DUNDALK, Md. — Crews are facing midweek weather challenges in the response and recovery following the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse.
Gov. Wes Moore said crews set buoys in the rain for passing vessels on Tuesday morning, and engineers and salvage teams kept evaluating the site.
But the bad weather halted a planned wreckage lift.
"We just can't do that lift in lightning," said US Coast Guard Rear Admiral Shannon Gilreath. "And some of those other conditions are making that challenging. But from a safety perspective, it is unsafe to operate those cranes when you have lightning in the area."
There is also much going on behind the scenes with the US Army Corps of Engineers; divers and 3D surveying have given them a better understanding as they chart the difficult dissolution of the debris, especially below the water.
"These are areas where we'll be able to cut and lift, cut and lift," explained Col. Estee Pinchasin, Commander of the US Army Corps of Engineers Baltimore District, in front of a flat-screen showing maps of the site. "But then, as you go below the surface, 50 feet down in the water, it is not something we're going to be able to cut through. And we don't want to put people in danger if there's going to be instability."
Meanwhile, on the roads, commuters saw more crashes and traffic in the poor weather as students returned to school, according to Sec. Paul Wiedefeld, Maryland's Secretary of Transportation.
As of Tuesday, there are two small, temporary channels open, one 11 feet deep and the other 14 feet deep. But those temporary channels are not deep enough for the ships carrying vehicles, which is crucial to the Port of Baltimore.
"If you look at what happens with those vehicles," Moore told reporters, "that supports the lives and the livelihoods of 100 longshoremen, every time a large vessel can pull into the port of Baltimore."
Gov. Moore says the waterway is a long way from getting the size and cadence of commercial traffic back.
