Priscilla’s house shook at the bridge collapse in Baltimore: “Have become people’s graves”

DUNDALK, BALTIMORE. She woke up to a huge bang. The house shook.

At first Priscilla Thompson, 61, thought it was an earthquake – but it was Baltimore’s giant bridge that crumbled to pieces outside her window.

– We looked out, and it was just gone.

Priscilla slept on the couch last night. At 01.30 she woke up with a jolt. The walls vibrated.

– It was a bang! And then a persistent shaking in the house. A massive crash, she says.

– Then it was completely silent.

Her first thought was “It must have been an earthquake”. Priscilla fell asleep again.

Soon she was woken up by her husband who had seen the news:

That a cargo ship crashed into one of the bridge brackets – and caused the entire Key Bridge to collapse.

“Was in shock”

She looked out the window.

The bridge she saw every day from the porch was completely gone. Or rather; it lay broken in the water.

The couple had first hand to the disaster.

– I was in shock, says Priscilla.

Aftonbladet meets her a couple of hours later.

She goes out into her garden that faces the river.

“Wanted the beautiful view”

From there you can see the road that leads straight into the air. A steel skeleton. The container ship remains under the beams.

Priscilla says she chose this house – precisely because of its location on the iconic Francis Scott Key bridge.

– We live in a rather shabby apartment, but it was because we wanted this beautiful view, surrounded by steel and water, she says, and sweeps her hand towards the ship.

Her voice breaks when she talks about it. The eyes become shiny.

The helicopters circle overhead, over and over. They land and take off a couple of hundred meters from her house.

“Say Prayers”

The rescue operation is massive and has been going on all day. Some are talking about how the landslide will affect Baltimore’s harbor in the years to come. That annoys Priscilla.

– I don’t understand how people can already start talking about logistics and traffic? There are cars down there, 50 feet down – that have become graves, she says.

– I feel for their families. I have been saying prayers all morning.

At least eight people are said to have plunged into the river when the bridge collapsed. The majority of them were construction workers filling potholes.

Two people have been rescued.

Six people are missing and presumed dead. The rescue work was interrupted on Tuesday evening and they will now try to recover the bodies.

You don’t survive long in the icy water. It’s sad, very sad, Priscilla repeats.

Imagine, she says, “being trapped in a truck. You fall. Is trapped”. The mere thought gives her shivers.

– The construction workers were just trying to make a living and pay their bills – and then something like this happens.

“The bed shook”

Several of her neighbors were also awakened by the giant crash. Some of them thought at first that a plane had crashed in the neighborhood.

Tyler Rudolph, 22, thought there was an explosion or a car crash outside their front door.

– My bed shook, it sounded like the sound of screeching metal. We had a power outage at home.

She goes down to the water to spy on the disaster site.

– Wow, that’s crazy. You can still see the ship, she says, looking towards the horizon.

She, husband Cody Alvarez, 27, and their son Levi, 4, live a couple of houses away. They are allowed to go down into Priscilla’s garden to get a better view.

It is so unimaginable, says the couple. The 47-year-old bridge has stood there all their lives.

How will the landslide affect the port? And the town’s economy?

It will take time to fix, they note, but mainly they are thinking of the people who may have died in the bridge disaster.

– It is tough not to get an answer. To know if they are still down there or not, she says.

“Pride of the city”

What caused the collision is still unclear. The ship Dali must have lost power a few minutes before the disaster was a fact.

Priscilla Thompson lights a cigarette. Shakes his head.

For her, the brother race feels personal. Priscilla is an iron worker, her husband too. They have worked at a company nearby that made steel for the Key Bridge.

– This was the town’s pride. It really was a beautiful bridge. I am completely heartbroken, she says.

It even graces her mobile wallpaper. When her husband had a birthday recently, she also gave away a carbon drawing depicting the bridge as a present.

She looks out towards the hole in the sky where the bridge used to stand.

– It looks completely naked, she says.

– How can it collapse? It makes you think about the fragility of life. What’s stronger than steel and concrete, like? What is here today may be gone tomorrow.