DUNDALK, Md. — The people of this blue-collar town on the north side of what used to be the Francis Scott Key Bridge, now a tangle of metal in the Patapsco River, are still trying to make sense of it all.
How could a 1.6-mile span of steel and concrete, which took five years to build and towered over their community for decades, simply vanish in the night, demolished by a giant, out-of-control cargo ship headed to sea from Baltimore Harbor?
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In the search for answers, there will be multiple investigations, voluminous reports and complex litigation. Experts will delve into such issues as ship maintenance, structural engineering and occupational safety related to the March 26 disaster, which occurred shortly before 1:30 a.m. and killed six Latino immigrants working on the bridge deck.
The financial consequences of the collapse will be immense. But what of the emotional blow — the sudden, surreal disruption for the residents of Dundalk, where an enduring landmark, an economic artery that shaped the town’s horizon and helped fuel its aspirations for 47 years, was ripped away in a matter of seconds?
“It’s like a death — a friend is gone,” said Rhonda Green Randolph, 59, who recalls the bridge being built when she was a child and now can’t bring herself to look at the wreckage in person.
“There’s a real emptiness in the sky,” said Baltimore County Executive John Olszewski (D), 41, who grew up here and remembers it was a rite of passage for teenagers to drive across the span after getting their licenses.
“It means history was just taken away from all of us,” said Michael Grossman, 29, as he watched his stepson compete in a duckpin bowling tournament at Pinland Bowling Lanes, a Dundalk institution since 1951.
“That bridge was a symbol of us,” Grossman said. “And a symbol of Maryland.”
Now, even as they mourn, they are thinking about the long road ahead and how to navigate it. Dundalk has seen its fortunes rise and fall over the past century, often on decisions made by people far from their community. The federal government and Maryland leaders have promised to rebuild the bridge and reopen the Port of Baltimore, where many people in Dundalk work, and on which they depend.
Jobs have left Dundalk before. They can’t lose any more now.
Relying on God, and Bethlehem Steel
The bridge was a source of great pride here when it opened on March 23, 1977. A symbol of can-do spirit as the nation lumbered out of a recession, it gave Dundalk a much-needed boost.
Bethlehem Steel’s massive plant in neighboring Sparrows Point was the engine of this company town, which saw its population surge in the first half of the 20th century, especially in wartime, as demand for steel jumped and workers flocked to the area for dangerous but good-paying jobs and affordable housing.
“Back in the day, there was only two entities that existed in people’s minds around here, and that was God and Bethlehem Steel,” said Derrick Lyons, 65, a longshoreman who was born in Turner Station, a predominantly Black neighborhood here forged by Dundalk’s segregation practices in the last century. “When it was your time to get your wings, God took care of you — but in the meantime, Bethlehem Steel is going to take care of you.”
By the mid-1970s, however, America’s steel industry had begun its long decline, and precious jobs were starting to dwindle at nearby factories that manufactured cars and telephone cables. The bridge’s construction, which got underway in 1972, promised growth for Dundalk and a fast route across the Patapsco to employment opportunities beyond. It gave worried workers and their families some reason for optimism.
“The bridge was the lifeblood,” said Linwood Jackson, 76, who returned to his job at Bethlehem Steel in 1970 after serving in Vietnam. “It really opened our imagination.”
Jackson remembers watching the opening day celebration through binoculars and talking with friends about how commuting from Baltimore County, where Dundalk is located, to Anne Arundel County would no longer mean using Baltimore’s Harbor Tunnel, which was almost always backed up and choked with exhaust. They were glad for the shortcut and eager to see an economic turnaround.
But the new span, carrying Interstate 695 on a gentle arc 185 feet over the Patapsco, couldn’t halt Dundalk’s gradual fade. About 85,000 people lived there in 1970, according to U.S. census data. As manufacturing jobs dried up and Bethlehem Steel’s decline hastened, hardship followed. By the turn of the millennium, the town’s population had dropped to about 53,000.
“We thought it was going to bring more commerce,” Jackson said of the bridge. “But when the plants started closing, that dissipated.”
The downturn hit Dundalk hard. By the 2010s, many of the good jobs were gone, homeowners faced foreclosures, and the future felt grim. In 2012, the Bethlehem Steel mill in Sparrows Point — which had been in operation for more than a century, employing tens of thousands of workers through the years — closed for good.
High hopes threatened by disaster
In recent years, Dundalk has been plugging its way back, said Latasha Gresham-James, executive director of Dundalk Renaissance, a community development nonprofit that has been working for almost 25 years to revitalize the town.
“When the steel industry ended, it did leave a void, but we evolved,” said Gresham-James, 47, who was born the year the bridge opened. “We’re a very resilient community.”
By 2020, the population had climbed to about 68,000, and today, new residents are changing the face of the community.
Dundalk’s White population dropped from nearly 88 percent in 2000 to about 65 percent in 2020, according to census data. Latinos, who comprised about 2 percent of the population in 2000, made up roughly 13 percent in 2020, while the Black population grew from 9 percent to 14 percent. Gresham-James also said the number of Asian and Pacific Islanders has slightly increased.
Though it borders southeast Baltimore, Dundalk feels more small town than big city. Flowering dogwood trees line the main roads. Parks and boat slips are plentiful in a community that boasts 40 miles of waterfront. Flags signaling a trio of allegiances — to America, the Baltimore Orioles and the Baltimore Ravens — flutter in the front yards of tidy homes and from apartment building windows. Democrats outnumber Republicans more than two to one in Baltimore County, but Dundalk has been a pocket of red as many White working class voters here have routinely opted for GOP candidates in presidential, state and local elections, particularly in the last decade.
In recent years, there’s has been a bump in new homes being built here, and small-business entrepreneurs have begun opening shops and restaurants, Gresham-James said. The pandemic slowed that growth, yet movement continued in the right direction.
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While she and others here have high hopes for Dundalk’s resurgence, they acknowledge that poverty remains a problem, as do crime and drug use, and the median income of about $33,000 lags well behind the state’s figure of roughly $47,000. Still, they perceived signs of an upswing and were encouraged by the new arrivals. Now they’re concerned that the bridge collapse and potential economic havoc to come has left their community imperiled again.
Efforts have begun to fully reopen the Port of Baltimore, and plans for a new bridge are already being discussed. Until intentions become reality, though, jobs are on the line, and business owners and workers are wondering about the way forward. Dundalk can’t afford to be left behind again.
Keno fills the television screens at the North Point Diner where 30 types of scratch-off lottery tickets are available at the checkout counter. Regulars show up for the chipped beef platter and signature scrapple, said Megan Stone, 34, the restaurant’s manager. She worries that the bridge catastrophe could affect business.
“A lot of our customers come over the bridge to eat here, and that might put a damper on us,” she said. Longshoremen and others working around the docks also were among her everyday patrons.
Stone moved here in 2000 and could see the bridge from her bathroom window. Last month, after her 16-year-old daughter’s wrestling tournament, they drove across it on their way home.
“Once I reached the Key Bridge, I could turn off my GPS,” she said, smiling. “I knew how to get home from there.” Now the span is in the river, destroyed when the 984-foot container ship Dali, loaded with cargo, slammed into one of its support piers. Despite her hopes for a new bridge and an open port, Stone said, the collapse has left her unsettled.
“It felt like a movie and kind of makes you think what could go wrong next?” she said.
At Then and Again, a secondhand store in Dundalk’s historic town center, owner Mike Winkler, 41, said he also worries about the economic fallout. “It was difficult enough before the bridge fell,” he said.
Winkler knows some owners of businesses connected to the port who have had to lay people off, but he said he is optimistic the port will be back at full capacity before long. “My big concern is, the bridge collapse is getting a lot of attention now, but I hope the next devastating thing that happens somewhere else doesn’t diminish attention here.”
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‘We’ll lift each other up’
Ramps that led to the Key Bridge are visible from the back door of the Fleming Senior Center in the Turner Station neighborhood, where local residents gathered for bingo one recent afternoon. The Temptations’ “Just My Imagination” floated from the speakers as Mary Branch, 86, checked in guests and handed out playing cards.
Branch moved here in 1949 and has ridden Dundalk’s ups and downs. After the thunderous boom of the bridge collapse shook her from sleep hours before dawn, she immediately checked on friends and family members. The next day, she said, the enormity of the disaster started to sink in.
“I thought about the whole picture,” Branch said. “We’re going to take a hit — locally, nationally, globally. My heart goes out for the impact it’s going to have.”
Gresham-James, the community development executive, whose father worked as a longshoreman for 35 years at the Dundalk Marine Terminal, said efforts have begun to address the economic impact and buttress residents whose livelihoods are threatened. Within days, she said, the federal Small Business Administration deployed five staff members to her offices to help merchants, independent truck drivers, restaurant owners and others file claims to see if they are eligible for relief funds.
She knows the path forward will be filled with unexpected obstacles but insists that Dundalk won’t shrink from the challenge. “After all the media excitement goes away,” she said, “the community will still be here to work together and forge ahead.”
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Olszewski, who is running for Congress to replace outgoing Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D), is optimistic as well.
“I think Dundalk is on the move, and it’s not the first time we’ve known hard times,” he said. “When we lost our steel plant, we rallied and came together and found a way forward.” Olszewski pointed to the thousands of jobs created in recent years at TradePoint Atlantic, the massive shipping and distribution terminal that sits on land once occupied by Bethlehem Steel, and to new homeowners who have moved in to the area.
Long-timers here believe the community will overcome this latest challenge.
Larry Warble, 66, and his wife, Shelly, 62, were both born and raised in Dundalk. The bridge was built when they were teenagers, and it changed everything.
“It connected us, the way I saw it, to another world,” said Shelly. On morning walks along the water in their Bear Creek neighborhood, the bridge was a sublime landmark. “When you’re out there and the sun’s coming up over the bridge, it was absolutely beautiful,” said Larry, a retired inspector for the Maryland Transportation Authority.
The Warbles hope the port reopens soon and a new bridge can be built relatively quickly. The town, they say, will embrace the effort.
“Dundalk gets a bad rap,” Shelly said. “But Dundalk people stick together, and we’ll lift each other up and do whatever needs to be done.”
