New channel lets long-trapped ships escape from Baltimore Harbor

Some of the biggest ships trapped behind the wreckage of Baltimore’s Key Bridge can finally escape, as a new, deeper temporary channel opened Thursday for carefully choreographed journeys in and out of the Port of Baltimore.

On Thursday morning, the Panama-flagged Balsa 94, escorted by a pair of tugboats, slipped through a new 300-foot-wide, 38-foot-deep channel and headed for the Chesapeake Bay on its way to eastern Canada’s Port of Saint John. Later in the day, a large ship that carries vehicles and a third cargo ship also headed out through the channel, while others were set to come into the port, authorities said.

“The channel is active and in use,” said Petty Officer Michael Himes, a spokesman for the Key Bridge Response Unified Command.

The ships had been trapped with a handful of other large vessels since the 95,000-gross-ton Dali slammed into a bridge pier on March 26 following an electrical malfunction that remains under federal investigation. Six bridge workers were killed.

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There’s been a trickle of marine traffic and commerce in recent weeks, with more than 140 smaller ships circumventing the disabled Dali and the crumpled steel debris blocking the main shipping channel by using smaller temporary channels.

The deeper channel that opened Thursday is set to offer a limited window for the passage of some bigger vessels.

The U.S. Department of Transportation earlier this month said there were three bulk carriers, two general cargo ships, a tanker and a vehicle carrier stuck behind the destroyed bridge, along with four U.S. vessels for moving Army and Marine Corps equipment.

Some of those vessels are now getting moving again, officials said.

James Harkness, chief engineer for the Maryland Transportation Authority, which had responsibility for the Key Bridge, said seven vessels that had been stuck at port will be able to leave, and another four are scheduled to come into the port using the deeper channel over the next few days.

But on Monday, that window will shut again, Himes said. Teams of workers are set to reach a particularly delicate phase of the post-disaster cleanup next week, as they pull a large steel section of the fallen span off the Dali so it can eventually be floated out of the way and the main channel fully reopened.

Authorities want to protect the crews doing that crucial work from any added disturbances from large vessels passing by, necessitating the closure of the deeper temporary channel.

“It’s two things going on at the same time,” Himes said. “There’s our commitment to restoring commerce to Baltimore in any way we can, while also balancing against the removal of bridge debris from the Dali.”

The deeper temporary channel will open again around May 10. And crews are still planning to reopen the full shipping channel by the end of May.

Unlike when the Dali was headed out of port in the early hours of March 26, deep-draft vessels using the new temporary channel must be escorted by two tugs, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. And they must be traveling at or below five knots.

Other smaller, temporary channels will remain open pending the planned full resumption of commercial traffic by the end of May, authorities said.

Harkness said a 20-foot-deep channel opened over the weekend, allowing some “commercially essential vehicles” to pass through. Barges are carrying sugar for Baltimore’s Domino Sugar refinery, liquid fertilizer, coal and aluminum into the port, Harkness said.