critical incident essay

Critical Incident Essays

Critical Incidents Of Academic Institutions

Critical Incidents in Academic Institutions The critical incident technique is used to gather and analyze an employees behavior through methods such as observation and interviews (Andersson & Nilsson,1964). This technique is useful in collecting information regarding behavior that amounts to successful or unsuccessful in a performance (Peterson, & Jeanneret, 2007). The procedures utilized in the critical incident technique allows for the similarities, differences and patterns of behaviors to be

A Critical Incident At The Dunmore Senior Center

Context of the incident This report will outline a critical incident which occurred in 2014 at the Dunmore Senior Center. The incident narrated by the executive director of the center Jeanne Hugenbruch. The incident was initiated by the secretary and one of the senior members, when two of the seniors started arguing angrily and loudly with each other. At that day, fortuitously the executive director was not at the center which made the secretary the person who was in charge to handle the issue. Details

Essay on Critical Incident

Within this essay, the author will reflect on a critical incident using a reflective model. In order to guide the author undertake this reflection, Johns (2002) reflective model will be utilised. As the first stage of Johns reflective model asks for the description of the event, the descriptive part will be attached (see appendix A). In accordance with the NMC Code of Professional Conduct (2008) the names of the individual involved have been changed using pseudonym in the form of James, Jennifer

Breastfeeding Critical Incident Essay

and analyses a critical incident which occurred on a postnatal ward during my first clinical placement as a student midwife. The incident relates to breastfeeding practices on the ward and is classed as critical because it triggered an instinctual response in me which made me feel it was not right or helpful. My response and feelings at the time were not grounded in theoretical knowledge but rather an instinctual feeling. As a result of this instinctual feeling, the incident was explored.

Critical Incident Evaluation Essay

A critical incident is something that occurs, either obviously or negatively, that may motive a character to replicate on what has got here about and maybe rethink the occasions. Critical Incident assessment can help to facilitate reflective exercise or reflective gaining understanding of by way of permitting nurses to find out their feelings on a sure situation. Critical incident evaluation consists of specializing in an event, such as analyzing the events surrounding it, the moves of these concerned

Essay Critical Incident Assignment

Portfolio – A description and analysis of up to 3 critical incidents encountered on school Experience A that you consider to be teaching dilemmas In this assignment, I will analyse and reflect on a critical incident that I was confronted with during school experience A (here after will be referred to as SEA). I will reflect on the implications that my critical incident has had on my practice and I will relate it to theory. In addition, I will make reference to four approaches of analysis which

Discussion Questions: Critical Incidents

Discussion Questions Critical incidents require immediate action (Levinson & Granot, 2002). Additionally, they also require ongoing support in order to ensure that they are correctly managed and the long-term effects are mitigated (Schneid & Collins, 2001). Addressed here are four specific events - earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and tornados. There are ways to mitigate the damage of these events, and there are also ways to try to prepare for them. Additionally, the type of response to these events

Critical Incident Analysis In Nursing

Critical incident analysis therefore acts as an aid to Reflection by giving nurses a chance to vocalise their feelings outwardly on a subject, it also a valuable learning aid as well the potential to use it within professional portfolio’s. Critical incident analysis may be used in various situations within the workplace such as on the occasion of a medical error, interactions between

Student Nursing Critical Incident Analysis

This essay will reflect on a critical incident from practice from the view of myself, a student nurse. No identifiable details about patients, nurses or context are included, thereby assuring their confidentiality which is protected by the Code (2015) and Data Protection Act (1998). A critical incident is a personal experience and does not have to be something negative, it can be positive too. It is an experience that you learn from and make sense of which can change future practice (Bulman and Schutz

Critical Incident Debriefing: A Case Study

The difference between therapy and managing a critical incident is therapy is thought as emotional-charged interactions between a licensed therapist and the client suffering from some psychological difficulties. Secondly, the client confides in the therapist for answers or solutions to their problems and how to maintain and get back to equilibrium. “A critical incident occurs when a catastrophic event takes place, producing a highly stressful situation or traumatic event, perceived as a life-changing

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• Introduction and types of critical incidents

Authorised Professional Practice

Page contents

Click on the links below to jump to the respective piece of content on this page.

• Phase 1 – preparing for critical incidents
• Phase 2 – managing critical incidents
• Phase 3 – restoring public confidence
• Critical incident management linked reference material

This page is from APP, the official source of professional practice for policing.

A wide range of incidents or operations have the capability to become a critical incident, including anti-social behaviour or hate crime, pre-planned events or internal incidents.

A critical incident (CI) is defined as:

any incident where the effectiveness of the police response is likely to have a significant impact on the confidence of the victim, their family and/or the community.

The  public inquiry (Macpherson, W. (1999) The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry)  following the investigation into the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993 resulted in the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) acknowledging that some incidents, even if managed properly, can have a significant negative impact on the confidence of the victim, their family and the community.

The inquiry also found that institutional racism was apparent in several aspects of the investigation. To address this and other shortcomings, the MPS developed guidance to help officers deal with similar cases, which they termed ‘critical incidents’. They adopted the definition used today.

Critical incident management (CIM) is intended to provide a response which satisfies the needs of the victim, their family and the community, but also provides an effective and proportionate outcome to an incident.

The definition is deliberately broad and should ensure that incidents which are likely to escalate into a CI are not missed. It recognises the fundamental importance of community confidence and trust in the police response to CIs, and applies equally to serious, less serious and internal incidents.

Although high-profile and/or large-scale incidents are more likely to develop into or contain multiple CIs, less serious incidents and internal incidents can, and do, escalate. A CI may appear to come from nowhere, but usually there are warning signs.

The incident may be part of a wider multi-agency response and have far reaching consequences, in which case partners will follow the Joint Emergency Service Interoperability Principles. Further information can be found at  JESIP .

• Effectiveness – this is a measure of the professionalism, competence and integrity evident in the police response to an incident.
• Significant impact – significant should be interpreted as being particular to each incident but critically relates to the impact on the individual, family or community.
• Confidence – this is a reference to the long-term confidence of victims, families and communities in policing.
• Likely – all incidents that the police deal with could have a significant impact on confidence, but are they likely to?

Three phases of critical incident management

An incident which has the likelihood to escalate into a critical incident should be addressed promptly and efficiently. Reassuring and maintaining confidence is fundamental to managing a CI, as is restoring confidence where it has been lost. A three-phased approach is set out in this module.

When managing a CI, this advice should be read in conjunction with other relevant advice and guidance.

Phase one: Preparing for critical incidents

This requires chief officers to consider current management structures ensuring, where possible, that:

• staff are trained effectively
• resources are available
• the overall quality of the police response reflects a competent and accountable standard of incident management

Phase two: Managing critical incidents

This considers how to identify critical incidents early on. It includes processes to ensure incidents are notified to the most appropriate person, and that they are managed effectively.

Phase three: Restoring public confidence

This considers incidents that have had a significant impact on public confidence but were not identified when the incident was live, and how confidence may be rebuilt through community engagement, resolution or a public inquiry.

Characteristics of critical incidents

Thousands of incidents happen every year. Many are dealt with well but some are not. In the  2010–11 British Crime Survey , 70% of victims were ‘very’ or ‘fairly satisfied’ with the response they received. Although this is an improvement on previous years, 30% of victims were less than ‘fairly satisfied’.

Police response

An incident can escalate to a CI when the police response to crime, disorder or anti-social behaviour (ASB) fails to meet the expectations of the victim, their family and/or the community.

Community impact

A CI may have a significant and potentially long-term impact on community engagement and neighbourhood policing. It may also generate insecurity among vulnerable members of the community and increase fear of crime and disorder. There is an additional risk that by failing to provide an effective response, the police may cause repeat victimisation.

Review of critical incidents

A  review  in 2007 looked at a number of cases which, although not labelled as critical at the time, displayed characteristics that mean they would now be declared a CI.

These characteristics can be divided into five broad areas. They usually develop because of several factors which separately may have little or no impact, but have a significant impact when compounded.

Decision making

The findings of that review are still applicable today. Crucially, in all cases, the review found that the central theme to preventing or managing a critical incident is effective decision making in difficult situations (see the  National Decision Model ). This includes acknowledging decisions, errors and avoiding decisions.

In the event of a multi-agency response, partners will also refer to the  Joint Decision  Model  (JDM).

Decisions, errors and avoiding decisions

There is a growing body of research which focuses on police decision making during critical incident management. This suggests that cognitive bias (a person’s pre-determined and unconscious thought process) affects decision making. It tries to shed light on how people might make mistakes when assessing difficult situations, and how this can lead incident commanders to pursue a course of action that might hinder the successful management of an incident.

In addition, there is fresh understanding about why some commanders might excessively delay or avoid making a decision even when it is clear, both at the time and later, that a decision was needed.

Incorporating learning

Chief officers need to be aware of the findings of this research and ensure that their critical incident commanders at operational, tactical and strategic levels understand the factors involved in effective decision making. An experienced commander who is aware of these factors can be alert to them during the response to an incident (in themselves or in others) and can take steps to limit their negative impact.

Improving accountability

Understanding the factors affecting decision making will help officers to account more clearly for the decisions they make, and to identify what was done to mitigate common errors. This will reduce the fear of excessive accountability, which may prevent officers from making a decision at all.

Types of critical incidents

The cases used in the review could suggest that critical incidents are usually high profile, serious or related to homicide. It is important to remember that this is not always the case and some involve incidents such as missing persons or bullying.

Anti-social behaviour

The deaths of Fiona Pilkington and her daughter Francecca in October 2007 and the death of David Askew in March 2010 demonstrate that critical incidents are still occurring and that they can have their origins in a wide range of incidents. These cases were both linked to repeated and persistent anti-social behaviour (ASB).

Case study – Fiona Pilkington

The Fiona Pilkington case had its origins in harassment and ASB. Fiona and her daughter suffered frequent and sustained local disorder, often directed at their home, over a period of several years. This was reported to the police, but ‘incidents were too often dealt with by police officers in isolation and with an unstructured approach’ (Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), 2011). This and other factors, such as not identifying the family as vulnerable, and not recognising the ASB and harassment as targeted hate crime, caused frustration. Fiona eventually took her own life and that of her disabled daughter, Francecca.

Case study – David Askew

David Askew collapsed and died after an incident in which youths were reportedly causing a nuisance at his home in Hattersley. Greater Manchester Police had been in contact with Mr Askew and his relatives over a number of years in relation to repeated allegations of ASB. An  IPCC investigation  was subsequently undertaken and the findings published on 21 March 2011.

Other incidents, for example racism on Channel 4’s Big Brother, which may not involve violence or threats of violence, can also develop into a critical incident if not managed appropriately.

Case study – Big Brother

In 2007, during the Channel 4 television show Celebrity Big Brother, Shilpa Shetty was subjected to racist comments from other housemates. The national and international media profile of this programme meant that Hertfordshire Constabulary were under intense pressure to act quickly and effectively. A failure to react quickly enough exposed the force to criticism, and undermined public confidence that the police were taking such behaviour seriously.

IPCC findings

An IPCC investigation has looked at the effectiveness of the police response to reports of harassment and ASB. It focused on the impact that the police response had on the confidence of the victim, the family and the local community.

See  IPCC report (published 24 May 2011) for further information.

Pre-planned events

Sporting events or other public order operations are likely to develop one or more critical incidents if the effectiveness of the police response falls short of that required by the event, or does not take account of the needs of the community.

The potential for a pre-planned event, particularly where emotions are high, to develop into disorder or violence cannot be underestimated. If this happens, the quality of the police response will have a significant impact on public confidence.

This was the case when violent disorder broke out during student protests in London’s Millbank area in November 2010. The response to events such as this may heighten community concerns and undermine confidence in the ability of the police to prevent disorder.

Factors to consider

CIM should be included in the planning for such events, particularly where:

• there may be a history of tension between the local community and visitors, such as the Appleby Horse Fair in Cumbria (see  situation awareness )
• there is  intelligence  which suggests disorder may be likely, for example prior to the English Defence League marches during the summer of 2010

The size of an event may also increase the likelihood that disorder, even in small pockets, will occur, such as at music festivals.

Internal incidents

Police officers and staff who work together may also be recognised as a community in their own right. A team may consider themselves to be a family (but at the same time also contain, or be part of, a number of other separate and distinct communities, such as special interest groups, federation or union groups).

Certain incidents may have a significant impact on the confidence of these internal communities. These are known as internal critical incidents and can include bullying, discrimination, corruption or other inappropriate behaviour, as well as the death or serious injury of a colleague. Extensive organisational upheavals, such as force restructuring or a review of pay and conditions, may also be considered as critical incidents.

Irrespective of who the victim or the community is, the police response to the critical incident should always be the same (see  managing critical incidents ).

Case study examples

The following case studies provide recent examples of internal critical incidents which have had a significant impact both internally and externally. In addition to these high-profile cases, there are many which do not come to public attention, such as professional conduct or disciplinary matters, but which also have an impact on police officers and staff during their careers.

Case study 1

During hot weather, two police dogs were left in a car during a heatwave and died. This incident not only had an impact on those immediately affected within the organisation, but also on the national police community who, until this point, had a positive reputation for animal welfare issues. It also had an effect on the wider local community who, the previous year, had been involved in an appeal for puppies to be trained for police work.

Case study 2

In January 2011 an undercover officer offered to give evidence on behalf of the defence during a case against environmental activists. The publicity this case received not only raised concerns that the officer had ‘gone native’, but also that the police were carrying out unnecessary undercover operations. The officer had infiltrated the group, had been an active member of it for seven years and been involved in protests such as the G8 protest in Gleneagles in 2005. This case raised a number of questions internally and externally which undermined public and ministerial confidence in police undercover activities, their deployment, purpose and effectiveness. It also had a direct impact on officers and their families, who need to have confidence in the police service to appropriately deploy and manage such officers.

Case study 3

In January 2011 former police officer, Stephen Mitchell, was sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of two counts of rape, three indecent assaults and six counts of abuse of public office. Between 1999 and 2007, the former police officer from Northumbria had committed sexual offences against vulnerable women he had come into contact with during the course of his duties. This case not only undermined the confidence of victims, their families and the local community, but also that of officers and staff in the police recruitment processes (which missed the fact that Mitchell had a history of sexual offending). Officers and staff need to have confidence in the integrity of the colleagues they work with. This case also generated widespread public concern because of the high-profile media response the case received.

A proactive response

Where there is a likelihood of a case escalating into a critical incident, early intervention has been shown to help prevent a significant loss of confidence.

For example, the police response to the murder of Damilola Taylor in London in 2000 was identified by the subsequent  MPS review  as an example of a proactive and preventive approach. Early recognition of this case as a critical incident led to several senior officers overseeing the investigation from the outset. This timely intervention was commended by the review.

Operation Sumac  (available to  authorised users  logged on to the restricted online College Learn) the Ipswich prostitute murders in 2006 was a case where early recognition of a critical incident helped the police to maintain community confidence.

More recently, the investigations into the deaths of  Mary Fox  in Bodmin in November 2009 and  Aamir Siddiqi  in Cardiff in April 2010 provide examples of proactive approaches to critical incident management and community engagement.

• Critical incidents

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Dozens of Major Bridges Lack Shields to Block Wayward Ships

Aerial photos by Nearmap and Vexcel Imaging

The collapse of the Key Bridge in Baltimore has prompted a reassessment of critical bridges around the country that may be similarly vulnerable to a ship strike.

By Mike Baker ,  Anjali Singhvi ,  Helmuth Rosales ,  David W. Chen and Elena Shao

The Lewis and Clark Bridge has towered above the Columbia River for nearly a century, its rugged half-mile truss serving as a gateway for logging trucks and beach vacationers crossing between Washington and Oregon.

Decades ago, to protect against wayward vessels that could threaten the structure, crews installed timber shields around the bridge piers that rise up out of the water. But even as the cargo ships chugging up the Pacific Northwest’s largest river began to grow in size, the timbers rotted away, leaving the bridge vulnerable to disaster.

The MSC Flavia, a container ship larger than the one that hit the Key Bridge in Baltimore, passes under the Lewis and Clark Bridge between two piers with little protection.

Grant Hindsley for The New York Times

“If a ship hits one of those piers, it’s gone,” said Jerry Reagor, a semiretired contractor who lives near the bridge and has spent years pressing transportation officials to install new protections. The state views the risk of calamity as low and the cost of preventing it to be high.

Bridges across the country carry similar deficiencies. At 309 major bridges on navigable waterways in the United States, inspections in recent years have found protection systems around bridge foundations that were deteriorating, potentially outdated or nonexistent, leaving the structures perilously exposed to ship strikes.

Pier protections on major bridges

No protection

Potentially outdated protection

Deteriorated protection

Source: National Bridge Inventory

The New York Times

A New York Times analysis of federal data and shipping traffic found dozens of these vulnerable bridges spanning waterways that serve as corridors for large vessels — around places like Boston, New Orleans and Philadelphia.

The review identified 193 bridges that each carry 10,000 vehicles or more a day that have no protections installed around the piers planted in river and seabeds that hold up the bridges.

The potential risk became starkly apparent last month when a cargo vessel appeared to lose power and struck a pier of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, causing much of the 1.6-mile structure to collapse into the water and killing six people. But the Times review showed that bridges across the country have suffered similar catastrophic failures in recent decades, in places like Tampa Bay, Fla.; Mobile, Ala.; South Padre Island, Texas; and Webbers Falls, Okla.

Those costly and sometimes deadly disasters have brought calls to enhance bridge protections. The Biden administration in 2021 pushed through legislation that will provide $40 billion to repair or replace bridges across the country . But the repairs are targeted at only about a third of an estimated 43,000 bridges deemed to be in poor condition. And states have struggled to pay for multi-million-dollar safety improvements, constantly balancing the cost against what may be seen as an isolated risk of disaster.

Department of Transportation officials in Washington State have said they will be watching the Baltimore investigation to determine whether new pier protections on the Lewis and Clark Bridge might be needed but cautioned that the state has limited funds.

“This would be an improvement project that would cost tens of millions of dollars,” said Kelly Hanahan, a department spokeswoman.

Some states have focused less on upgrading their bridges and instead are working on plans to evacuate them quickly in the event of a ship strike or other problem. Some are concentrating on improving navigation and tugboat protocols to lessen the likelihood of collisions.

Others are rolling the dice.

The Crescent City Connection: Shortfalls near key ports

Vulnerable bridges are standing in some of the busiest shipping waterways. One example: the Crescent City Connection in New Orleans.

Crescent City

Mississippi

Protection system may be inadequate

The New York Times; aerial photo by Nearmap

The bridge has two spans, one built in 1958 and another in 1988. Both were completed before the adoption of more modern standards to mitigate the risk of a large vessel collision.

A pair of private engineering researchers started looking at the bridge and two others nearby in the 1990s after a series of vessel accidents, including some involving ships that lost power, as was most likely the case with the ship in Baltimore. In findings published for their peers, they found that the protection systems around the bridges “do not have the strength and energy absorption capacity to affect the consequences of major vessel collisions,” and that the bridges’ foundations might not survive a head-on collision.

Dolphin Expressway

Deteriorated pier protection

The Times analysis found bridges with similar documented flaws at a variety of other big ports. In Florida, where the Dolphin Expressway carries more than 50,000 vehicles per day across the Miami River, the bridge supports are protected by what inspectors have described as a deteriorating system. The transportation agency managing the bridge said it is working to replace the protection system.

The Burlington-Bristol Bridge: Preparing for evacuations

Many of the deficiencies found in bridges outside of the nation’s major ports are also a result of deteriorating barriers around the piers. It was a problem that inspectors identified at 98 major bridges — those carrying at least 10,000 vehicles per day.

In many cases, local officials are looking at alternatives to expensive new construction to help lower the risk.

In 2015, a 600-foot freighter lost propulsion as it traveled along the Delaware River between New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Seconds before the vessel reached the Burlington-Bristol Bridge, it crashed into the river bank instead, averting disaster.

Burlington-Bristol Bridge

The span is one of several along the Delaware River — including the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge and the Ben Franklin Bridge, both gateways to Philadelphia — where inspectors found deteriorated protection systems around the bridge piers.

Michael McCarron, the director of operations at the Burlington County Bridge Commission, said repair work this year will involve some attention to the bridge’s protection system.

At the same time, the county is focusing on how to evacuate the bridges in the event of a looming collision, using tower operators who are in constant communication with vessels and a police force always at the ready.

“Time is of the essence,” he said.

Farther down the river, at the Delaware Memorial Bridge, crews are building one of the nation’s most advanced protection systems. That $93 million project includes concrete “dolphins,” each 80 feet in diameter and rooted 45 feet deep in the riverbed, that will guide any troubled ships away from the bridge.

Sunshine Skyway Bridge

The New York Times; aerial photo by Vexcel Imaging

After a freighter knocked down Florida’s Sunshine Skyway Bridge in 1980, killing 35 people, the rebuilt span also included a network of concrete islands for protection.

The Tobin Bridge: New risk assessments

In the days after last month’s disaster in Baltimore, officials in Massachusetts began taking a fresh look at Boston’s Tobin Bridge, a truss span that carries more than 40,000 vehicles each day across the Mystic River but does not have a protection system for its piers.

Maurice J. Tobin

Memorial Bridge

No pier protection

Mystic River

Jonathan Gulliver, the highway administrator at the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, said he is confident that the navigation protocols imposed on ships operating in the area, including tugboat escorts for large vessels, can assure safe operations. But in the aftermath of the Baltimore disaster, he said, his agency’s engineers are re-evaluating the potential risks.

“If we think there is a serious public safety risk there, we will absolutely take action,” he said.

Other bridges are also getting fresh consideration. Outside of Philadelphia, the Delaware River Port Authority is expediting a safety review that had already been planned for the Commodore Barry Bridge. The authority buttressed the bridge’s piers with islands of rocks in 2008, but engineers will now examine whether more protections are necessary.

Both the Tobin Bridge and the Commodore Barry Bridge have “fracture critical” designs, meaning that the failure of a key component would probably cause a wider collapse of the span. The Times found that about half of the major bridges with deficient pier protections were also fracture critical. But bridge design engineers note that the collapse of a pier would be sufficient to take out almost any bridge.

I-40 Collapse: Crashes on inland waterways

Just four days after the Baltimore bridge collapse, a barge that drifted off course on the Arkansas River rammed into a highway bridge near Sallisaw, Okla.

The bridge survived, thanks in part to a more robust pier design that a bridge engineer said made the structure capable of handling a collision. Just up the river in 2002, freight barges struck a pier supporting Interstate 40, knocking a section into the river and killing 14 people.

While inland routes such as the Arkansas River, the Missouri River and the Mississippi River do not get the larger container ships seen at coastal ports, they regularly carry barges large enough to take out a bridge.

Many of the bridges on these large inland waterways do not have protection systems, inspectors have found, including the Sherman Minton Bridge that connects Indiana and Kentucky, the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge in Tennessee, and the Robert C. Byrd Bridge linking West Virginia and Ohio.

Sherman Minton

Sherman Minton Bridge

And the risks associated with large container vessels are also moving into new areas of the country, as smaller coastal ports take steps to accommodate them.

In Louisiana, large cargo vessels now make their way up the Mississippi River, passing through two bridges that have been found during inspections to have flawed protection systems: the Veterans Memorial Bridge near Gramercy and the Sunshine Bridge a little farther upriver in St. James Parish.

In New York, the Mid-Hudson Bridge near Poughkeepsie now sees a small but steady stream of large ships passing under its span.

Mid-Hudson Bridge

There are other bridges along that same route, including the Kingston-Rhinecliff and the Newburgh-Beacon Bridges. Inspections have shown that all these bridges lack pier protection systems.

Chris Steber, a spokesman for the New York State Bridge Authority, said all of the bridges are “structurally safe,” and noted that the ships that use that stretch of the river are not as large as the vessel involved in Baltimore.

But John Lipscomb, a longtime patrol boat captain and a vice president of Riverkeeper, an environmental group, recalled a 2012 incident in which a 600-foot-long oil tanker ran aground near the Port of Albany.

“Accidents happen here at home, and in light of the Baltimore accident, we should be revisiting our existing bridges and determining whether they are safe,” he said. “A damaged bridge has enormous consequences. There’s the potential for high, high risk to the environment.”

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge: Protections may be insufficient

The Francis Scott Key Bridge that was destroyed in Baltimore was officially listed in the National Bridge Inventory as having a protection system in place. But the shields were limited to concrete islands that were much smaller than more modern systems.

Now, even on bridges deemed to have functioning protection systems, it is unclear whether the protections are sufficient.

A good example is the four-mile-long Chesapeake Bay Bridge, also in Maryland.

Chesapeake Bay Bridge

Chesapeake Bay

Limited pier protection

The bridge is “not protected the way it should be,” said Vijaya Gopu, a civil engineering professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

“Maybe it’s protected in a very trivial fashion like the Key Bridge, but I didn’t realize it does not have a robust protection system like dolphins or some rock island,” he said. “That’s something they have to do right away.”

The Maryland Department of Transportation said it was “evaluating potential short-term and long-term mitigation strategies” for the Bay Bridge. The department also said it would “strongly consider” any recommendations from the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation in Baltimore, where preliminary findings are expected later this month .

Back in the Pacific Northwest, farther down the Columbia River, the Astoria-Megler Bridge has shields in place to deflect ships away from the piers, and inspectors have found them to be functioning. But vessel sizes have increased in recent years, state officials acknowledged.

Capt. Jeremy Nielsen, president of the Columbia River Pilots, whose mariners are hired to guide ships through the sometimes treacherous waters of the lower Columbia and Willamette Rivers, said he has concern over both bridges, given that ships can and do break down on the river.

The shields on the Astoria-Megler Bridge are capable of deflecting smaller ships navigating the river, he said. “The structure that’s there is not going to protect against a larger vessel.”

Methodology

The New York Times used 2023 data from the National Bridge Inventory — a state-reported database compiled by the Federal Highway Administration — to analyze thousands of bridges across the United States.

Reporters identified more than 300 major bridges that had pier protection systems that were considered deficient in the federal database. These bridges had a pier or abutment protection rating that fell into one of three categories: in place but in a deteriorated condition; in place but with re-evaluation of design suggested; none present but re-evaluation suggested. All bridges in the analysis were over navigable waterways, had more than 30 feet of vertical clearance below the roadway and saw average daily vehicle traffic of 10,000 or more.

The map shown in the article does not include bridges that either have a functioning pier protection in place or that do not require pier protection.

The Times did further examination — reviewing satellite imagery and vessel traffic — of dozens of bridges with deteriorated or outdated pier protection to identify ones with some of the heaviest vessel traffic, such as from cargo or container ships.

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