Civil engineer assures Jacksonville has safe bridges after Baltimore collapse

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – After many people woke up to news about the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore collapsing after a cargo ship crashed into it, people wanted to know about the safety measures in place in Jacksonville.

Adel ElSafty, who is a civil engineering professor at the University of North Florida, said the Department of Transportation is doing everything it can to ensure the bridges are safe.

“So for instance, some measures, there are three layers, basically, some of them to prevent any incident that will happen, that another one to detect things before we come. And then the third layer, which is after the occurrence of the damage,” ElSafty said.

Mayor Donna Deegan said there aren’t concerns about a bridge collapse happening in Jacksonville.

“We already have all sorts of safeguards in place there. We have concrete structures called dolphins that are located around the structures of the bridge that could be struck. That would keep that from happening. We also have sensors that provide additional information,” Deegan said.

Kathleen Ruvarac is the President of the Florida section of the American Society of Civil Engineers. She said the group evaluates infrastructure including bridges.

The report card released in 2021 graded bridges nationally at a C grade, while Florida bridges got a B grade. She said at minimum, bridges are inspected every two years.

“The Florida Department of Transportation has a program software to evaluate the waterway characteristics, the geometry, vertical clearance criteria, the velocity, the speed that the vessels will be traveling,” Ruvarac said.

Ruvarac encourages people to feel safe knowing these measures are in place.

“People should feel safe, that they are in good hands of the Department of Transportation, that they’re doing everything possible. They go far and beyond to secure our bridges, and they have everything in place,” she said.

ElSafty said there are a lot of factors that contributed to what happened in Baltimore such as weather conditions, how fast the boat was traveling and things like that are factors, but he didn’t think anything was structurally wrong with the bridge to make it fall because it was in service for about 50 years.