Maryland Governor Wes Moore said during an interview over the weekend that tremendous progress has already been made in in process of getting the port in Baltimore up and running again after a large container ship demolished the Francis Scott Key Bridge late last month.
Moore made the remarks during a Sunday interview on CBS News’ “Face The Nation” with Margaret Brennan when asked about the recovering and rebuilding process.
“We heard when the President visited that reiteration of a pretty aggressive timeline, though, to get things up and running again, perhaps even by the end of May,” Brennan said. “Is that realistic?”
“It’s realistic,” he said. “And I think that it’s going to take some time. It’s gonna be a 24/7 operation to have full functioning.”
“And that means being able to not just continue the maritime operations that we have,” he continued. “And also, it’s understanding how important that port is not just to Baltimore, but to the entire country. And right now, if you look at the Port of Baltimore, we have operations that are taking place by a truck and by rail. It’s just the maritime operations that have come to a halt. But we are going to do everything in our power to make sure we’re bringing closure and comfort to these families to be able to reopen this channel to be able to support our workers and support families who have been impacted by it and also begin the process of the rebuild of the bridge. It is an aggressive timeline, but we are going to work around the clock to make sure that we hit this timeline.”
Moore said he did not know what the final price tag was going to be to get everything back up and running again but given the enormous economic impact the port has on the U.S. economy he was sure that the resources would be available to get it done.
“I’ve been amazed, because if you would have told me nine days ago, after what I saw that first morning, that we could be here on this Sunday morning, with already channels opened up, already ships that are up to a 14-foot depth that are now able to traverse the river and get to the port,” he said. “If you would have told me that we were already started moving — you know, we have now moved hundreds of tons out of the river. And if you look at the fact that even just in the past few days, we’ve received — we removed over 250 tons from the river, that is the equivalent to the weight of the Statue of Liberty. And so, I’ve been amazed at how this coordination between federal, state, local, the Coast Guard, the Navy, the Army Corps of Engineers, how everything is working in a synced way and I’ve been very proud of the response.”
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