Maryland Officials Hold Briefing on Bridge Collapse Response

Good afternoon. Let me start by saying that again and as always, we are praying for the victims of the Key Bridge collapse and also their loved ones. And to their families I say that we see you, we stand with you, and you will always have our full support now and always. [Spanish 00:00:46]. I also want to recognize our first responders, our emergency personnel, and also their families. To all of you, we say thank you. Now I want to say a few words to the leaders from all across the state who’ve shared their prayers and shared their support. Ever since the collapse, we have been hearing from elected officials from all over the state and from both political parties, elected officials from big cities and small towns, from Western Maryland, to the Eastern Shore, and everywhere in between. We’ve heard from people like Neil Rupp from Carroll County, and he’s the mayor of a town of about 1,700 people. We’ve heard from people like Talbot County Council President Chuck Callahan, who’s a Republican, and people like the Mayor of Berlin Zack Tyndell, who’s a Democrat. We have heard from so many from all across the state, and I want to say to all of you, to all them, thank you for your good words, thank you for your prayers, please keep sending them, and we’re in this together. In fact, I saw a post on social media from our friends in Allegheny County over in Western Maryland that I want to share with all of you. And it reads, “We may be separated by counties, stretches of miles of interstate between us. They the city, us the mountains. Yet we bond over our flag, we bond over Old Bay, we bond over the Maryland blue crab, and being a small but a mighty state.”

(02:46)
Marylanders are rallying today we stand stronger than ever and people are raising their hands to serve. I could not be more proud to be the governor. I cannot not be more proud to be a Marylander. And we’ve been on the phone with leaders from the private sector as well who have been agreeing to step up and raise their hand to serve in this moment. We continue to have these conversations and we’ll continue having these conversations in the coming days. And we are going to work together to help Maryland workers, to help Maryland businesses, to help Maryland families, and to help Maryland communities during this difficult time. Now this morning I received a briefing from the Unified Command and today I’ll provide some updates on the four directives that I’ve issued to our team.

(03:44)
As a reminder, first, we need to give closure to these families. Second, we need to clear the channel and open vessel traffic to the port. Third, we need to take care of our people, all the people who have been affected by this crisis. And fourth, we need to and we will rebuild the Key Bridge. So first, on our recovery efforts, we need to do more work clearing the channel in order for us to move forward, and current conditions make it unsafe for rescue divers to return to the water. We have to move fast, but we will not move careless. My directive is to complete this mission with no injuries and no casualties, and I want to be clear, our work with these families does not end with recovery. Both federal and state partners are meeting with the families of the victims to offer them supports.

(04:52)
Now in clearing the federal channel and opening the vessel traffic to the port, I want to share some details on what’s going on in assessing the area of the collapse. The water is so murky that salvage divers cannot see more than two feet in front of them. We can’t use conventional cameras to map the area, therefore, we need to use sonar. Unified Command is using high-tech devices that emit sound to help us map a three-dimensional rendering of the collapse site. This is the best equipment on the market for this type of work and has only become commercially available over the last decade. I’ll show you exactly what I mean on the screen.

(05:39)
So right here what we have… So right where we have here is the 3D rendering of the collapse site. What’s still amazing and still breathtaking to every single one of us is this is our beloved Key Bridge. This is what it looks like now with a vision under the water, mangled, collapsed, cantilevered. That’s the Key Bridge. And what we see here is while the images that we are able to see with the camera of above the water are breathtaking and horrifying, what we are seeing here under the water, where you’re now having debris and wreckage that is sitting inside of a channel inside the Patapsco River, much of it collapsed and pancaked with a 50 foot depth, is absolutely staggering. This channel that we are seeing here, this represents approximately a 700 foot area with a 50 foot depth.

(07:03)
So that is not just the extent of what we’re talking about when we’re talking about the channel. What it’s also meaning here, when you’re looking at how mangled this wreckage is, how collapsed this wreckage is, it begins to highlight the level and the challenge that we have in front of us when it comes to this recovery mission and to being able to open up these elements of the ports. And as we mentioned yesterday before, this vision, this view, and this 3D rendering right now is not just the reason that we have to use sonar.

(07:35)
And when we have divers who are going down, it is not going to be an individual mission. Those divers have to be supported by people who are able to access the 3D vision and the sonar vision to be able to help direct them on where to go. Because remember, the divers cannot see any further than a foot or two in front of them. So this really is a buddy mission and a team mission that takes place every time the divers go into the water. But the areas that have been cleared thus far that we spoke about, those areas are not even included inside of this map.

(08:17)
So when we see there, when we’re talking about the divers, who thus far have been able to navigate only by touch, the reason that the sonar technology, the reason that the new technologies that have been brought on board by the Unified Command, the reason why it is so important, it allows us a new level of access and a new level of vision to be able to move the mission forward. And while we know that this mission is dangerous, while we know this mission is complicated, we also know the remarkable work of this team is pushing us to make progress. Because as of yesterday, we have opened two temporary channels that can and are focusing on supporting commercial traffic. This is a week after the collapse.

(09:05)
I’ve also been briefed by the Maryland Department of the Environment as of this morning, and they have performed water sampling upriver and downriver from the collapsed site. Their samples have revealed that there are no contaminants, including fuel, and the continued examination and the continued operations of being able to test the water will continue throughout. Now third, on taking care of our people. As of yesterday we have two business resource centers that are fully operating. One permanent location in Baltimore City, the other temporary location in Baltimore County. And yesterday, a combined total of 33 people were supported at both locations. We’ll continue to get the word out and we expect the numbers will continue to rise in the coming days, and we are prepared. So to all Marylanders who are looking for hours and locations, please visit www.sba.gov.

(10:11)
Last night the lieutenant governor chaired the first meeting of our new intergovernmental economic response team. She announced three core pillars of our economic response. The first, keep workers attached to their current jobs. The second, keep businesses operating. And the third, support dislocated workers, their families, and their communities. We’ll be closely tracking each of these priorities in close coordination with our partners at the local, the state, and the federal levels of government, and I want to personally thank the Biden administration for their support of this initiative and also personally thank the fellow delegation for the leadership that they continue to show on making it happen. Thank you, Senator Cardin. Now fourth, on rebuilding.

We cannot rebuild the bridge until we first clear the wreckage. But, we will clear the channel. We will move the Dali and we will rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge. Every day, I had the honor of meeting more people who prove what it means to be Maryland tough and Baltimore strong. And today we’re here with one of those people, Paul Hankins.

(11:33)
Paul is an Annapolis native. He’s a director of Salvage Operations and with the Navy’s and with the Navy’s supervisor of Salvage and Diving. All salvage operations under unified command go through Paul. And on day of the collapse, Paul drove from Norfolk to Baltimore to be with the US Army Corps of Engineers to help us get this operation moving. His work is helping us ensure that we move as quickly, as efficiently, as effectively, and as safely as possible. He’s a graduate of the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, so it’s a bit of a homecoming for Paul, and he served in the US Navy. And even as an army guy, I appreciate you, sir, both in the active and in the reserves. It’s leaders like Paul who keep the gears in motion to get this critical priority completed. Paul, Godspeed, bless you and thank you for your service to all of us.

(12:48)
Now in a moment, I will hand it to Admiral Gilreith, who’s speaking for unified command, but also we’re joined by the following speakers, Colonel Pinchasin from the US Army Corps of Engineers, Senator Ben Cardin, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, and Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olaszewski. And I want to thank all of our additional partners for being here today and for all their leadership and their tireless efforts. I will now hand it over to Admiral Gilreith representing Unified Command.

Good afternoon. I’d like to give you a few short updates from the Unified Command. First, our number one priority remains reopening the deep draft channel. And in that regard, we continue diving and survey operations along with our engineering calculations. Now we’ve had to pause diving. As you just heard a second ago, we heard that thunderstorm coming through, so we’ve had to pull the divers out. But once it’s safe to do so, we’ll get them back in the water and continue diving on those operations. I’m going to ask Colonel Pinchasin to provide you a little bit more of an update on that deep draft channel clearance in just a moment.

(13:58)
Our second priority is to remove the ship from the channel also and get it off and refloated. And in that regard, we are staged to begin lifting the first of those undamaged containers off the bow of the ship. Now, we need to lift those undamaged containers off to give us space to safely operate to begin to plan to remove portions of the bridge that are also now embedded into the ship. But we need a weather window to do that, and so we’re staged and ready to go. We just need a break in the weather to be able to pull that, start those operations.

(14:34)
On our third priority, which is removing the rest of the debris from the bridge from the waterway, we are again waiting for another weather window to be able to do that 350 ton lift off the section that’s just immediately north of the deep draft channel. Now those are friction break cranes and it’s just not safe with this rain to operate in those conditions. So we’re going to wait for the right weather window to make those lifts. But in the meantime, we continue to push other assets to the area to have barges ready so that when we make a lift and get that barge sent back to trade point to offload, there’s another barge ready there for the next lift in the future. So we’re continuing to make progress there as well.

(15:17)
Finally, on the alternate channels, those two alternate channels so far have produced eight commercial vessel transits. Those are tugs and barges, inbound and outbound from the port of Baltimore. So those two alternate channels are beginning to make a difference. There’s much more work to go, but those are again, small steps in a long marathon. So Governor, thank you very much and I’ll let to turn it over to Colonel Pinchasin, sir.

Good afternoon everyone. Thank you Governor Moore, Senator Cardin, our state and federal partners and to Baltimore and the greater Maryland community for just the outpouring of support to our team at Unified Command. We really appreciate it more than you know.

(16:09)
I’d first like to say that our hearts and minds are with the families and everyone that has been impacted by this tragic incident, especially the families of those of the victims that are still unaccounted for. We’re working tirelessly in Unified Command, but we are keeping those families in mind. We think and talk about them all the time knowing that that’s the thing that’s really keeping us going and so want to make sure that the families know that they’ve got the best team working on this for them.

(16:39)
Our salvage priorities remain clearing the channel, refloating the vessel, and clearing wreckage from outside the channel. Our teams are working really hard right now in the rain and we’re monitoring to see if we need to stop and go as we’re going with the lighting. We just heard it so I know they’re stopping, but salvage operations continue even though the crane operations might stop. We have salvage efforts on the vessel itself, which are preparing for future work. The shipper is lifting non-impacted, non-impinged containers for storage at Sparrows Point, and we’re also working two concurrent efforts in the 50-foot channel, the 50-foot shipping channel.

(17:18)
We’re still planning on removing that 3,000 to 4,000 ton span that’s resting on top of and leaning up against the vessel. And we’re also planning to clear wreckage from the far side of the channel. What I mean by that is the far side away from where the vessel is grounded into the channel side. To accomplish this, we’re working with the US Navy’s SUPSALVOR and salvage industry partners to gather additional imagery for the engineering analysis that’s going to inform our lift and rigging plans. We’re planning the lifting to occur as part of that to include hydraulic shears that can cut thick bridge, cables, and other parts of the bridge structure.

(18:01)
I just wanted to highlight real quickly just because when I mentioned the SUPSALV and Paul is standing here, and I would be remiss if I didn’t relay what Paul said to us up there. He said the people that are really doing the work, the people that really need to be thanked are those divers out there. They’re the ones out there doing the work all the time. And when I talk to Paul, his humility just comes right out. He takes their safety and that coordination of those teams so seriously. It’s such an honor to serve with that kind of a team, but he’s 100% right. We absolutely need to remember that the folks doing the real work are those salvers, the divers, all those folks out there, out there in the weather right now.

(18:42)
But to get back the intent of working on clearing the far side of the channel besides the span that’s on the vessel, is in order for us to allow us for some deeper traffic. So as we get deeper into the channel on that far side and clear deeper wreckage from the far side of the channel, we’re hoping to be able to traffic larger vessels through. So I know we mentioned that we’re continuing salvage operation, so we’re not going to be able to do any heavy picks today, but the survey work continues on. Inside the channel, the dive operations that are continuing on the far side, they’re going to be both on the east and west side using 3D survey systems. The imagery that the governor described of the wreckage resting on the bottom shows the magnitude and complexity of this challenging project we have ahead.

(19:31)
The underwater sonar imaging tool, also known as the Coda Octopus, is the primary survey tool used by our divers. So as visibility is, if we’re lucky, 1 to 2-feet, it’s right in front of them and it’s cloudy because of the 4 to 5-feet of mud. And then just the loose bottom of the Patapsco River. Divers are working basically in darkness because if they use lights, if we lit it up, it would be like they were driving through a snowstorm with their high beams on. That’s kind of relatable. They have to be guided by detailed verbal instructions and direction from operators and vessels up at the surface. And what those divers are doing is they’re trying to feel those connections. The sonar, the imagery can show you where things are and how they’re laying, but it’s really important for us to know how these are connected, if they’re connected at all, and that’s what those divers have to go in and find.

(20:25)
So I want to take a few moments to talk through the imagery here. It’s what we’re dealing with. So as Governor Moore mentioned, when you see the portions of the Key Bridge on the horizon and you see these beautiful spans that just dive into the water, your imagination imagines that it’s going straight down, almost like Jenga fell or pickup sticks, that you’re going to pick these things up and they’re going to be intact. But what we’re finding under the surface, the yellow is what’s under the water. The red is what you’re seeing above the water. It’s hard to visualize that this is 50-feet down. And then you’ve got wreckage that’s actually going into the mud.

(21:18)
And we just want to be as transparent as we can because you keep hearing us say how complex this is. We tried to zoom in for you. With every layer of survey that we get, we’ll try to be able to show better and better. But if you can imagine what this looks like as opposed to when we’re describing having to cut these spans, that seems manageable. I know we say bite-size pieces of hundreds of tons. That’s a bite size. When you try to imagine this, you can maybe wrap your head around. But when you look at some of that imagery, hopefully we’ll be able to show more and more as we get better fidelity with every additional survey in order to get after picking this stuff up.

It’s not nearly as straightforward. This is complex as it is, now trying to put something like this and figuring out how would you rig this? So we’re going to have to come up with alternate ways like with salvage bucket grabbers to lift these items up. We want to be able to share with you. Thank you. I’ll be followed by Senator Cardin.

Governor Moore, I want you to know that your entire federal team in Congress, Senator Van Hollen, Congressman Mfume, the entire delegation supports the priorities that you’ve set out, the four priorities that we need to accomplish. We say it frequently, we can’t say it enough, our thoughts, prayers, and our support is for the families of the victims of this horrible tragedy. We will continue to hold them in our prayers. I want you to know that … And I also want to thank the uniformed command. This command has been incredible. They do an incredible job. To our first responders, thank you all for everything you do every day and thank you for your help here. To the divers, we can’t thank you enough for the courage you have so that we can get the Port of Baltimore fully opened and get the channel cleared. Your work is critically important.

(23:27)
I just really want to underscore a couple points. There has been no delay and there will be no delay in federal resources and personnel in order to accomplish the mission that the governor has laid out. I want to thank the Biden administration. I want to thank all of our federal agencies that have sent their very best here to Baltimore to help us in dealing with the challenges that we have. I want to thank the federal agencies that approved the request for federal funds immediately so that there was no delay in getting the process started for the clearing of the channel, the equipment here, planning for the traffic issues, and, yes, planning for the replacement bridge.

(24:15)
I also want to thank the federal agencies that have been here to help the people and businesses that have been impacted. We’ve talked about this frequently, but Administrator Guzman of the Small Business Administration put together a team the day of the disaster, recognizing that they would be needed here in Baltimore. We have up and running offices today to help small business operators be able to stay in business.

(24:43)
You see, small businesses are very creative, but they don’t have deep pockets. We have to make sure that they can stay in business, because we are going to reopen the channel. We’re going to need their help, and we’re going to need to make sure that they can maintain their workforce.

(24:58)
Governor, you’ve said this many times. This is a national priority. It’s not just Baltimore. Yes, we take pride in the Key Bridge, but the entire country is impacted by the channel being closed and the bridge being down.

(25:16)
It was interesting in the declaration that was given for the small businesses that are eligible, those that are directly impacted. It’s not just businesses located in Maryland. They’re going to be in Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia, Virginia, District of Columbia, as well as Maryland. This has a major impact, as we know, on the supply chain.

(25:44)
The Senate returns on Monday. The House returns also. On Tuesday, we will have a meeting for the State of Maryland and OMB, Office of Management and Budget, to make sure that we’re all on the same page, to make sure Congress and the administration does everything we need to do, governor, so that you had the continued full support of the federal government.

(26:06)
I want to thank Senator Carper, our neighbor from Delaware, who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee. He convened a meeting of the relevant staff of the United States Senate so they could be briefed this week on the potential needs that are going to be out there, so that they’re ready to act when called upon to make sure that the resources and personnel continue to be made available till we complete our mission.

(26:35)
That mission, as the governor’s laid out, our priority now is to open the channel. We’re going to replace the Key Bridge and it’ll be a bridge befitting to the challenges we have in our community.

(26:48)
I’m just very proud to be part of this team. I’m proud to work with Johnny Olszewski and Mayor Scott and Account Exec. Pittman. The whole team here has worked together as one team, and I thank you all for everything you do to strengthen and help our community. Mayor Scott.

Thank you, senator, and good afternoon everyone. As always, I want to start my remarks by saying that our thoughts and prayers and all of our energy and focus remains with those families that lost their loved ones in this unthinkable tragedy. We will continue to be there with them throughout all of this, as we say, each and every day.

(27:32)
I want to again commend Unified Command, starting with my governor, for their continued work in keeping us all together focused on the mission and the things that the governor has already outlined.

(27:44)
I also want to take a second to just reiterate and hit home another point that the governor hit on today about the environmental, because I’ve seen it. Folks have been tagging me on social media videos about not being able to eat crabs this summer and there’s going to be all these things in the water.

(28:02)
You heard it from the governor, you heard it from our MDE folks, there is no contamination in the water. They will continue to monitor and do the great work that they do every day, especially in a moment like this, to make sure that we are protecting our bay, protecting our wildlife, and the health of our community.

(28:20)
I also want to continue to center everything that we do around those families, from the families of the workers and those who continue to not be able to work because of the port, who are reeling and understanding that they have an unthinkable and … They can’t know what the future is like for them.

(28:38)
To that end, I do want to lift up something that the City Board of Estimates did this morning to approve a transfer of $1 million for wage subsidies for businesses impacted by the port closure. Be working through the Baltimore Civic Fund, which operated a small business wage subsidy program during the COVID-19 pandemic, and this will resemble that effort.

(29:01)
I want to be clear about a few things. First and foremost, this is not to trump anything that any of our partners or how we’re all working together, from the governor, the president, the senator, the county executive, and myself. We have to talk about this publicly because the board of estimates is a public body. When you have a contract that comes up, we have the responsibility to lay that out.

(29:22)
But this is also just an initial step that we can do, as my county executive partner always say, to help start to fill the gaps, but it’s an important step. As we move in the coming days, we’ll be talking about more assistance that the City of Baltimore can help to offer, but we want to ensure, as always, that everyone is moving together. And everyone that works for my team, as the governor knows, that’s exactly how we will do this, because we all have to continue to be together as we have been since the very first second to make sure that we recover and build back stronger in the only way that we know how in Maryland and Baltimore, and that is together.

(30:02)
Thank you. With that, I will turn it over to my county executive partner, County Executive Olszewski.

Thank you, Mayor Scott. Thank you, governor, for your sustained leadership, for being clear-eyed about the mission in front of us, and for your singular focus in supporting the incredible teams that are doing this work. Thank you to the Unified Command leadership. Thank you to Senator Cardin and our incredible federal delegation. Thanks to President Biden for his unwavering support, and incredible partners locally like Mayor Scott and County Executive Pittman.

(30:43)
Just a few updates from Baltimore County’s perspective as we continue to support the work that others are doing. As we continue to think about and pray for those impacted families, I do want give my thanks to the Immigrant Affairs leadership at the state level, in the City of Baltimore, and in Baltimore County. Especially want to give a shout out to Giuliana Valencia-Banks and our team in Baltimore County.

(31:08)
But, together, these offices are doing incredible work and we are supporting them as they support these families and help transition them to dedicated case management support, to navigate a very complex set of supports that are available at all levels of government. But we thank them for their work.

(31:29)
We also continue to support the SBA site at the Dundalk Renaissance Corporation in Dundalk, our temporary site, and we’ll continue supporting the governor and the SBA as they seek out and land a more permanent site rooted in the community.

(31:44)
In addition, we are doing direct outreach in partnership with the ILA, and I’m going to thank their leadership on coordination for both UI and other services that their members may need. We also continue to provide year-round support at our Eastpoint site for UI and other services for affected families.

(32:05)
I’d say even as we continue to respond to the immediate crisis, we know that we can and we must come back even stronger. So we will continue to engage alongside the governor and others, with our communities, our port workers, and more, and we will do whatever we can to support them in that.

(32:21)
So in the meantime, please keep those impacted, the workers, our first responders, those doing the salvage work, and the families who lost those loved ones in your prayer. Thank you. I’ll turn this back over to the governor.

[inaudible 00:32:33].

[inaudible 00:32:33] right now.

Yeah, we’re [inaudible 00:32:46]. Can you tell us any of the details, [inaudible 00:32:50]?

Yeah, I’m thankful we have a completion to the process of finalizing the budget. This is going to give the people of our state

… state the certainty that they need right now and that they deserve right now. I’ve been clear on my guidelines and my guardrails on the budgetary process. We’re now going to be going through the details, but I know that I’m looking forward to having something to make it to my desk that I can sign and move forward on. Well, I’ve been clear about my guidelines when you look at the budget that we initially presented, and so we’re now going to go back through the details to see what the coordinated response has been, but I look forward to giving people this state the certainty that they need right now.

[inaudible 00:33:38]

Thank you. There’s a few things that we’re pursuing. Obviously foremost is the rebuilding of the bridge, but we are basically looking at transit options, getting people to ride-share and things of that sort to try to bring down some of the demand. And then we are reviewing the bottlenecks if we see any now, where we’re looking at our traffic signaling system, for instance, signage and things of that. Major construction, obviously it takes time, so we have to do these softer things first, but then focus on the larger project of rebuilding the bridge.

[inaudible 00:34:23]

Yeah, we have a continued examination and it’s part of the reason that we have over 3000 feet of boom that is surrounding the area, and looking to both capture any type of debris but also go through an analysis process of what it is. I mean, we know that we can report to the people of the state that there has not been any form, there’s no danger inside of the water right now, but we continue to monitor, we continue to examine, and the boom is still going to be out there to making sure we’re capturing any type of residue that pushes out.

[inaudible 00:35:20].

You want to say something?

Good afternoon. Suzanne Dorsey, Deputy Secretary Maryland Department of the Environment. We are not aware of exactly how many containers are in the water, but we continue to sample to ensure the safety and health of the Patapsco River. Timeline for removal will be up to the operations and the safety of the people involved with it.

Sure. Yeah. The first emergency contract was already implemented. The initial work that’s been doing to clear one of the alternative passageways is using those dollars, that $60 million that we got from the federal government, so that process is already underway. We have the contractor out there working, obviously as part of unified command, in partnership with them in terms of where they go next. So that is already underway. We have several meetings a day with Federal Highway as we’re thinking about the next portion in effect of the request that we will make, and then there’ll be a large portion request after that, which is the bridge itself. We’re working through different progressive design build types of thinking to do that, which is probably the quickest way to get the project delivered. We have to work through environmental issues and process issues. That is not your concern, it’s my concern to get that done as quickly as possible, and that’s what we’re doing behind the scenes right now, so that we’re ready to go as well.

What about the longshore worker certainly are not all being fully utilized right now. Are they able to take advantage of unemployment? What’s being done to protect their salary?

Yeah. So we continue to meet with the longshoremen, and we know that not only in addition to the fact that there is the main levers of unemployment that they are able to take advantage of, but we continue to work with them, and also work with outside partners to provide greater levels of support, and think through what exactly does that look like. We know that for some longshoremen, they have had a chance to work over this past week, some of them working around the clock, to be able to help manage operations that are still taking place in the port. And we know for some they have not worked since the collapse and we know even for the ones that were working, there’s still a measure of uncertainty that still exists for the future, for how they’re thinking about their daily pace and their daily cadence.

(38:05)
So we continue to maintain and stay in close contact. We continue to work with both our federal partners, our local partners, and also with the private sector to be able to devise long-term solutions for what it’s going to mean for our longshoremen, but the basic elements of unemployment they can still take advantage of, but we’re still continuing to look at other options and other supports, because we understand the damage that this is done to the industry and also to their families. We have additional plans we’re working through right now.

[inaudible 00:38:35] for the weather to [inaudible 00:38:42].

We are waiting for the weather to improve to actually lift the containers off the dolly.

Thank you.

Have they been able to [inaudible 00:39:05], have they been able to get off the ship, will they be able to [inaudible 00:39:11]?

Ma’am, there’s still 21 crew members on board the ship. They were prepared for a 35-day voyage, and so they have all the food, water supplies that they need to be able to continue to be safe while they’re on board. They have been having communications with people back from their home countries as well. I don’t have any more exact details on who else they may have contacted, but we are maintaining track of them and ensuring that they are being supported.

[inaudible 00:39:46].

I don’t know that at this point, ma’am.

Can you provide any details on how big are these ships? Are they carrying cargo and more generally are these channels, how big are ships?

So the channel depths for the northern alternate channel are 11 feet, and for the southern alternate channel, they’re 14 feet. The commercial vessels that have transited through there are barges. Most of them have been empty at this point, and the tugs that push them, and some tugs that have come in and out of the port as well. Some of those are, there’s one of those was a fuel barge, it was empty. Another fuel barge transited out that was empty. Those are the types of cargo, but it’s more shallow draft barges and shallower draft tugs at this point.

[inaudible 00:40:50].

Well, that third channel is dependent upon the salvage operations, and we’re doing those as soon as possible, but we’re going to continue to do them safely, sir.

[inaudible 00:41:14]

Yeah, I think seeking to cap liabilities, it wasn’t surprising. We were prepared for it and we hope for a speedy investigation as to what happens. And the thing that we know is that if there are people who need to be held to account for what happened, they need to be held to account.