Demolition at Baltimore bridge collapse site

Breaking right now on W USA nine news of five,

we are just moments away from a planned

demolition at the Baltimore key bridge collapse site.

So a large section of wreckage you see

right there is expected to explode piece by piece

to free the dolly ship and ultimately get that channel cleared out.

Thank you for being here with us tonight at five. I'm Lorenzo Hall.

I'm Leslie Foster. It's been such a long time that it's been sort of just stuck there.

Let's get right to the our Scott Broom live in

Baltimore where this demolition could literally happen any moment now,

Scott,

well, Leslie,

you'll notice I'm not standing in front of the camera so

that there will be no obstruction to the view of this.

When it finally goes off, we just received, we believe a two minutes heads up.

A lot of the defense department contractors here

have just launched their drones to take pictures.

So it does appear this is on time. It was scheduled for

a five o'clock

demolition of that huge steel superstructure you see hanging off the

d

the sort of iconic view of this disaster that's

been there since it happened on March 26.

Now, what we're expecting here is a warning horn,

a long marine horn blast and that should give us about a one

minute heads up before it goes and then three short blasts of a horn

which will indicate a 10 count

to that implosion. Now, they're

using the term precision cutting when they've been talking about this,

they really have downplayed the idea that explosives are being used.

We've been told repeatedly

again and again, not to expect some sort of Hollywood spectacular

instead to expect

more than a dozen charges that have been

placed in critical structural points on that steel superstructure

that are going to go off

and break it in just such a fashion so that it folds up and falls into the

Poso River here away from the ship.

That's the plan.

The charges have been set at many of the critical junctures.

We can see black marks on the bridge where they have.

Oh,

we got five count.

Ok. There it goes,

the remains of the Francis Scott Keek bridge that

have been resting on the bow of the dolly

just demolished

using precision charges.

We were expecting the blast of marine horns for a heads up. That's not the way it went.

I heard somebody say 543 and stop talking

and there it goes, you can see the big puff of smoke.

It does appear to have gone off as the engineers

expected.

They wanted the blast to go off to break the bridge to get the weight off the dolly.

And for the remains of much of the bridge to fall away from the ship and into the water.

And that's exactly what we saw

still resting on the dolly right now

is a lot of the concrete roadway,

the remains of the Francis Scott Key bridge still there.

But they do believe

that they've removed enough of the weight or will

be able to remove an additional amount of weight

to be able to float that ship and back it out

within two days was the plan as we were briefed earlier today to get the ship out

of that position.

And that of course, clears away for these huge

dredging cranes that have been on site since the disaster to come in

and remove a lot of the remains we just saw fall into the Baltimore Harbor channel

and get the whole channel open. The plan is to still have this channel open

by the end of this month.

Now, we can see that the dolly

doesn't look like it moved much as that weight was removed. So

unclear whether or not the ship

had enough weight removed to begin floating a little higher in the water.

I don't see that,

but that's the plan

pretty dramatic moment here as we see the

remains of the Francis Scott Key bridge after this

huge calamity and disaster here in Baltimore. It's been

since March 22

when that ship hit

the bridge, brought it down the loss of life.

Six workers, the last of whom remains were found at

the end of last week clearing the way for this demolition

project to go. Another interesting note before we toss it back to you.

One of the reasons they chose demolition charges

was because that steel as it rested on a dolly was under stress.

And

if you can imagine say sawing through a piece of wood that's got weight on each end,

you saw it in the wrong place and it snaps

and then the wood potentially injures the person sawing it.

Well, imagine that on a giant scale

with steel as they were cutting it,

they were concerned that it had enough stress in it that it could literally snap

and injure or kill any of the workers that were up there.

The highest charge on the bridge was set at 182 ft

above the water line.

So there it is, you can see the aftermath of this. Now,

the remains of the Francis Scott key bridge blasted

and falling into the harbor clearing the way, hopefully for the removal

of the additional debris that's still resting on the dolly. And

the plan is to move the dolly

out of that position and towards a dock within two days.

Setting the stage for opening up the rest of

Baltimore's harbor reporting live from the remains of

the Francis Scott key bridge in Baltimore,

Scott Broom W

A nine. Back to you.

What

a sight there. And I got to

say

you mentioned that crew told us not to

expect any sort of Hollywood style explosion here.

But I got to say this looks pretty Hollywood to me the way it just crumbled there.

It's off of that ship. Finally,

you can see the front of the dolly as well. We haven't seen that vantage point.

It's pretty badly damaged from

when he hit the bridge back in late March and

just remarkable to see up close that part of the roadway

on top of the dolly Scott, we have been wondering for the better part of seven weeks.

Now,

what is happening with the crew of the dolly? Are they still on board the dolly?

What do we know about the status of the crew?

They are,

oh,

the S A,

they are still on board the dolly.

They were removed to the aft section of the ship.

Forgive me for getting into Mariner language. But

you see all the containers that are stacked on the ship. You can see the bridge where

all the operations of the ship occur under

normal circumstances about in the middle way,

in the back in the stern, the aft,

all the crew was removed to that location. They're still on a ship.

And the reason they're still there today importantly

is because they are best poised to react to any

sort of problem if anything had gone wrong. They are, after all the crew of the ship,

they have been interviewed by the NTSB and other investigators,

you have to remember when International Mariners sign up to go on a job,

they very rarely leave a ship in the many, many ports around the world where they call

it's all business until their contracts are up. Now.

Obviously, this is a unique situation,

but it is not unusual for the crew of a ship to stay on board for

months at a time.

And that's what's occurring with the crew

on the dolly if we are able to.

And unfortunately,

I'm not able to see what you're seeing on television at the moment.

But if we can get a second look at it, that

implosion or demolition, whatever you want to call it,

you're right. They warned us up repeatedly. Not that this was

not going to be a Hollywood production.

Part of that is sensitivity for the six lives that were lost here.

They really didn't want to make this seem like some sort of

spectacular

sort of event

that takes away from the immense tragedy that occurred here.

And in fact, it's notable that this

use of explosives and demolition did not occur until the final

body of a bridge victim was recovered late last week. Clearing the way

for what happened here. Yes. In fact, we saw

explosions and multiple points on the bridge.

A huge puff of smoke and quite a concussion

here from, I would say about three quarters of a mile distance

as

the demolition charges went off. So there you have it, the dolly

now a very significant measure more towards being freed and towed back to the dock

and more remains of the

Francis Scott Key bridge now detached from

the dolly thanks to these demolition charges

and resting on the bottom of the harbor where they will be much easier

to further demolish. Pick up and clear that channel by the end of the month,

this

interesting sort of juxtaposition of both humanity

and commodity, right?

Knowing that they have to move this to be able to fully open the channel for

business and commerce to continue,

but fully taking into consideration the sensitivity

of the people who serve those six

men were serving for the rest of us and they gave their lives in service

because of what happened here.

And we heard Governor Moore say, you know, before they got to this point,

that would be their priority,

recovering the bodies of those six workers to try

and give their families some sort of closure.

And as Scott mentioned,

the last uh person's body was recovered a short time

ago and that's why we're we're witnessing this moment today,

this critical moment

in clearing that channel as well.

We're going to talk about next steps when we see you back here at six o'clock, Scott.

Thank you.