[Newfie]

The point to the infrastructure maintenence issue is one of risk analysis, mitigation and maintenance.

It is fun and interesting to watch these big recovery operations. It is boring to sit in inerdisiplinary meetings to identify and rate risk events and their consequences. Bur far more efficient.

The failure is in recognizing the value of prior identification and mitigation vs recover and repair.

A stich in time saves nine.

[Tanada]

Baltimore Bridge Collapse: New Underwater 3D Images Show "Sheer Magnitude" Of Salvage Operation Ahead

Yeah we get it. You're not just going to try and drag the mess out of the channel and post buoys over it like you do with every other underwater obstruction. You want to drag the 'mission' out, Justify your existence and get some practice with all your cool underwater tech. If the private sector was in control of this...

They should have given the job to these crews

There is a gaping hole in your "just drag the debris out of the way" suggestion. Directly under most of the debris is a high pressure natural gas pipeline. It is temporarily shut down and once the debris is taken off it will have to be inspected, but doing it this way get the natural gas flow back operating much faster that tearing it up by dragging debris over it and replacing the pipeline.

[theluckycountry]

Of course, the dragging was just my opinion, I'm no engineer. I'm sure there are many ways to lift that junk but now it's in the hands of the military and that's that.
It's not important in the scheme of things anyway, one bridge, one port, hardly even compares to the typical Hurricane. Just another good reason to leave the cities. They are super vulnerable to all manner of disaster.

[Newfie]

That the cities are vulnerable to disaster is one reason we left.

30 some years ago I watched how Philly reacted to a good snow storm. It showed me just how easilybthencity can be immobilized.

We actually had a folding rowboat on our back step so we could drag it to the river and float downstream to our big boat if needed.

[theluckycountry]

Here is an interesting opinion piece.

"West Point Mafia" Has "Systematically Destroyed The Nation's Maritime Strength"

Captain John Konrad, CEO of gCaptain, a website specializing in tracking the shipping industry, blames the "West Point Mafia" and decades of land wars in the Middle East for a hollowed-out US Navy that was entirely "unprepared" for the salvage operation of the collapsed 1.6-mile-long Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland.

Konrad explained, "Truth is bridges are an Army Corps of Engineers responsibility but they are so unprepared they gave the job to Navy Salvage to lead. Navy salvage is so broken they had to outsource it to the US subsidiary/partner of a European firm which is chartering equipment from private companies at great expense."

"And it's the Army's own fault. The West Point Mafia has systematically destroyed our nation's maritime strength," he said, adding that China would've had the Baltimore shipping channel "fully cleared in weeks," not months (read more about the reopening timeline here).

https://www.zerohedge.com/military/west ... e-strength

Pretty much in agreeance of my opinions above. lol, an aussie having a better grasp on the state of the US military than a board full of Americans. What's the world coming to...

And it's the Army's own fault. The West Point Mafia has systematically destroyed our nation's maritime strength. When I was 10 Vinzzini taught me the first lesson of war "You've fell victim to one of the classic blunders! Never get involved in a land war in Asia" Yet in my adult life the United States fought not one but two wars in Asia.

How did we pay for those? By gutting our maritime capabilities. With Chinese military capability growing exponentially, how do you win a war in Asia? The same way we did in WW2: with ships & marines with the Army and Air Force serving a support role. Except there is a problem, the current and last Secretaries of Defense are West Pointers. The SECDEF before that was a marine but he was forced out after a disagreement with the Secretary of State who was a West Pointer

Two decades of Land Wars in asia have decimated our Maritime capabilities as trillions was rerouted into Army coffers by the West Point mafia demon in DC ...

[theluckycountry]

Container Ship Reportedly "Lost Power" In NYC Harbor, Right Before Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/c ... ows-bridge

It's another Russian conspiracy, Dammit!

[Newfie]

The US Navy has been having a tough go of it for a long time. I believe we have discussed some of the issues before. The several destroyer collisions have rather pointedly exposed some of the training and leadership issues. Then there is the litorial combat ship fiasco. And also that silly stealth destroyer.

Yet they are still orders of magnitude more capable than anyone else. And they are getting some good experience and training exercises in the Red Sea.

Cold comfort may be derived from knowing that other navies are having similar issues.

Back to the commercial vessles loosing power....
The Key Bridge ship had FIVE on board diesel generators. These are ships rely heavily upon automation and shore side maintenance and diagnostics. That means they have live internet connections to the ships vital systems.

While I do not know what happened, I would not be surprised to find the ships systems were hacked and the automation messed with. It is not impossible. I know that in shoreside control systems internet security against hacking was a very serious concern.

Finally, the news cycle is very reactive to major events, something I have witnessed personally. Once you have a major story (air crash, panel failure, ship crash) then every little bit of news related will be reported. It is not that ships are all of a sudden loosing power, these fares happen. It is just they are being reported be abuse they cqth the publics eye. Really skews our understanding of the situation.

[theluckycountry]

It is not that ships are all of a sudden loosing power, these fares happen. It is just they are being reported be abuse they cqth the publics eye. Really skews our understanding of the situation.

Yes. There have been many cases in the past of ships hitting bridges. As for the navy, I wonder how important that will actually be in the next war. Britain had the largest navy on the planet in 1939 but it didn't help them. Outdated ships. Every ruling empire seems to have the biggest best navy at the time it gets squashed like a bug. The Spanish with the armada, the gigantic english battleships.
Smaller faster ships packed with long range hypersonic drones might be the order for the next war. Time will tell.

[Newfie]

No, the British Navy helped the UK, more than helped it was responsible for its existence.

[AgentR11]

I tell you whose Navy was useless, Germany's at the latter half of the 19th century. THAT is the definition of a useless, very expensive, Navy. Weren't very good in WW I either if I recall, though at least they left port...

The UK though, definitely top of the line all through last century, not doing terribly well at the moment with a certain very large, (non)combatant; but certainly still not out of the picture.

[Newfie]

Key Bridge collapse will keep main channel closed until end of May.

Here is 3 billion or so which could have been used for other purposes. Appropriate protections costs about $100 million going by work on the Delaware Twin Bridges. So we could have protected 30 bridges for that. They will likely spend that much now to protect exposed bridges.

[ralfy]

It's like that meme about declaring Ukraine as a dependent during tax time.

[Newfie]

It is also a cultural thing. My Wife and I are MAINTAINERS. Our ethic is to keep things going. Not very in vogue these days. During Covid we did a substantial rehab on our rental property, 1 unit was above average and 2 were pretty special. The 4th unit had been occupied for 19 years by a tenant and it had many, many issues. We spent a lot of money, many hundreds of hours, put in all new upgraded AC and made that last unit extremely nice. Some serious work there to return it to a period with a modern kitchen and superior layout.

We sold the place, got near asking (well over what realestate had suggested as asking) from a devoted. He has gutted the entire building back to the brick and joist. 1887 black walnut staircase? Gone. All he is gonna get out of it us 1 more apartment. We were already getting good rates, what the neighborhood could handle.

I have no clue what he is making decisions on. Center City rental market is awash with empty skyscrapers. Yes this is a desirable neighborhood, but that is changing fast. He will be near a million out of pocket on the rehab, plus cost of purchase, and 2 years lost revenue.

I suspect it is the lure of everything being "new"? He thinks he "new" will get more money? But "new" only lasts until the style, the mood, then it becomes "dated". And dated does not age well.

I tell this story because I think it reects something in the society vernacular. We are smitten with "new". We think new means "better".

I see this argument in CC discussions. People, rightly, claim we can build new much more efficient houses. Which is true, intelligent design, site planning, and money can create a zero energy house. But we can NOT create those houses for all of the condo and apartment dwelers in the cities. We do not have the resources to replace our housing entirely. And even the new houses are not designed for energy efficiency. Sure some nods like thicker insulation, but no site planning, and huge 2 story entrances.

As a society, culture, we have embraced " Ditch it, don't stitch it." And that is a problem. A big problem as our economy slows.

[theluckycountry]

I tell this story because I think it reects something in the society vernacular. We are smitten with "new". We think new means "better".

I see this argument in CC discussions. People, rightly, claim we can build new much more efficient houses. Which is true, intelligent design, site planning, and money can create a zero energy house. ...

As a society, culture, we have embraced " Ditch it, don't stitch it." And that is a problem. A big problem as our economy slows.

And those zero energy homes are never built unless it's a small enclave or a one off are they. You'll never see it in vast new estates.

As always, I follow the money. Who benefits? Banks, building industry suppliers, builders, real estate sales mobs, government from increased taxes. The industry is geared to feed money into these entities, at a maximum rate, the rational profit maximizer model all businesses run on now and you don't that by doing renos.

Again, your opinion that 'we' can build more efficient houses is true, but not in the overall sense of efficient. How 'efficient' is a zero energy house if it falls apart in 30 years? Plastic pipes instead of copper, manufactured cladding and flooring instead of bricks and hardwood? I was in the construction industry for a couple of decades, on the tools, and I saw it all from one end to the other. The only decent construction I ever saw was government buildings, hospitals, jails (yes I've been in jail) love to tell that one lol, and schools.

Concrete multi story apartments where the plastic plumbing starts to leak after a decade, very common, try to fix that! Try to retrofit plumbing in a 30 story building. Foundations that subside, not common but... Even one or two where the concrete support pillars were cracking under load. And commercial is the bright spot, move into the housing industry, homes and the 2-story units and it's a quality disaster. A grubby little builder told me once that it doesn't matter if the homes fall apart in 30 years because by then owners will want a newer home anyway, it's the land that has value he says, the building is nothing.

That's common thinking, that's modern thinking, "new is better" thinking. What I think is that the residential housing/land bubble will burst one day as people realize they can't afford to heat their homes, afford the drive to work, or the government gives up trying to maintain the endless roads and water mains and sewage systems. It was all built with Oil of course, maintained with oil. When the oil goes so does suburbia, I believe that wholeheartedly. But in the meantime there is money to be made...

[theluckycountry]

...But they will drag it out for sure and cripple the economy up there. Nothing gets done in a hurry these days.

Port Of Baltimore Partially Reopens

Officials at the Port of Baltimore opened a fourth, 35-foot deep, temporary channel through the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge, allowing cargo ships trapped at the port to exit. "While this is a significant achievement, we have a long way to go, and Unified Command is committed to fully opening the channel by the end of May," US Coast Guard Cmdr. Baxter Smoak told reporters.

End of May, two months total. We'll see.