In the early hours of March 26, a large container ship struck one of the piers on the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, triggering a catastrophic failure of a structure that carried 11.5 million vehicles a year across the Patapsco River and Baltimore Harbor. Eight workers on a late-night repair crew plunged into the water, and only two could be rescued.
The New York Times rushed to respond, waking reporters and photographers and launching live coverage from the New York, Seoul and London newsrooms. Overnight and as dawn broke, a growing team of journalists sent live dispatches from the chaotic scene as dozens more telephone reporters, video producers, graphics journalists, investigative reporters and audio producers built a comprehensive look at the disaster, its consequences and causes.
Our live blog reported news as it emerged in real time, carrying updates from the authorities, mini-profiles of the immigrant workers who died that night, descriptions of the commuting mess created and detailed information on the ownership, history and movements of the cargo ship that struck the bridge. Millions of readers tuned in to the live coverage at all hours of the day and night.
By the end of the next day, on March 27, The Times assembled a dramatic narrative and timeline of the disaster – an interview with a leading harbor pilot on the first signs of problems on the container ship, an account of how crew members and those on shore tried frantically to avert the crash, then rushed toward the dark waters to rescue those who had fallen in. Visual journalists raced to create explanatory maps, diagrams and annotated satellite and video imagery that helped readers to understand the extraordinary circumstances that converged to create such a massive collapse. Several reporters immediately began talking to engineers and experts to understand whether there were any structural issues with the Key Bridge. They soon learned that the bridge lacked the kind of protective barriers known as fenders, present on many bridges, that could have prevented a ship from directly striking the bridge’s piers. Times journalists worked swiftly to identify other bridges across the country that had invested in such protections. Their work culminated in a clear visual presentation, illustrated with aerial imagery, of what state-of-the-art bridge protection ought to look like.
