BALTIMORE — The Francis Scott Key Bridge could rejoin Baltimore’s skyline in as little as two years or as many as 15, with some experts eyeing a number in between.

The Key Bridge crossed the Patapsco River in Baltimore’s outer harbor until early Tuesday morning, when a cargo vessel struck the bridge and sent it into the frigid waters below. As of Wednesday, authorities are still searching for four missing construction workers who are presumed dead; two bodies were recovered Wednesday.

While authorities emphasized the need to focus on the recovery operation, questions have swirled about the rebuild of the Key Bridge — especially after President Joe Biden, a Democrat, said Tuesday that the federal government would “pay the entire cost of reconstructing” the bridge.

Secretary of the Maryland Department of Transportation Paul J. Wiedefeld said at a news conference Wednesday evening that the state has applied for available federal dollars.

“We intend to receive some additional federal dollars very quickly to start that process and then we will come up with a design for the replacement of that bridge as quickly as possible to get the port back up and the community back up and running,” Wiedefeld said.

But even with promised federal money, there are many factors that need to be considered before construction of any bridge can begin, said Benjamin W. Schafer, a structural engineer who specializes in steel structures and is an engineering professor at the Johns Hopkins University. He named securing funding, deciding on a visual design, selecting materials and working out engineering queries as steps in the process.

In the case of the Key Bridge collapse, clearing the river of debris will also be an obstacle. All said and done, Schafer estimated a rebuild could take as long as a decade or more.

“The bridge originally, it seems like it was about five years from breaking ground to opening up. In 1980, when the Tampa (Bay) Sunshine Skyway bridge had a strike and was destroyed, and then rebuilt with a new cable-stayed bridge, that was seven years. I would consider those lower bounds,” he said. “I think we’re looking at seven-plus, I would guess 10 to 15 years before — I know that sounds crazy — but before we look back over and we see a bridge jumping over the harbor.”

At an online event hosted by Hopkins Wednesday morning, Schafer said he’s “lived through quite a few civil infrastructure projects, and they’re rarely less than 10 years,” adding that the price tags “never seem to be out of the hundreds of millions these days.”

“Although I don’t think the transportation network will come back quickly, we can get the port back up,” Schafer said.

...continued

©2024 The Baltimore Sun. Visit at baltimoresun.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.