(WBBM NEWSRADIO) – A veteran engineering professor from the Chicago area has ideas about preventing the type of bridge collapse that occurred in Baltimore overnight.
Joseph Schofer, professor emeritus at Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering, said the bridge collapsed after a container ship lost power and ran into a support pylon.
The pylon could have been surrounded by a protective buffer of steel and concrete, he said. That strategy could be an effective one, he said, if governments are willing to make the investment moving forward.
“It’s going to look like an island made out of steel and concrete that absorbs and deflects the blow of a drifting or an under-control ship that would attempt to take down the bridge,” Schofer said.
Authorities at the scene of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse said Tuesday that a search has been suspended until early Wednesday for the six construction crew members who had been on the structure when it collapsed. They are presumed dead.
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