Barriers are being added to the Delaware Memorial Bridge to absorb the impact of crashes like Baltimore’s cargo ship collision

PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Construction is already underway on barriers that would protect the Delaware Memorial Bridge from the type of collision in Baltimore early Tuesday morning.

Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed after it was struck by a cargo ship , sending several cars and people into the chilly water below.

Since last July, crews have been building eight stone cylinders around the eastern and western piers of the Delaware Memorial Bridge, which spans the Delaware River and connects Delaware and New Jersey. The 80-foot-diameter cylinders, known as “dolphins,” would protect the bridge towers.

“The purpose is to absorb hits from a cargo ship, should it become disabled or lose power or for whatever reason,” said Jim Salmon, a spokesperson for the Delaware River and Bay Authority. “The damage would be caused to the cylinders, to the concrete structure, instead of to the tower structure that holds up the deck of the bridge.”

The twin spans on the Delaware Memorial Bridge, built in the ’50s and ’60s, currently have steel fenders on the bridge piers. One successfully deflected a tanker collision in 1969 that caused about $7 million in damage.

Salmon said today’s cargo ships are larger and faster, making a more substantial protection system necessary.

“We’re building it as fast as we can, and we were building it as fast as we could before this incident,” he noted. “It was all hands on deck with this project.”

The $93 million project is on track to be completed in September 2025.

Gleaning from tragedy

Even before the Baltimore tragedy, the Delaware River Port Authority had been making arrangements to put money in its five-year capital plan to upgrade the existing timber collision protection systems on the Ben Franklin and Walt Whitman bridges — both suspension bridges.

DRPA CEO John Hanson says, in 2008, rock islands were installed at the Commodore Barry Bridge to make ships run aground before they’d hit the piers.

And the Betsy Ross has concrete barriers known as dolphins to protect its piers from ships.

Hanson says the Baltimore collapse provides another opportunity to examine safety on the DRPA’s four bridges.

“It’s likely we will learn something — we will glean something from this tragedy,” he said. “And we will apply it to our system here to do whatever we can to make it even safer than it already is.”