The first container ship has arrived at the Port of Baltimore since the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.
According to the port on social media, MSC Cargo’s Passion III arrived on April 28, moving through a temporary 35-foot-deep channel. The ship offloaded almost 1,000 containers, in a major milestone toward the full reopening of the Port of Baltimore. Commercial traffic in the area has been closed since March 26, when the Dali container ship crashed into the Key Bridge, killing six people and blocking the primary path into the port.
There are currently four temporary channels in use, mostly limited to smaller essential vessels needed to clear and repair the wreckage around the bridge. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says that the main permanent 50-foot-deep channel into the port will likely reopen by the end of May.
The impact to the nation’s supply chain since the port’s closure has been minimal, thanks in large part to other East Coast ports that have accommodated the additional vessel traffic. The Biden administration has credited its Freight Logistics Optimization Works initiative for that effort, which collects and shares data from freight hubs to help predict import volumes and traffic.
Bloomberg reports that four out of seven ships that were trapped in Baltimore Harbor following the bridge collapse have since been cleared.
