Statehouse and senate leaders in Maryland have drawn up plans for emergency legislation to cover the salaries of port workers hit by shutdowns in the wake of Tuesday’s collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.
Bill Ferguson, president of the Maryland senate, said more than 15,000 people in the region rely on the Port of Baltimore “to put food on the table”.
In a statement on social media, Ferguson said: “The human cost of lives lost yesterday is overwhelming and tragic. The economic and stability loss to the thousands impacted in the days ahead cannot be understated.”
Details about the bill, such as the extent of the aid and how it will be disbursed, have not been disclosed yet.
But Ferguson stressed that time was of the essence. Until the channel to the port is cleared, “there is enormous cost to families”, he said.
Trade unions sounded the alarm on Wednesday. Scott Cowan, president of the International Longshoremen’s Association’s Baltimore arm, told Bloomberg: “I have 2,400 ILA members who are soon going to be without jobs. Getting them on the payroll, and keeping their families fed, putting food on the table is my first and foremost thought on my mind.”
An estimated 140,000 workers in the region are indirectly supported by activities at the Port of Baltimore, which is the ninth busiest port in the US, with more than $80bn in imports and exports in 2023. It is a major port for coal exports, automobiles and parts.
Carnival Cruise Line said it was temporarily moving their Baltimore operations to Norfolk, Virginia, for the duration of rescue efforts and cleanup.
At least six people have been declared to be dead following the bridge collapse in the early hours of Tuesday morning: immigrants from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico who were working for the contractor Brawner Builders, filling potholes in the middle of the bridge when it collapsed after it was struck by a cargo ship.
“It hurts my heart to see what is happening. We are human beings, and they are my folks,” Jesús Campos, a co-worker of the missing workers, told Telemundo. “Folks had their lives changed in a blink of an eye.”
The same vessel, the Dali, that hit the bridge was involved in a 2016 collision in Antwerp, Belgium. The company that chartered the ship, Maersk, had recently been sanctioned by US regulators for retaliation against whistleblowers, reported the Lever.
