Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told CNN's Phil Mattingly that his agency is focusing on four things in the wake of the Baltimore Bridge collapse:
- We are working with the city to restore the bridge
- Handling traffic impacts
- Reopens the port
- Ensuring that supply chain vulnerabilities are addressed.
Buttigieg noted that reopening the port is a “serious short-term concern,” especially as workers are losing about $2 million a day in lost wages, he said.
Other ships stuck in port must be unloaded and cargo transported overland to other ports during the closure, a “complicated operation,” Buttigieg described.
The parties responsible for the incident will be held accountable, Buttigieg promised, but said the process will now slow down the process of reopening the port.
“We're going to make sure those federal resources are mobilized early so that nothing unnecessarily delays the road to normalcy. The workers believe that, the people who rely on this freight, whether they realize it or not, they believe it, and about 30,000 vehicles a day go over that bridge, and they're doing everything we can.” They believe they're doing it. Bring them back to normal,” Buttigieg said.
“It won't be quick, it won't be easy, but we're committed to doing it as long as it takes,” he said.
