“This is scary”: shock in Baltimore after the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge

At her gas station on the outskirts of Baltimore, Patricia Sisk usually sees regular drivers and parents rushing past at dawn. After Tuesday’s spectacular collapse of a large bridge less than two and a half kilometers away, it’s a ballet of police, rescue workers and shocked customers.

“It’s scary,” admits this 82-year-old American woman, looking friendly under her work cap. “When I arrived, they told me. I saw all these policemen and they told me what happened. And you know, I feel for all these people,” she continues, as the sounds of sirens echo through a small gas station supermarket on the east coast of the United States.

Police and emergency services were deployed en masse around the Francis Scott Key Bridge, blocking roads leading to it for safety reasons. The accident was “serious,” according to an emergency services official at the scene.

This major highway bridge in Baltimore collapsed early Tuesday morning after a container ship struck it, dragging vehicles and people with it. Emergency services are searching for at least six victims in the water and on the seabed around a huge twisted metal structure, according to the latest report. According to the state governor, the ship, which encountered a technical problem, managed to seek help from the authorities before crashing into the bridge, which helped block part of the road traffic and save lives.

Patricia Sisk says she hasn’t felt such a sense of fear since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people and injured Americans. “You know, when the towers… It’s just a little creepy feeling,” the octogenarian explains in a calm but worried tone.

“Everyone is talking about it”

At the checkout counter, Patricia Sisk spends the morning discussing the incident with customers, from regulars to those stranded by police road closures, many showing her the arresting images on their phone screens broadcast on social media. “Everyone is talking about it. They were scared, they thought it was an explosion. It was terrible,” continues the saleswoman during a coffee break.

Among her clients, Jennifer Wolf shows no fear, unlike, she says, her 20-year-old son, who narrowly escaped the crash. After a late-night argument with his girlfriend, he drives out of Dundalk in a rage, to the other side of the bridge.

He turns around to finally find her. “He crossed the bridge for the second time. And exactly three minutes later the bridge collapsed,” says his 41-year-old mother, ordering coffee from the machine. “He came home panicking, crying, shaking, and I started crying too,” says the confident entrepreneur, wearing an oversized red hoodie. She said her son refused to accompany her for fear of getting too close to the bridge.

“Never seen this before”

“He’s still awake, watching the news and still texting me,” she continues, saying she’s “grateful” her son escaped the worst. “I pray for all the families affected by this tragedy that they will be reunited with their loved ones. »

Paul Kratsas says that with breakfast in hand, a large cup of soda and a bag of chocolate chip cookies, he had long feared that such a tragedy could happen on the bridge. “I almost took it yesterday, but,” the 59-year-old Baltimore resident begins confidently, “when I walk by it sometimes, I hope this thing doesn’t fall, I couldn’t tell.” yourself that this cannot happen. But he’s “never seen anything like this before,” he admits.

Like other Baltimore residents, he is interested in the number of ships passing under the bridge. “These ships are constantly coming and going. And they usually come with big tugboats,” he notes. His wife, who accompanies him but does not want to give her name, questions the quality of the infrastructure, and then concludes with irony: “This is America. »