Here are the major US bridges most likely to be struck by ships, according to study

BALTIMORE - In the wake of the 2024 Baltimore Key Bridge deadly collapse, researchers at Johns Hopkins University said ships are "highly likely" to crash into major bridges across the U.S., with some being catastrophic every few years. 

Researchers recently compiled and released a report, stressing the urgency of an assessment of bridges. 

They noted that ship collisions into bridges are still rare, in part due to the bridge designs.

They said the most vulnerable bridges are the Huey P. Long Bridge outside New Orleans and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, believing they are likely to be hit by a ship within the next two decades, the study found. 

RELATED: NTSB says Key Bridge collapse could have been prevented with 'vulnerability and risk assessments'

Dig deeper:

According to the data, the most vulnerable bridges in the U.S. are:

• Huey P. Long Bridge, Louisiana: Collision expected once every 17 years
• San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge: Collision expected once every 22 years
• Crescent City Connection, New Orleans: Collision expected once every 34 years
• Beltway 8 Bridge, Texas: Collision expected once every 35 years
• Hale Boggs Memorial Bridge, Louisiana: Collision expected once every 37 years
• Bayonne Bridge, N.Y./N.J.: Collision expected once every 43 years
• Fred Hartman Bridge, Texas: Collision expected once every 47 years
• Martin Luther King Bridge, Texas: Collision expected once every 64 years
• Sunshine Bridge, Louisiana: Collision expected once every 71 years
• Rainbow Bridge, Texas: Collision expected once every 71 years
• Veterans Memorial Bridge, Louisiana: Collision expected once every 74 years
• Chesapeake Bay Bridge, Maryland: Collision expected once every 86 years
• Talmadge Memorial Bridge, Georgia: Collision expected once every 88 years
• Veterans Memorial Bridge, Texas: Collision expected once every 94 years
• Delaware Memorial Bridge, Del./N.J.: Collision expected once every 129 years
• Dames Point Bridge, Florida: Collision expected once every 152 years
• Horace Wilkinson Bridge, Louisiana: Collision expected once every 198 years
• Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, New York: Collision expected once every 362 years
• Golden Gate Bridge, California: Collision expected once every 481 years
• John A. Blatnik Bridge, Minnesota/Wisconsin: Collision expected once every 634 years

What they're saying:

"With this investigation we wanted to know if what happened to the Key Bridge was a rare occurrence. Was it an aberration? We found it's really not," Researcher Michael Shields said. "In fact, it's something we should expect to happen every few years."

RELATED: New Baltimore Francis Scott Key Bridge design unveiled

The backstory:

Engineers at JHU started looking at the country's bridges shortly after the Baltimore Key Bridge collapse, and wanted to estimate the chance of a large ship colliding with major bridges.

The Key Bridge collapsed after a massive cargo ship, the Dali, lost power and veered off course, striking one of its support piers. Six construction workers were killed.

An investigation continues into what caused the Dali to lose power as it approached the Key Bridge.

Methodology:

The team collected 16 years' worth of data from the U.S. Coast Guard, including logs detailing the precise location, heading, speed, and status of every ship traveling through the country's waters.

They then paired the ship data with bridge data from the National Bridge Inventory to determine which large ships passed under bridges.

The researchers were then able to estimate the probability of very large ships colliding with the piers of major bridges. 

Results:

The results showed the major bridges could expect a ship collision once \very 20 to 50 years, with many other expecting to see a ship collision within the next 100 years. 

RELATED: Baltimore Key Bridge collapse: Owner of Dali cargo ship to pay US $100M in settlement

They said the Key Bridge would've been on their list and would've been hit by a shop within 48 years, according to their predictions. The bridge was 46 years old when it fell. 

"To keep our bridges safe and operational, we want the chances of a collision strong enough to take down the bridge to be less than one in 10,000 in a given year, not one in a 100. One in 100 is extremely high," Shields said. "If I look at the San Francisco Bay Bridge, we're likely to see a major collision once every 22 years. That is huge. We want that number to be thousands of years. That's tens of years."

What's next:

Researchers are advising local officials to keep ship traffic away from piers and to outfit with piers with protections such as  dolphins and other structures that keep ships from approaching the piers..

"There's still a lot of uncertainty in predicting the frequency of ship collisions, even with the best data we have," Shields said. "But the important point is not whether it will occur every 17 years or every 75 years. It's that it's happening way too often."