Important Takeaways:

• ‘Mass Casualty Event’: 1.6 Mile Baltimore Bridge Collapses After Being Struck by Cargo Ship
• The major Beltway Bridge over the Patapsco River has collapsed after being hit by a large cargo ship, sending vehicles travelling on the bridge tumbling into the water.
• Now the BBC notes “an unclassified memo” from the U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) states it has confirmed the ship “lost propulsion” before hitting the bridge.
• So evidently the ship was, as nautical parlance has it, ‘not under command’, meaning “at the mercy of winds and seas” — and in this case, inertia. What we do not know is whether this state of having “lost propulsion” means the engine ceased to function, or if the coupling taking the energy from the engine to the propeller was damaged. In either case the ship was disabled at a critical moment and in a critical place and collided with enormous force.
• The search for survivors continues, but the cold water presents a serious challenge. One person is in hospital and two others are said by the Baltimore fire department to have been rescued. Up to a dozen others — mainly from the road repair crew working on the bridge at the time of the strike — may still be in the water.

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