Maryland: Chesapeake Bay Bridge dubbed the ‘scariest’ in America – but could disaster strike again?
The images of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsing were extraordinary and chilling.
A tragedy has now become an economic and logistical nightmare for the region.
But was it a freak one-off? Well, worryingly, maybe not.
Chesapeake Bay Bridge is made of two separate bridges built around 20 years apart
Just 20 miles downstream from the Key Bridge, and on the same shipping lane, is another that’s bigger, longer, older and busier. And it’s earned the tag – the scariest in America.
The Chesapeake Bay Bridge is actually two. One bridge, for two lanes of traffic, was built in 1952. A second, with three lanes, was added in 1973.
Local fisherman Brian Hardman took Sky News out into the bay to see the bridges up close
A hodge-podge of different bridges
Sky News took to Chesapeake Bay with local fisherman Brian Hardman.
We passed the backed up cargo ships, blocked from entering Baltimore Port because of the downed Key Bridge up stream.
We paused way below the vast Chesapeake Bay Bridge complex for a closer look at this ageing feat of engineering.
Up close to the one of the four pylons which supports the suspended part of the four mile-long bridges, you do not need to be an expert to see the lack of protection.
A sitting duck
A tiny wooden buffer, broken in places, clads ageing concrete from which corroding metal work supports the road high above.
If a ship was to hit one of these pylons, the impact point would be high up, given the height of modern cargo vessels.
The bridge is protected by wooden guards in places
The dual bridges are used by 27 million vehicles a year. Eleven million tonnes of cargo pass under them. And yet it is classed by federal authorities as fracture critical.
“The bridge, when I look at it, it’s like a sitting duck just at the mercy of the ships.” structural engineer Professor Abe Aghayere told me.
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His view is shared by peers and he outlines what “fracture critical” means.
“If one piece goes, a whole section of the bridge, or the whole bridge entirely, could go just like the Key Bridge did,” the professor said.
“The piers or the pylons of that of the Bay Bridge are unprotected just like the Key Bridge was. So that worries me. For a bridge that long with that much traffic, it needs to be protected.”
Eleven million tonnes of cargo pass under the bridge every year
A structural engineer warned the bridge was a ‘sitting duck’
It’s everybody’s concern
At his office nearby, we meet commissioner Jim Moran. He is a local politician who campaigns for funding to fix the bridge and build a third one to ease congestion. He is always wondering “what if?”.
“The Bay Bridge, as some people know – it’s been ranked as one of the scariest bridges.”
I suggest to him that it doesn’t look to be in great shape.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed upstream of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge
“Right,” he says.
“And the state is spending a great deal of money to stay ahead of it. I mean, that ship that hit the Key Bridge was probably 100,000 tons. And I don’t know anything that could withstand being hit. So that force, that energy, you know, it’s something everybody’s looking into. It’s everybody’s concern.”
As President Biden surveyed the damage at the Key Bridge, his words were a reminder that it’s an election year.
“Your nation has your back,” the president said.
“The federal government will pay for the entire cost of reconstructing that bridge, and I expect the Congress to support my effort.”
The disaster in Baltimore is a huge setback for the city and the region but could it represent an opportunity for President Biden and the Democratic Party?
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Bridge collapse: What happened?
Commissioner Moran is a Republican. I asked if he thought whether the president had handled the crisis well.
“Yes, I do. He came out right out of the gate saying ‘the federal government is going to be here and we’re going to stay here’. And they’re helping mostly with money. We appreciate him coming out and stepping up to the plate and helping us with this.”
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Sky News has asked the Maryland Transportation Authority to comment on the state of the structure. We are awaiting their response.
The disaster just up stream from here last month puts a critical frightening focus on infrastructure across this country.
US
Donald Trump announces dramatic drop in US refugee intake, with most of them white South Africans
The US is drastically cutting the number of refugees it will allow into the country to 7,500, and giving priority to white South Africans.
The new figure, announced on Thursday in a memo in the Federal Registry, the official journal of the US administration, is a dramatic reduction from last year’s 125,000, set by former president Joe Biden.
No reason was given for the decrease, but the note said the admission of the 7,500 refugees during the 2026 fiscal year was “justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest”.
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The notice posted to the register’s website said the 7,500 admissions would “primarily” be allocated to Afrikaner South Africans and “other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands”.
It is half the 15,000 total set for 2021 during Donald Trump’s first term in office at the height of the COVID pandemic, which reports said was the previous lowest refugee admissions cap.
Refugee rights groups were quick to condemn the proposal, with International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) president Sharif Aly, saying that by “privileging Afrikaners while continuing to ban thousands of refugees who have already been vetted and approved, the administration is once again politicising a humanitarian programme”.
Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, CEO of Global Refuge, said: “Concentrating the vast majority of admissions on one group undermines the programme’s purpose as well as its credibility.”
Human Rights First president, Uzra Zeya, called it a “new low point” in US foreign policy, which will “further destabilise front-line states that host over two-thirds of the world’s nearly 43 million refugees, undermining US national security in tandem”.
US President Donald Trump showed South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa printed-out articles in the Oval Office. Pic: AP
In May, Mr Trump confronted South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa in the White House, claiming white farmers in his nation were being killed and “persecuted”.
A video purporting to show burial sites for murdered white farmers was played but was later shown to be scenes from a 2020 protest in which the crosses represented farmers killed over multiple years.
The South African government has vehemently denied that Afrikaners and other white South Africans are being persecuted.
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In January, the US president suspended the US Refugee Admissions Programme (USRAP) to, in his words, allow US authorities to prioritise national security and public safety.
During the Oval Office meeting, Mr Ramaphosa said only that he hoped that Trump officials would listen to South Africans about the issue, and later said he believed there is “doubt and disbelief about all this in [Mr Trump’s] head”.
Donald Trump has described crucial trade talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping as “amazing” – and says he will visit Beijing in April.
The leaders of the world’s two biggest economies met in South Korea as they tried to defuse growing tensions – with both countries imposing aggressive tariffs on exports since the president’s second term began.
Aboard Air Force One, Mr Trump confirmed tariffs on Chinese goods exported to the US will be reduced, which could prove much-needed relief to consumers.
It was also agreed that Beijing will work “hard” to stop fentanyl flowing into the US.
Semiconductor chips were another issue raised during their 100-minute meeting, but the president admitted certain issues weren’t discussed.
“On a scale of one to 10, the meeting with Xi was 12,” he told reporters en route back to the US.
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‘Their handshake was almost a bit awkward’
Xi a ‘tough negotiator’, says Trump
The talks conclude a whirlwind visit across Asia – with Mr Trump saying he was “too busy” to see Kim Jong Un.
However, the president said he would be willing to fly back to see the North Korean leader, with a view to discussing denuclearisation.
Mr Trump had predicted negotiations with his Chinese counterpart would last for three or four hours – but their meeting ended in less than two.
The pair shook hands before the summit, with the US president quipping: “He’s a tough negotiator – and that’s not good!”
It marks the first face-to-face meeting between both men since 2019 – back in Mr Trump’s first term.
Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. Pic: AP
There were signs that Beijing had extended an olive branch to Washington ahead of the talks, with confirmation China will start buying US soybeans again.
American farmers have been feeling the pinch since China stopped making purchases earlier this year – not least because the country was their biggest overseas market.
Chinese stocks reached a 10-year high early on Thursday as investors digested their meeting, with the yuan rallying to a one-year high against the US dollar.
Analysis: A fascinating power play
Sky News Asia correspondent Helen-Ann Smith – who is in Busan where the talks took place – said it was fascinating to see the power play between both world leaders.
She said: “Trump moved quickly to dominate the space – leaning in, doing all the talking, even responding very briefly to a few thrown questions.
“That didn’t draw so much as an eyebrow raise from his counterpart, who was totally inscrutable. Xi does not like or respond well to unscripted moments, Trump lives for them.”
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On Truth Social, Mr Trump had described the summit as a gathering of the “G2” – a nod to America and China’s status as the world’s two biggest economies.
While en route to see President Xi, he also revealed that the US “Department of War” has now been ordered to start testing nuclear weapons for the first time since 1992.
Some of the world’s biggest tech giants reported quarterly earnings on Wednesday – with a mixed bag of results as fears grow that a bubble is forming in artificial intelligence.
Microsoft revealed that its spending on AI infrastructure hit almost $35bn (£26.5bn) in the three months to the end of September, a sharp rise compared with the year before.
Despite revenue jumping 18% and net income rising 12%, shares plunged by close to 4% in after-hours trading, with investors concerned about the mounting costs of sustaining the boom.
Microsoft is now a $4trn company thanks to its stake in ChatGPT maker OpenAI. AP file pic
Microsoft’s vice president of investor relations Jonathan Neilson said: “We continue to see demand which exceeds the capacity we have available.
“Our capital expenditure strategy remains unchanged in that we build against the demand signal we’re seeing.”
Big Tech is facing increasing pressure to show returns on the massive AI investments they’re making, against a backdrop of soaring valuations and limited evidence of productivity gains.
Microsoft became the world’s second most valuable company this week thanks to its 27% stake in OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT.
Its market capitalisation surged beyond $4trn (£3trn) at one point, but that psychologically significant threshold is now in doubt because of recent selloffs.
iStock file pic
Alphabet makes history
Last night’s results weren’t all doom and gloom – with shares in Google’s parent company surging by 6% in after-hours trading.
Alphabet has also set out aggressive spending ambitions, but placated investors thanks to an impressive set of results that surpassed analysts’ expectations.
Total revenue for the quarter stood at a staggering $102.35bn (£77bn), with the search giant’s advertising unit remaining robust despite growing competition.
But concerns linger that Alphabet’s dominance in search could be undermined by AI startups, with OpenAI recently unveiling a browser designed to rival Google Chrome.
Hargreaves Lansdown’s senior equity analyst Matt Britzman shrugged off this threat – and believes the company is “gearing up for long-term AI leadership”.
He said: “Alphabet just delivered its first-ever $100bn quarter, silencing the doubters with standout performances in both Search and Cloud.
“AI Overviews and AI Mode are clearly resonating with users, helping to ease fears that Google’s core search business is under threat from generative AI.
“With ChatGPT’s recent browser demo falling short of a game-changer, Google looks well-placed to put up a strong defence as gatekeeper to the internet.”
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Meta faces a mauling
Meta – the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp – saw its shares tumble by as much as 10% in after-hours trading.
Mark Zuckerberg’s tech empire anticipates “notably larger” capital expenses next year as it ramps up investments in AI and goes on a hiring spree for top talent.
Net income in the third quarter stood at $2.7bn (£2bn) and suffered an eye-watering $16bn (£12bn) hit because of Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill”.
Meta was late to the party on AI but has now doubled down on this still-nascent technology – setting an ambition to achieve superintelligence, a milestone where machines could theoretically outthink humans.
The social networking giant continues to benefit from its massive user base, and expects fourth-quarter revenues of up to $59bn (£44bn).
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