I’m eager to get back to our Old Testament narrative, but I’m compelled to react to the destruction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore around 1:30 a.m. last Tuesday morning. When I woke up to the news, my first thought was, “Isn’t this something we do every day? How can a ship crash into a bridge?” Answer: it lost power and it was adrift.

In an instant, a 1.6-mile-long bridge is destroyed:

Because of cameras in place, you can see the crash as it happened:

The ship was almost 1,000 feet long and weighed 213 million pounds. That’s a lot of mass, and no bridge is built to withstand an impact from such a vessel, even at relatively slow speeds. In this picture you can see a portion of the bridge AND the roadway itself sitting on the bow:

Here are some of my observations:

• Because the ship radioed proper authorities that they had lost power and might hit the bridge, quick-acting people were able to stop traffic. No through traffic was on the bridge at the time of the collapse.
• The only fatalities were from the crew of Latino immigrants fixing potholes. A routine, boring, mostly unseen job. Men just trying to provide for their families and do useful work in the world. Gone. Two were rescued nearly immediately, one with serious injuries. The bodies of two men have been recovered from the water. There are still four missing and presumed dead.
• The gap between the piers where the ship was supposed to pass was 1200 feet. The ship is 158 feet wide. There was a much larger probability that the ship would pass right through. But it hit the support.
• Jason Gay of the Wall Street Journal echoed one of my sentiments: What makes the Key Bridge tragedy so difficult to process is how common these crossings are to our daily lives. Bridges and arteries like this span everywhere, not just in port cities—feats of engineering and construction so omnipresent we take their wonder for granted. Instead we complain about their traffic and condition, even as we rely on them every day. 
• A friend of mine lives in the area, and he posted: We ought to also pray for the damage to the livelihoods of the 15,000+ people working at Baltimore’s port facilities. In the wider scheme of things, the collapse of the bridge endangers the 140,000 jobs in the area indirectly supported by port activity.

I guess the biggest takeaway is that we need to “Count our blessings.” Do we realize how many things have to go right for us to “have a good day”?

My times are in your hands… (Psalm 31.15, NIV)

[Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Colossians 1.15 – 17, ESV)