Three Delaware bridges are on a list of bridges federal officials worry could be vulnerable to catastrophic damage from being hit by a ship.
The three bridges - Summit Bridge, Saint Georges Bridge, and Reedy Point Bridge - all span the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. With some 2,500 ships using it each year, the canal is one of the busiest corridors in the world for ship traffic. Steve Rochette is a spokesperson for the US Army Corps of Engineers, which owns the bridges.
“You've got car carriers, tugs, barges, a significant amount of cargo ships that transit that canal and contribute to our maritime economy," he said.
The three bridges are among dozens across the country listed in a report by the National Transportation Safety Board in the wake of last year's deadly ship on Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge. While the NTSB report doesn’t say the bridges are vulnerable, it calls for a multi-agency group to be formed to evaluate them.
Rochette says the Corps is already working on that.
“We've actually begun vulnerability assessments on these bridges already. We're in the process of doing that now," he said. "We've actually already started some preliminary design work on a type of fendering system that could help manage that vulnerability and that risk.”
Rochette stressed that the bridges are inspected, "frequently" for all kinds of potential problems.
“These bridges are routinely inspected for all types of structural issues. We're always trying to manage the bridges in a way that protects public safety," he said.
Rochette says safety is their first priority and that the Corps welcomes insight from its federal, state, and local partners.
