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Comment by tokai | Hacker News Reader

I have thought about it for hours by now, and read literature on the matter. It is definitely possible to build berms that protects a bridge from catastrophic failure in case of a ship collision, and it is widely done during modern bridge construction. Please be less sure of yourself when you clearly don't have any actual knowledge on the subject.

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"I have thought about it for hours by now, and read literature on the matter." Ah, the classic, pompous Hacker News user. The Baltimore Port Authority should've hired you to prevent this disaster - you're a genius!

Seriously, this comment has to be satire.

I'd love to see a few examples, since you're so versed on the subject. I'm not a civil engineer by any means, but I imagine the people who designed and built that bridge knew what they were doing. There are likely limitations imposed by the site bathymetry and other things we don't know about.

You can get a good look at the aftermath here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WssFXRzRVLU

I'll be interesting to see how they choose to rebuild it.

There are real world examples of what it would look like, they're called "dolphins": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolphin_(structure)#/media/Fil...

"The new bridge is protected by 36 dolphins: four large dolphins protecting the two main pylons supporting the cable-stayed main span plus 32 smaller dolphins protecting bridge piers for 1⁄4 mi (1⁄2 km) to either side of the main span"

See my response to the other copy of your comment above

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