In a report released Friday, the National Road Safety Board included the Bob Graham Sunshine Skyway Bridge among 68 overwater bridges nationwide that require immediate vulnerability assessments.
This recommendation is included in the NTSB report on March 26, 2024, when the container ship Dali attacked and collapsed the Francis Scott Key Bridge in the Port of Baltimore. Six construction workers on the bridge were killed.
The Skyway, open to traffic, was built in 1987 before the American Expressway Association and the Transportation Agency developed guidelines in 1991 for “acceptable risk levels.”
The list includes, among other things, Golden Gate Bridge (San Francisco), Chesapeake Bay Bridge (Maryland), Talmagge Bridge (Savannah, Georgia), Verazan Narose Bridge (New York), George Washington Bridge (New York), and Napoleon Bonaparte Bridge (Jacksonville).
The NTSB report highlighted that the organization “doesn’t suggest that 68 bridges will collapse for sure. The NTSB recommends that owners of these bridges assess whether the bridges exceed acceptable levels of risk.”
A “survey update” on Friday reported that Maryland’s structure is “almost 30 times above the acceptable risk threshold for critical or essential bridges.”
Preliminary reports suggest that Dali has serious power system problems and that a sudden loss of power caused a collision. The Keybridge collapse is underway.
The Skyway was built in the aftermath of the ship attack on May 9, 1980. During a sudden storm and macroburst, the cargo ship summit venture was blown off the course as it was approaching the Span Bridge at the time.
Subsequent collisions collapsed the western span, causing passenger cars and greyhound buses to plunge 150 feet into Tampa Bay. Thirty-five people were killed.
The construction of the replacement bridge totaled $244 million and included a series of large concrete and stone “dolfs” strategically placed on either side of the structure.
The association’s guidelines were partially developed in response to the 1980 disaster.
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