the collision

Number of containers it was carrying: 4,679

Capacity: 10,000 containers How many contain hazardous materials: 56

How many destroyed on impact: 14

How many floating in the water: at least 2

Weight: 95,128 metric tons empty Weight leaving Port of Baltimore: 112,383 metric tons

Value of ship as it left the port: less than $90 million

Repair cost: at least $28 million Salvage cost: at least $19.5 million Value currently: about $42.5 million

The reaction

Number of Google searches in the U.S. for “Baltimore Bridge” on March 26, 2024: more than 10 million

Number of views of one video of the bridge collapse (twitter.com/BNONews/ status/1772515766929097088/ video/1) posted on X, formerly known as Twitter: 101.6 million as of Monday

Number of views of a post on X of Baltimore Fire Department unit arriving on scene and saying on radio, “Be advised, the entire bridge, the entire Key Bridge is in the harbor” (twitter.com/doyle0213/ status/1772550665526517790): 150,800 as of Monday