NEW CASTLE, Del. (KYW Newsradio) — The agency running the Delaware Memorial Bridge said the twin-span bridge is safer, now that a system is in place to protect the bridge from a ship running into it.
Dignitaries gathered on Wednesday to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the first span of the Delaware Memorial Bridge, and to mark completion of an $89 million project to install eight 80-foot concrete cylinders, called dolphins, in the river.
“They are concrete cylinders filled with sand and then topped with stone,” said Delaware River and Bay Authority Chief Operating Officer Vince Meconi.
Meconi says the dolphins, anchored more than 100 feet below the surface of the river, are designed to deflect the impact of a ship out of control.
DRBA Executive Director Joel Coppadge visited the top of the bridge during the more than two years of construction — and he said the significance of the $89 million project came into focus.
“If it didn’t hit you until you saw at the top, the size of the tanker coming in our direction, it sunk in,” he said, “as well as what happened with Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland.”
However, Coppadge said the collision protection system was planned years before the deadly 2024 crash that killed six workers.
“The impact to businesses, commuters, the commerce that it generates around the region is substantial,” he said, “so the mindset is we have to protect that asset.”
According to Meconi, people have asked if it’s likely a ship could hit one of the bridge towers.
“The answer is, it already happened,” he explained. “After the second span was completed in 1968 we had a ship collide with it.”
That collision did a million dollars worth of damage, and the dolphin system has been designed to reduce the risk of it happening again.
