A second temporary shipping channel has been opened around the site of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, allowing more vessels to pass as efforts continue to unblock the waterway.
Located on the southwest side of the main channel, the channel has a depth of 14 feet, a 280-foot horizontal clearance, and a vertical clearance of 124 feet. It will only be open during daylight hours.
The first temporary channel was opened on 1 April, with a barge carrying jet fuel and a barge carrying scrap metal the first two vessels through.
Planning is underway for a third channel although federal Unified Command officials said it may be some time before that happens as engineers and salvage teams continue clean-up operations.
The alternate routes allow the movement of "commercially essential" vessels, as well as ships involved in the salvage operation, but they are too shallow for the larger vessels that handled coal, container and automobile shipments through the port before the accident.
"We are simultaneously focused on opening additional routes of increased capacity as we move forward," US Coast Guard commander Baxter Smoak. "Our number one priority remains the opening of the deep draft channel."
Unified Command has not released an official time frame for the reopening of the main channel.
"Only a week after the collapse, we have pathways and channels so commercial traffic can now move through," Maryland governor Wes Moore told reporters on Tuesday. "We are still a long way from being able to get the size and the cadence of the commercial traffic back to where it was before the collapse."
