Page 25: of Marine News Magazine (August 2024)

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Feature

Salvage “The enormity of this disaster is hard to imagine without seeing it in person…It may sound dramatic but given the wreckage ? eld created by the collapsed bridge, the environment divers are working in, and the dangers posed to them, is like cleaning the site of 9/11 with blinders on.” – Rick Benoit, Emergency Management specialist at the U.S. Army Corps of

Engineers (USACE) North Atlantic Division (NAD), from USACE news report.

ol. Estee Pinchasin is commander of the U.S. that we were going to be able to handle individually. This

Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Baltimore task would require collaboration.”

District. On Tuesday, March 26, she was awak- Critically, Pinchasin and her team could draw upon re- ened by a middle-of-the night call from her cent and similar teamwork that followed the March 2022

C mother-in-law with a disquieting message: there was an ac- grounding of another large containership, the Ever For- cident on the Francis Scott Key Bridge. Her mother-in-law ward, near Annapolis.

added: “I ? gured you’d have something to do with this.” “We partner with these stakeholders when it’s not an

An understatement to be sure. Within hours, Pinchasin emergency,” Pinchasin pointed out. “A human connection became one of six Uni? ed Commanders to lead the Uni? ed already exists among us.” The decision was made to again es-

Command team established by afternoon March 26. The tablish a Uni? ed Command, enjoining six agencies, to over- bridge became her life for the next two and a half months. see Key Bridge recovery. A top executive from each agency

In an interview, Pinchasin was asked about some of the became one of six Uni? ed Commanders. As USACE’s top critical, initial events as well as some of the major decisions of? cial for the Port of Baltimore, Col. Pinchasin became a and events as the recovery efforts developed. Her initial Uni? ed Commander (with the Ever Forward incident the thought: it happened in the middle of the night! Sadly, USACE was not part of the Uni? ed Command because the the world learned later, six contractors were killed. But at vessel was in a state, not a federal, shipping channel).

1:30 a.m. there was no morning rush on I-695. The State Importantly, the Army Corps could take advantage of

Police, responding to a mayday call from the Dali, the con- an interagency agreement with the Navy, an agreement tainership that struck the bridge, had at least a few minutes that allowed the Navy’s Supervisor of Salvage and Diving to block the roadways, saving countless lives. (SUPSALV) to call the contractors it has on standby, ready

Then, Pinchasin said, the phone calls started. Even early to react in just such an emergency situation. For the Key reports indicated a major disaster. The 50-foot-deep Fort Bridge project, Donjon Marine, based in New Jersey, was

McHenry channel, under the bridge, is USACE’s jurisdic- on point and, indeed, mustered its team and equipment tion, a channel critical for regional, national and interna- and moved into action. Pinchasin said Donjon was on site tional trade, a route supporting thousands of jobs in the in less than 12 hours.

Port of Baltimore and the region.

“There was no waiting for someone to call me and say, Stranded energy ‘Okay, this is your assignment,’” Pinchasin recalled. “US- Pinchasin highlighted the deliberate and precise plan-

ACE has maintained this channel for over 100 years. We ning required for recovery operations. She noted the po- had to clear it.” Fifty-thousand tons of wreckage crashed tential energy trapped within twisted steel and cables and into the Patapsco River. rebar, energy held in check, tied up really, by being at the

Initial outreach went to USACE’s emergency manage- bottom of a pile and weighed down further by roadway, ment teams. The Coast Guard was contacted. “Everybody water and mud. Moving that debris meant releasing that knew,” Pinchasin recalled, “that the debris was nothing energy, like a gigantic malevolent clock spring.

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