Tuesday's devastating collapse of Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge is likely to disrupt America's vital auto industry -- just months after the city's port set a new record for handling cars and light trucks.
Nearly 850,000 vehicles passed through the Port of Baltimore in 2023, marking the 13th consecutive year it led the nation in automotive imports and exports, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said in a statement last month.
Baltimore also ranked first for handling roll-on/roll-off heavy farm and construction machinery, imported sugar and imported gypsum, a mineral that's used to make wallboard, plaster and cement.
The port was closed indefinitely after a container ship, the Dali, lost power and smashed into a bridge column around 1:30 a.m., causing much of the 1.6-mile, four-lane overpass to fall into the Patapsco River.
Two survivors were pulled from the water and rescue teams were searching for six others who were on the bridge when it went down.
About 40 ships, including 34 cargo vessels, were heading for Baltimore and 10 commercial ships dropped anchor in nearby waters, according to the New York Times, which cited data from the MarineTraffic tracking company.
The Baltimore-bound ships may be rerouted to ports in New Jersey or North Carolina, MarineTraffic analyst Georgios Hatzimanolis told the Times.
"We do expect there to be a ripple effect, but it's a bit too early to say what the impact will be," he said.
The situation could also lead to a shift in ship traffic to the West Coast but it's unclear which ports would be able to deal with a surge in the roll-on/roll-off vessels, known and Ro-Ros, that carry wheeled cargo if Baltimore were to remain closed for long, according to Bloomberg.
Major automakers including General Motors, Toyota and the Volkswagen Group ship their vehicles in in and out of Baltimore, CNN reported.
Ford's chief financial officer, John Lawler, told Bloomberg Television that the bridge collapse would "lengthen the supply chain a bit" and that the company was rerouting auto parts to other East Coast ports.
In a statement, GM said it rerouted vehicle shipments to other ports and expected "minimal impact to our operations."
VW's Baltimore shipping facility, which the company said handled about 100,000 vehicles for northeast and mid-Atlantic dealers last year, is located east of the bridge and still has ocean access.
But while the company doesn't expect its shipping operations to be affected, it said that "there may be trucking delays as traffic will be rerouted in the area."
