BALTIMORE (AP) — The Maryland Transportation Authority failed to complete a recommended vulnerability assessment that would have shown the Francis Scott Key Bridge was at significant risk of collapse from a ship strike long before its demise last year, according to federal investigators.
The bridge collapsed after a massive cargo ship, the Dali, lost power and veered off course, striking one of its support piers. Six construction workers were killed.
Maryland leaders could have done more to prevent the deadly disaster, National Transportation Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said during a media briefing Thursday afternoon.
The board update comes almost a year after the bridge collapse, which temporarily halted ship traffic through the Port of Baltimore and snarled traffic across the region. Plans to rebuild the bridge are underway and officials have said the new design will be much better protected.
When board investigators performed the vulnerability assessment for Baltimore’s Key Bridge, they found it was almost 30 times worse than the acceptable risk threshold, according to guidance established by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. The group published the vulnerability assessment calculation in 1991, and all bridges designed afterward were required to be evaluated. In 2009, the group reiterated its recommendation to also conduct assessments for older bridges.
Had Maryland officials completed the assessment at any time since then, they “would have been able to proactively identify strategies to reduce the risk of a collapse and loss of lives associated with a vessel collision with the bridge,” Homendy said.
She said as of October, they still hadn’t assessed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge even after the Key Bridge collapse.
“There’s no excuse,” she said.
The board also issued urgent recommendations and a report that lists 30 owners of 68 bridges across 19 states. Homendy said they should learn from Maryland’s mistake and perform the assessments to determine whether they need more protection.
The Key Bridge opened to traffic in 1977, when the ships visiting Baltimore’s port were significantly smaller and standards for pier protection were much less robust.
In 1980, a container ship struck the bridge’s pier protection and was stopped by a concrete and timber fendering system. But that ship weighed about one-tenth the Dali, which plowed through similar fenders, according to a report documenting the board’s findings.
“Although some factors are challenging to modify for existing bridges, the process of calculating vulnerability assessments enables owners to make informed decisions to manage their assets, identify their bridges that may be susceptible to damage from a vessel collision, and appraise and prioritize vessel collision protection projects alongside other projects addressing highway asset needs and risks,” the report says.
Homendy said this isn’t the first time she’s called for the assessments to be completed on some of the nation’s older bridges. She said the board has “been sounding the alarm on this since the tragedy occurred,” including in testimony before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in April 2024.
“We need action,” she said. “Public safety depends on it.”
The board is still investigating what caused the Dali to lose power as it approached the Key Bridge. In an earlier update, investigators said they discovered a loose cable that could have caused electrical issues on the Dali. The ship experienced blackouts twice in the hours before it left the Port of Baltimore en route to Sri Lanka.
Justice Department attorneys later alleged its mechanical and electrical systems had been “jury-rigged” and improperly maintained. They pointed to “excessive vibrations” that could have loosened electrical connections. The agency’s lawsuit was later settled after the Dali’s owner, Grace Ocean Private Ltd., and its manager, Synergy Marine Group, agreed to pay over $100 million in cleanup costs.
The Singapore-based companies filed a court petition just days after the collapse seeking to limit their legal liability in what could become the most expensive marine casualty case in history.
Homendy said the board plans to release more information from its investigation in the coming weeks and months.
——
Witte reported from Annapolis, Maryland.
FILE - The fallen Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore is pictured March 31, 2024, where divers assisted crews with the complicated and meticulous operation of removing steel and concrete. (AP Photos/Mike Pesoli, file)
WASHINGTON (AP) — With massive job cuts, the National Weather Service is eliminating or reducing vital weather balloon launches in eight northern locations, which meteorologists and former agency leaders said will degrade the accuracy of forecasts just as severe weather season kicks in.
The normally twice-daily launches of weather balloons in about 100 locations provide information that forecasters and computer models use to figure out what the weather will be and how dangerous it can get, so cutting back is a mistake, said eight different scientists, meteorologists and former top officials at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — the weather service's parent agency.
The balloons soar 100,000 feet in the air with sensors called radiosondes hanging about 20 feet below them that measure temperature, dew point, humidity, barometric pressure, wind speed and direction.
“The thing about weather balloons is that they give you information you can't get any other way,” said D. James Baker, a former NOAA chief during the Clinton administration. He had to cut spending in the agency during his tenure but he said he refused to cut observations such as weather balloons. “It's an absolutely essential piece of the forecasting system.”
University of Oklahoma environment professor Renee McPherson said, “This frankly is just dangerous.”
“Bad,” Ryan Maue, who was NOAA's chief scientist at the end of President Donald Trump's first term, wrote in an email. “We should not degrade our weather system by skipping balloon launches. Not only is this embarrassing for NOAA, the cessation of weather balloon launches will worsen America's weather forecasts.”
Launches will be eliminated in Omaha, Nebraska, and Rapid City, South Dakota, “due to a lack of Weather Forecast Office (WFO) staffing,” the weather service said in a notice issued late Thursday. It also is cutting from twice daily to once daily launches i n Aberdeen, South Dakota; Grand Junction, Colorado; Green Bay, Wisconsin; Gaylord, Michigan; North Platte, Nebraska and Riverton, Wyoming.
The Trump administration and its Department of Government Efficiency fired hundreds, likely more than 1,000, NOAA workers earlier this year. The government then sent out letters telling probationary employees let go that they will get paid, but should not report to work.
Earlier this month, the agency had announced weather balloon cuts in Albany, New York and Gray, Maine, and in late February, it ended launches in Kotzebue, Alaska. That makes 11 announced sites with reduced or eliminated balloon observations, or about one out of nine launch locations which include part of the Pacific and Caribbean.
Among regularly reporting weather stations, NOAA had averaged about only one outage of balloon launches a day from 2021 to 2024, according to an Associated Press analysis of launch data.
Meteorologists Jeff Masters and Tomer Burg calculate that 14 of 83 U.S. balloon sites, or 17%, are doing partial or no launches. That includes two stations that aren't launching because of a helium shortage and a third that is hindered because of coastal erosion.
“The more data we can feed into our weather models, the more accurate our forecasts, but I can’t speculate on the extent of future impacts,” weather service spokesperson Susan Buchanan said in an email.
University at Albany meteorology professor Kristen Corbosiero looked at the map of launches Friday and said “wow, that is an empty area ... That's not great.”
Corbosiero works in the building where the Albany weather service used to go to the roof to launch twice-daily weather balloons. It's now down to one at night, which she said it is worrisome heading into severe weather season.
“For those of us east of the Rocky Mountains, this is probably the worst time of year,” said Oklahoma's McPherson. “It's the time of year that we have some of our largest tornado outbreaks, especially as we move into April and May.”
Former National Weather Service Director Elbert “Joe” Friday said the weather balloons get “the detailed lower atmospheric level of temperature and humidity that can determine whether the atmosphere is going to be hot enough to set off severe storms and how intense they might be.”
Satellites do a good job getting a big picture and ground measurements and radar show what's happening on the ground, but the weather balloons provide the key middle part of the forecasting puzzle — the atmosphere — where so much weather brews, several meteorologists said.
All of the 10 announced reductions are in the northern part of the United States. That's about where the jet stream — which is a river of air that moves weather systems across the globe — is this time of year, so not having as many observations is especially problematic, McPherson and Corbosiero said.
Weather balloons are also vital for helping forecast when and where it will rain, said Baker and another former NOAA chief, Rick Spinrad.
The weather agency has been launching balloons regularly since the 1930s. During World War II, weather balloon launches in the Arctic helped America win the air battle over Europe with better forecasts for planes, former weather chief Friday said.
It takes 90 minutes to an hour to fill a weather balloon with helium or hydrogen, get it fitted with a sensor, then ready it for launch making sure the radiosonde doesn't drag on the ground, said Friday, who recalled launching a balloon in Nome, Alaska with 30 mph winds and windchill of about 30 degrees below zero.
Meteorologists then track the data for a couple hours before the balloon falls back to the ground for a total of about four of five hours work for one person, Friday said.
“It's kind of fun to do,” Friday said on Friday.
—-
Data journalist Mary Katherine Wildeman contributed from Hartford, Connecticut.
The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
FILE - A National Weather Service weather balloon sits ready for launch in the Upper Air Inflation Building at the National Weather Service, April 27, 2006, in Sterling, Va. (AP Photo/Chris Greenberg, File)
