President Joe Biden visited Dundalk last Friday to survey the damage from the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge and meet with the families of six construction workers who were killed in the disaster.
Aboard the presidential helicopter Marine One, Biden toured the mangled mass of metal and concrete that plunged into the Patapsco River after it was struck by a container ship around 3 a.m. on March 26.
“From the air I saw the bridge that has been ripped apart,” Biden said, “but here on the ground I see a community that’s pulled together.”
Speaking to a group of local officials and first responders at the MDTA Police Headquarters in Dundalk, Biden again promised that the federal government would foot the full cost of rebuilding the bridge.
“I’m here to say your nation has your back and I mean it,” Biden said. “Your nation has your back.”
The federal government typically picks up 90% of the tab and the state 10% when replacing disaster-damaged interstate highways and bridges, but Sen. Ben Cardin has promised to introduce a bill in Congress that will cover the full cost of the repair.
“We’re going to move heaven and earth to rebuild this bridge as rapidly as humanly possible,” Biden said. “And we’re going to do so with union labor and American steel.”
The Small Business Administration has also opened an office in Dundalk to offer disaster relief loans of up to $2 million to local businesses that have been impacted by the bridge collapse. Located at 11 Center Place, the SBA’s Business Recovery Center is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. to help local businesses through the disaster.
Tradepoint Atlantic, the logistics center in Sparrows Point that sits on the site of the old Bethlehem Steel Mill, will be using a federal grant from the Department of Transportation to more than double its cargo capacity. Because of its location, Tradepoint is the only shipping facility in the area that can still operate normally.
“I’m proud to announce that the federal government will provide over $8 million in grant funds to make the infrastructure improvements at Sparrows Point, as the only port unaffected by this collapse, which will allow Sparrows Point to take on more ships,” Biden said. “And that’s happening now — will happen shortly.”
In addition to handling displaced cargo, Tradepoint has become the staging area for cleanup of the bridge. Salvage crews began removing damaged shipping containers and portions of the bridge over the weekend, and the debris is taken to Tradepoint for examination and final disposal by the Army Corps of Engineers.
The White House said that the Corps of Engineers hopes to open a limited-access channel for barge container ships and some vessels moving cars and farm equipment by the end of April, and to restore normal capacity to Baltimore’s port by May 31.
While crews figure out the best way to move hundreds of tons of wreckage out of the water, divers are still looking for the remains of the victims who are lost below the surface.
“As our engineers are assessing and surveying and figuring out how they’re going to lift those loads, they know in the back of their minds that they’re also looking for any traces of the fallen,” Army Corps of Engineers Col. Estee Pinchasin said.
Eight workers — immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador — were filling potholes on the bridge when it was hit by a huge cargo ship and collapsed in the middle of the night of March 26. Two men were rescued and the bodies of two others were recovered in subsequent days.
Authorities announced Friday evening that salvage divers had recovered, in the hours before Biden arrived, a third body from the water, that of Maynor Yasir Suazo-Sandoval, 38.
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