Will England, a former reporter and editor for the Post and the Baltimore Sun, won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting in 1998 for a project on shipbreaking.
A port is defined as a place where shippers are separated from their money. Currently, the Port of Baltimore is cut off from shipping around the world.
The destruction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge severed an important but non-essential highway. There are other ways to drive from here to there, no matter how slow or long. But it cuts off an important and completely vital sea route. Until the wreckage is cleared, which of course it will be, the port will be closed, closed, closed.
All it took was a ship – a huge ship indeed – to bring down the bridge. The Dali, a 984-foot container ship stacked high in the air with brightly colored steel boxes that looked like hideously intricate Rubik's Cubes, lost power and crashed south of the bridge as Mayday calls rang out. It crashed into the tower.
When I think of Baltimore, I think of Freddie Gray's “The Wire,” the sudden resurgence of the Orioles, a brutal mayor, corrupt cops, a Matisse painting in the Baltimore Museum of Art, maybe Billie Holiday, maybe John Waters.
The large, expansive port, which until Tuesday was one of the busiest in the nation, lies far downstream from where the Patapsco River enters the Chesapeake Bay. It is virtually invisible to most of us living in cities.
Anyway, sugar came in and coal went out, “forest products” came in and scrap metal went out, cars and light trucks came in (more than 800,000 last year), and other cars and light trucks went out. What a big company it was. All products with a history torn apart by pain and exploitation. The legacy of slavery, black lung disease, air pollution, deforestation — but this is the world we built. It's definitely not as dark as it used to be. Why shouldn't Baltimore get in on the action?
Many years ago, my wife and I lived in an 1847 brick rowhouse on East Hamburg Street in a neighborhood built for shipyard workers. The street name itself refers to the maritime trade that built this city. At the time, this was in his 1980s, there was a Bethlehem Steel ship repair yard down the hill at the foot of our street. When you walk outside in the morning, you'll see a large cargo ship pointing at you, its deck almost at street level. The horn blared when the shift changed. The crane moves and the steel plates make a rattling sound. Then, one morning, when I went outside, the ship that had been there for weeks was gone, sliding into a corner of the world. The air was clear and we could see straight to the Domino Sugars refinery heading towards Locust Point.
Where shipyard fitters and welders once worked their mundane magic, huge luxury skyscrapers now stand. A sightseeing boat is wandering beyond. That's the way things are.
Today's deep-draft vessels require sufficient space around and under the vessel. They need a sprawling terminal that is ready for this century's automation. That's why the port has left the heart of Baltimore and now plays a small role in the public's imagination. We forget that ships from China, Brazil and Singapore call at our ports every day. For poorly paid crew members — “sailors” doesn't seem to be the right word to describe them — Baltimore is known as the vast expanse of asphalt known as the Dundalk Marine Terminal. Sailors once roamed the now quaint, shabby, well-appointed bar. Fells Point.
The Dali is registered in Singapore, meaning it is held to a higher standard than the sad ships that fly so-called flags of convenience. But even that did not prevent the ship's power from cutting out in the first minutes after her departure.
When the Key Bridge opened in 1977, there was no Dali-like mastodon of the sea. Now it appears that six road workers on the bridge have lost their lives. They are victims of corporate giants in everything from ships to terminals to global economic expansion.
As for the bridge itself, it is plausibly said to have been structurally sound. But its collapse speaks to a deep-seated, all-too-common fear. It's about technology that doesn't make sense. How can this plane fly above the Earth? What is keeping this train on that narrow track? If you are driving across a high bridge over deep water, what is supporting this bridge?
Surprisingly and horrifyingly, failure is something that sits implicitly in the back of our minds until it happens.
After leaving Hamburg Street, we lived next door to the dead ship's captain. The ship was dead when it was shut down for a major overhaul, but it still needed a captain. His job was to move from corpse to corpse.
The entire port is now paralyzed, or at least in a coma. A large part of Baltimore, where no one knows how many millions of dollars have been sitting here for centuries, has its biggest power plant idle.
