Newly released body camera video shows the shock and confusion among police officers in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.
The Baltimore Banner obtained more than a dozen videos Friday from the Maryland Natural Resources Police through a Maryland Public Information Act request. The footage offers the public a window into what first responders encountered in the early morning of March 26 and how they tried to make sense of what they were seeing.
A 984-foot-long container ship named the Dali struck one of the main support piers of the bridge, which then fell into the Patapsco River. Six construction workers repairing potholes on Interstate 695 were killed in the disaster.
Here are moments from the footage.
‘Like, there is no bridge’
One officer answered his cellphone at 5 a.m. and said he spoke with someone on a boat from Baltimore County who reported that “they suspended everything until the daylight comes up.”
“Dude, this is f---ing bad,” he said. “Like, there is no bridge. Like, there is no bridge.”
Next, he described how “something’s missing here in the skyline.”
“The whole center span is gone completely,” he said. “It’s in the water.”
‘We’ve heard various numbers’
The footage shows first responders wrestling with unknowns such as how to communicate with others on the scene and the number of potential victims in the water.
“Nobody’s doing anything,” one responder told a group of colleagues as their boats coasted in the water.
“Do you know how many are in the water right now?” one later asked.
“We’ve heard various numbers. We’re not sure.”
‘Is everybody OK up there?’
One of the videos shows an officer interacting with the crew of the Dali more than one hour after the collapse.
“Is everybody OK up there?” the officer yelled across the water to the cargo ship.
“Is anybody hurt?”
The responses from the Dali crew member cannot be heard in the video. But the officer can be heard stating that, beyond someone cutting their fingers, the crew was OK.
‘The infrastructure of Baltimore is going to take a hit’
As reality sunk in, first responders started to reckon with the long recovery ahead.
Two officers grappled with these consequences hours after the disaster.
One said he was lying in bed when he heard that “something hit the bridge.” He said his mind went to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. When he saw the video of what happened, he said, he thought, “Oh my God.”
“Yeah, this is catastrophic,” one said.
“The infrastructure of Baltimore is going to take a hit,” the other replied.
“Yeah, for years.”
