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New footage released by the Baltimore police shows officers’ shock and disbelief in the aftermath of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse, with one remarking “this is gonna be a hell of a cleanup.”
The department released body cam footage from around 1.40am on March 26, just 11 minutes after the 100,000-ton cargo ship, Dali, smashed into the structure.
Arriving at 1:48am, one officer asks another: "Is that the Key Bridge collapsed?"
"Yeah it’s the whole bridge, a ship lost its steering and the whole bridge is down in the water over here," the other officer responds.
Later, another officer says: "We got a call a minute, if that, before it hit it,” before adding: "This is gonna be a hell of a cleanup."
The group of officers then discusses the construction workers who were on the bridge at the time of the collision, with one noting how there were still “20 if not more” unaccounted for at that time.
Just before 2am the footage also shows a person being rescued from the water, with a man in a yellow high-visibility jacket seen disembarking from a police boat and being led away.The man was later identified as Julio Cervantes Suarez, the sole surviving member of a seven-strong construction crew, who were filling potholes on the bridge and all fell into the icy water following the crash.
In a recent interview with NBC, Cervantes Surez said he had watched in horror as his coworkers, friends and relatives plunged to their deaths, and described fighting for his life after his truck tumbled into the Patapsco River.
The 37-year-old said that the men were sitting in their construction vehicles during a break when the bridge suddenly started crumbling beneath them.
A last-minute mayday call from the ship’s pilot had allowed nearby police officers to stop traffic to the bridge just moments earlier, but they didn’t have enough time to alert the construction workers.
“They were good people, good workers and had good values,” Cervantes Suarez told NBC.
A National Transportation Safety Board investigation found that the wayward cargo ship Dali experienced power outages before starting its voyage from Baltimore to Sri Lanka, but the exact causes of the electrical issues have yet to be determined.
The FBI is also conducting a criminal investigation into the circumstances leading up to the disaster.
The ship’s owner and manager, both Singapore-based companies, filed a court petition soon after the collapse seeking to limit their legal liability.
The City of Baltimore, among other entities, have challenged that claim and accused the companies of negligence. Lawyers representing victims of the collapse and their families, including Cervantes Suarez, have also pledged to hold the companies accountable.
Officials have pledged to rebuild the bridge, which could cost at least $1.7 billion and take several years.
