Open in full screen mode A container ship collided with one of the pillars of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore Monday night, causing the structure to collapse. Radio-Canada Voice synthesis, based on artificial intelligence, makes it possible to generate spoken text from a written text. The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, in Baltimore, occurred after a container ship hit a pillar of the structure during the night from Monday to Tuesday, is unlikely to occur in Quebec where the bridges are well protected, according to specialists consulted by Radio-Canada. In the province, freight ships cross half a dozen bridges between the cities of Quebec and Montreal. However, their pillars are protected, whether through riprap or bollards designed to avoid the catastrophic consequences of a collision as destructive as the one in Baltimore. It struck me when looking at the images of Baltimore, the few structures to protect the pillars of the bridge. That the bow of the ship could come into direct contact with the pillar was what surprised me the most. The bridge did not seem adequately protected, says the president of the Corporation of Saint-Laurent Central Pilots, Pascal Desrochers, in an interview with ICI RDI. The latter emphasizes that the bridge most similar to that of Baltimore is the Laviolette bridge, between Trois-Rivières and Bécancour. Both are steel arch bridges.
A riprap The entire Laviolette Bridge is useless, because a drifting ship would run aground before hitting the ends of the bridge, due to the shallow depth of the water there.
In the 1970s, studies identified it as a very fragile structure. […] On the other hand, the pillars of the bridge were filled with rock in the 1980s to avoid collisions with ships.
A quote from Pascal Desrochers, president of the Corporation despilotes du Saint- Laurent Central
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Six people still missing, says Maryland governor
ELSEWHERE ON INFO: Six people still missing, says Maryland governorLoading in progress
Six people still missing, says Maryland governor
ELSEWHERE ON INFO: Six people are still missing, says the governor of Maryland
In Quebec, the pillars of the bridges are on the shore, very far from the navigation channel, while in Montreal, ships circulate in the seaway and therefore cannot deviate from their trajectory. Approximately 6,000 vessels transit the St. Lawrence River each year in the Central St. Lawrence Pilot Area.
Only the Jacques-Cartier Bridge, between Montreal and Longueuil, is an exception, but the volume of the pillars, the reduced navigation speeds (around 6 knots) and the more modest size of the ships mean that the impact force n&# x27;would have no common measure with what happened in Baltimore, according to Pascal Desrochers.
Furthermore, around the only pillar of the Jacques-Cartier Bridge submerged in water, the depth of the river is relatively shallow and a large ship would likely run aground before hitting the pillar.
In the transport sector Jacques-Cartier Bridge, reduced navigation speeds, in particular, would reduce the force of impact.
The carrier Dali containers, which collided with Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge at 1:30 a.m. Monday night, measured 1,000 feet long, 150 feet wide and could carry up to 16,000 tons of cargo.
Bruno Massicotte, professor in the Department of Civil, Geological and Mining Engineering at Polytechnique Montréal, also notes that the Baltimore Bridge appeared to lack protection around its piers. In an interview, he emphasizes that in Canada as in the United States, federal laws govern maritime requirements. Afterwards, he adds, it is up to the owner of the bridge to meet these requirements.
Why 'riprap was not done in an area as busy as the Baltimore bridge? This is a good question, added the professor, mentioning that, according to him, it is a prevention problem which was not taken strictly enough.
At the time of publication, six people were carried disappeared in the Patapsco River which runs along the Maryland metropolis.
With information from Mathieu Papillon and Éric Plouffe