The Francis Scott Key Bridge Collapse
Along with millions around the world, I was shocked to learn of the collapse of the Key Bridge over the port of Baltimore, Maryland on March 26. At this writing six bridge workers died in the tragedy. Two of those bodies were recovered; four bodies are still missing.
All these men were immigrants to the US, coming from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico. They had come to the States for a better life. They became husbands and fathers. So may we remember them and the loved ones they left behind.
Sadly, there have been other bridge collapses around the world due to ship or barge collisions—35 major ones from 1960 to 2015, leaving 342 people killed. Eighteen of those collapses happened in the US. One of those was of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay on May 9, 1980. Thirty-five people died.
I recently crossed the reconstructed Skyway Bridge and thought of that bridge collapse in Baltimore. And I thought, too, of the day in 2003 when I first crossed the new John Ringling Causeway Bridge in Sarasota, FL, just south of Tampa.
I ran across that bridge the day after it was dedicated, which included a foot race. For me, it was nice not to be with the crowd of 800 runners even if no one gave me a commemorative T-shirt. I guess my run was my own personal way of dedicating such a magnificent structure.
And yet, I am aware that I have mixed emotions about the bridge. I do, indeed, think that it is a symbol of a go-for-growth attitude whose impact on the environment and the purse strings seems not to have mattered to some who created it or to some who will use it; and yet the bridge is elegant in design and provides a magnificent panoramic view of the city.
Perhaps my dualistic feelings reflect the fact that bridges – concrete and steel ones, or metaphorical ones – both do something and are something.
The do part is more obvious. Bridges get us from here to there and if we choose, bring us back to where we began. Certainly, this utilitarian need was more efficiently met for Sarasota. Traffic does not have to wait for the old drawbridge to be raised or lowered (that is, once that bridge was destroyed and turned into an artificial reef). And there are now four lanes of traffic, instead of two; and lots of sidewalks and bike lanes. So, people and things move faster.
Metaphorical bridges are like that as well. Human communities, including our Expat one here at Lakeside, sometimes provide a person with an expeditious way to get from where s/he is to where s/he wants to be, even to unexpected places; even to places far away from the original community where a person began. Indeed, when it comes to people journeying to the other side of the bridge, it hopefully can be viewed as a positive step toward something rather than a negative step away from something.
Of course, there is always the possibility that a person decides that what s/he discovers on the other side of the bridge is not what is desired after all, and that s/he decides to cross back over the bridge to return to the starting point of the journey, hopefully wiser.
The sense that I have that bridges also are something, speaks of the beauty of such constructions even if they aren’t “useful” in the sense of getting us across water or ravines. The Ringling Bridge is, indeed, quite striking as a work of art and is in fact symbolic of a boomtown with shiny new buildings going up all around. The skyline changed dramatically in a few years and is not completed in its transformation. Being at the top of the bridge affords an extraordinary view of both the city and the keys, and of course of the bay and gulf. The next time I run across the bridge, I half expect to see crowds of artists sitting at their easels painting the cityscape!
As artists and poets know, bridges have moods, changing them with the time and the weather and the circumstance. When I crossed the bridge and then reversed my steps, it was late morning on a very sunny August 31st. I could see for miles and miles. The water far below me was exquisite. The new steel railings shone brightly.
Few people were on the bridge, but there was quite a variety, nevertheless: walkers old and young, some pushing baby strollers; bicyclists; and another runner, going the opposite way from mine. There was an air of enthusiasm and excitement about the adventure. You could see it in our faces. Some of us even nodded hello! Perhaps an intimacy was allowed us given the reality that the traffic lanes had yet to be opened! It made me wonder what it would be like if we built bridges only for people, not for our gas-driven and in a few cases electric-driven machines.
At any rate, the day I ran over the new bridge and back was a happy bridge day, with the sun shining brightly and people smiling. Sometimes, other bridges in our life are like this as well. Those are the transitional times when we move from one situation to another with a joyful, eager attitude. That is when bridges just are and at such times they are beautiful, just by the virtue of their existing in the first place.
Yet, time and weather and circumstance change, and with it our perception of what the bridges in our life are like. But at such moments, too, this can be a type of beauty, even when the skies are wet and gray, and we get drenched as we attempt to cross over the bridge. That is when we can learn humility of spirit and perhaps an inner peace that goes beyond the Sturm und Drang of existence.
Yes, it was quite a run for me that particular day. In addition to a physical workout, I got a mental one, learning that bridges both do and are, and in their duality portray extraordinary examples of human ingenuity and creative spirit.
Indeed, the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse was a major tragedy for those who lost their loved ones, and for Baltimore, and my home state, Maryland. But the bridge will be rebuilt. It will take many years for this to happen, but it will once again stand as a symbol of humanity’s ingenuity and determination.
For after all, we need bridges in our lives, both literally and metaphorically: to help us make transitions, to keep us moving along the path of life, to get us away from where we are to where we want to be.
Ultimately, however, our lives are transitory. Just like the lives of those men on the Key Bridge. We never know when our existence will end. For in truth:
We are fin and feather,
Shell and root,
Formed from the mix,
Returned to the mix.
And yet we forget we are transient,
That we are limited,
That we are not secure,
But that we need not fear.
Because transition is beyond us:
Our wants, our purposes.
The change is universal,
To exist is to transform.
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