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Post Reports

The Baltimore bridge collapse reveals who is most vulnerable

Post Reports

The Washington Post

Daily News, Politics, News

4.45.1K Ratings

🗓️ 28 March 2024

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today on “Post Reports,” reporter Teo Armus walks us through what we know about the Baltimore bridge collapse — and what it says about the lives — and tragic deaths — of immigrants in tough construction jobs.


Read more:


Authorities are turning their focus to “salvage” operations to remove wreckage from the Patapsco River after a massive container ship caused Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge to collapse. Meanwhile, investigators have recovered the ship’s black box and are piecing together the final moments before the crash.


Teo Armus has been reporting on this for The Post, and he walks us through the latest. 


Six presumed dead in bridge collapse were immigrants, soccer fans, family men


Bridge collapse brings stark reminder of immigrant workers’ vulnerabilities

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

One of you guys on the south side, one of you guys on the north side, one of you guys on the north side,

0:07.0

hold on traffic on the key bridge. There's a ship approaching that just lost their steering so that until you get that under

0:14.4

control we got stop off traffic. What you're hearing is tape from the

0:18.0

Maryland Transportation Authority police channel recorded very early Tuesday

0:22.3

morning.

0:23.0

Pefor L, I'm in route to the south side.

0:27.0

This is West Star.

0:28.0

Bean, I'm holding traffic.

0:30.0

Now, I was dragging but we stopped prior to the bridge so I'll have all out of the traffic stopped.

0:36.7

Tampore, is there our crew working on the bridge right now?

0:39.6

Investigators are still piecing together what happened in the last moments before a massive cargo ship crashed into a bridge in Baltimore.

0:48.0

Today, we heard authorities are turning to a salvage operation to remove wreckage from the river.

0:53.5

All of the six people who are presumed dead in this disaster were workers.

1:01.5

They were on the bridge in the middle of the night doing their jobs to maintain the bridge.

1:06.0

You know, one really big question I have is how preventable was this, right?

1:12.2

My colleague Teo Armis has been reporting on the fallout from this horrible incident,

1:17.0

and he's been talking to the family members of the people who died,

1:20.0

all of whom, as far as we know, were immigrants from Latin America.

1:25.0

And, you know, I think the picture that we've gotten so far is one that is, in many ways,

1:31.0

really representative of a particular kind of immigrant experience in the US, right, of people who come to this country in their late teens or 20s and you know work these really tough demanding jobs you know I mean overnight in the

1:47.0

cold on the top of a bridge. From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post reports. I'm Martine Powers.

1:59.7

It's Thursday, March 28th. Today, we walk through everything we know so far

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