Maryland officials mark one year since collapse of Key Bridge

Maria del Carmen Luna Castellon had hoped to speak at the memorial on the one-year anniversary of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse, which claimed the life of her husband Miguel.

But March 26 was too painful a day, too laden with traumatic memories. So instead, she wrote it down.

Her husband, and the other five immigrant workers who were filling potholes on the bridge the night it collapsed, would still be alive, she wrote — if it weren’t for the “negligent and reckless” operation of the Dali, the cargo ship that toppled the span.

“Concrete and steel can be replaced. The laughter of a father, the embrace of a husband, the future of six men — these are lost forever,” Luna Castellon wrote.

Dignitaries, first responders and victims’ family members gathered Wednesday morning at the bridge site in Dundalk to commemorate the somber anniversary of the disaster etched in the history of the Port of Baltimore and the communities that surround it.

Eleven weeks after the collapse, the debris that filled the Patapsco River and snarled the shipping channel leading to the port had been removed. The bodies of all six victims were recovered by salvage divers and returned to their families, for funeral services in Maryland and in Latin America.

A year later, crews are preparing to demolish what remains of the Key Bridge, including massive concrete support columns still standing in the Patapsco River, and a highway truncated in midair.

The replacement will be Maryland’s first cable-stayed bridge, said Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller (D). It is expected to open in fall 2028, and is currently slated to be fully funded by the federal government.

“We remember the tears that we shed, and the uncertainty that we all felt,” said Gov. Wes Moore (D). “We remember looking out and seeing a deeply painful and unfamiliar sight, that a fixture of the Baltimore skyline and the Baltimore spirit — that parts of it were now laying on top of a ship the length of three football fields.”

In total, more than 1,500 first responders from 55 agencies reported to the bridge site, and formed part of the Unified Command headquartered at Baltimore’s cruise ship terminal, said U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Shannon Gilreath.

“You accomplished things on a timeline that no one thought was possible,” Gilreath said of the responders. “You removed thousands of tons of steel and concrete from the water, recovered the victims and reopened the Port of Baltimore.”

A fund created to provide aid after the collapse garnered $16 million in donations from over 550 individuals and companies, said Shanaysha Sauls, president and CEO of the Baltimore Community Foundation.

A year later, all of the funds have been committed, Sauls said. The projects included cash assistance to 3,000 port workers and truckers, new fire boats to replace vessels damaged on the day of the collapse and transportation assistance for elderly residents of communities cut off from one another when the bridge fell.

Assistance also flowed to the families of the workers who perished in the tragedy, but Luna Castellon said the funds will run out in December. Her remarks Wednesday were read by Yolanda Maria Martinez, special secretary of the Governor’s Office of Small, Minority and Women Business Affairs.

“While this support is a relief, today, I dare to ask for something more,” Castellon Luna said. “When the end of this support approaches, I ask you to consider the possibility of extending it. The path to emotional and financial recovery is long, and it is filled with obstacles.”

Victims’ families, including the Lunas, and collapse survivor Julio Cervantes, are among the dozens of parties that have filed suit against Grace Ocean Private Ltd. and Synergy Marine Ltd., the owner and manager of the Dali. But the complex web of proceedings is expected to take years to resolve.

Army Corps of Engineers gives green light for next step in Key Bridge replacement

Last May, the National Transportation Safety Board released its initial report on the collapse, revealing that the Dali lost power in port twice the day before it hit the Key Bridge. On March 26, 2024, a blackout aboard the ship caused it to crash into one of the bridge’s support columns.

Earlier this month, the Board faulted the Maryland Transportation Authority for failing to conduct an assessment of the bridge’s vulnerability to ship strikes. The bridge was 30 times above the acceptable risk level, according to the NTSB. State officials have pushed back, arguing that the collapse was the “sole fault” of the ship operators. 

Wednesday, Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman noted that it was the Latin American immigrant community hit hardest by the tragedy. The six victims were “doing work that needed to be done, work that most of us lack the skill and the drive to do,” Pittman said.

Victims Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes and Carlos Daniel Hernandez Estrella, who were related, both hailed from Mexico. Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera came from Guatemala, as did Jose Mynor Lopez. Miguel Angel Luna Gonzalez came from El Salvador, and Maynor Yasir Suazo Sandoval from Honduras.

During Wednesday’s ceremony, which also featured musical selections from a trio of Baltimore Symphony Orchestra musicians, memories abounded from March 26, 2024.

For Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, the news came in a phone call from his fire chief, who had just dispatched rescue crews to the Patapsco River.

“I once had him repeat himself, to ensure that I got it right, and we both knew at that very moment that our city and our state would be waking up to a very different reality than when the sun set a few hours before,” Scott said.

In Annapolis that day, when Sen. Johnny Ray Salling (R-Baltimore County) rose to speak about the collapse on the Senate floor, “you could have heard a pin drop,” said Baltimore County Executive Kathy Klausmeier (D), who was a state senator at the time.

Some officials shared personal reflections Wednesday on the bridge’s significance.

Rep. Johnny Olszewski (D-2nd), a Dundalk native who was Baltimore County executive when the bridge collapsed, spoke about the bridge’s prominent role in his childhood years.

“We fished under it. We celebrated getting our driver’s license by driving over the bridge. We had murals of it in our bars. We put it on our sports uniforms,” Olszewski said. “It was our cathedral in the sky.”

Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-7th) said he remembers a time before the bridge’s construction in the 1970s, when “there was nothing in the water but water,” and officials debated building a bridge or a tunnel.

The communities linked by the Key Bridge, which stretched from Turner Station in Baltimore County to Hawkins Point, which straddles Baltimore City and Anne Arundel County, saw the structure as a symbol of a promising future, Mfume said.

“That meant hope. That meant transportation. That meant access. And people grew up here every day after that, watching the sun kiss the steel beams because they went up so high,” Mfume said.

Still today, the site of the former Key Bridge is a source of hope, with the reconstruction effort soon to begin in earnest, Mfume said.

“Soon, and very soon, we will have a continuation of this story,” Mfume said. “That day when we met here, it was just like this: Cold, windy — but overcast. Today is cold and windy, but the sun is out, and the sun is a great reminder of the bright things that are before all of us.”