WASHINGTON—At a Senate Commerce Committee hearing to examine the renomination of Jennifer L. Homendy to be Chair of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) discussed the current NTSB investigation into the Francis Scott Key Bridge Collapse and asked how to prevent future disasters.
Senator Klobuchar said to Ms. Homendy, “I will say a lot of my focus is on the bridge because, as you may know, Ms. Homendy, I was the principal author of the bridge refunding bill, along with Senator Coleman, a Republican, a former Republican Senator from Minnesota, to get the I-35 W bridge rebuilt. And so all of this came back to the people of our state who remember exactly where they were when the 35 W bridge collapsed. An eight-lane highway eight blocks from my house. A bridge that I took my family over every single day. And as I said that day, when a bridge fell down in the middle of America, we rebuild it. And we did that in Minnesota in 339 days.”
In the three days immediately following the Interstate 35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis, Klobuchar and Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) led the bipartisan effort in the Senate to secure emergency bridge reconstruction funding. Representative Jim Oberstar (D-MN) led the effort in the House.
A rough transcript of Klobuchar’s questions is available below. Download video HERE.
Senator Klobuchar: I will say a lot of my focus is on the bridge because, as you may know, Ms. Homendy, I was the principal author of the bridge refunding bill, along with Senator Coleman, a Republican, a former Republican Senator from Minnesota, to get the I-35 W bridge rebuilt. And so all of this came back to the people of our state who remember exactly where they were when the 35 W bridge collapsed. An eight-lane highway eight blocks from my house. A bridge that I took my family over every single day. And as I said that day, when a bridge fell down in the middle of America, we rebuild it. And we did that in Minnesota in 339 days. We got the cap lifted on the emergency funding in two days. President Bush was out there, and just like President Biden [was] a few days later. And in our state, it was 140,000 cars a day using that bridge, Baltimore's 31,000, but they have the added issue of the port and how important the economic value is not just to Maryland, but to the entire country.
We mourn the loss of those construction workers and for their families. And also the two tragedies had something else in common, and that was the investigation. So important to figure out what went wrong, but also the heroes. In Baltimore, the immediate response to the mayday, with the first responders blocking traffic, so many more could have been killed. In our case, 13 people died, but there were dozens of other vehicles submerged in that river, and the first responders ran in there they got people out. I think of the driver of the Taystee truck who could have rammed into a school bus of kids, the miracle bus that was hanging precariously on the side of the road instead veered off and lost his life. He burned alive in his truck. I think about Mr. Hernandez, who was the school officer, who was the summer camp counselor on the bus of 50-some kids, and instead of running off that bus, which looked like it was going to go right over into the Mississippi River, he got every single kid off of that bus, calmly and got them all off the bus. Those are heroes.
So, I want to thank you for the work your investigators are doing to be there on that thing. It's also dangerous. I know how difficult this must be.
And so my first question is, how is the NTSB coordinating with the Coast Guard and other partners to clear the wreckage and reopen the channel as soon as possible?
Jennifer Homendy: Senator, I worked for Chairman Oberstar at the time that occurred, so I know it well. And are many of our personnel who worked on that investigation who continue their work at the NTSB. So what I will say for our role in this investigation, our role is the safety investigation. We have a team from our Office of Marine Safety, a team from our Office of Highway Safety, and our Family Assistance team, as well as a team from our Research and Engineering Office. Our role is to determine what happened, why it happened, to prevent it from reoccurring and we are still on scene on the vessel. As for the removal of any sort of debris and, more importantly to find those loved ones who are unaccounted for. That is something that the Coast Guard and many other federal partners are working on.
Klobuchar: Do you have any recommendations at this time, does NTSB that would prevent future collisions like what we saw? Are you just finishing the investigation, or any open recommendations?
Homendy: We have investigated for many years, back to 1967, many bridge strikes by vessels, and we've issued recommendations, including one I will point out for the U.S. Coast Guard to evaluate U.S. waterways, the type of vessel vessels and shipping on the waterway, any volume of traffic on a bridge, any strikes to bridges and pier protection that should be in place. At the time this was in the early 1980s. At the time, the U.S. Coast Guard responded and said they did not have the authority to do that. They submitted a study from the late 70s providing four types of pier protection, but there's still action that needs to occur to look, frankly, at how shipping has changed over the years, how transportation has changed in our waterways, the types of vessels that we are seeing, the types of container ships that we are seeing, the volume of traffic, and looking at bridge designs. If I were a state and the Department of Transportation, that's what I would be looking at now–are these bridges protected for the types of traffic that are going through now?
Klobuchar: Okay, thank you. Quickly moving to the train derailment in Raymond, I thank you for your work there in Minnesota. NTSB determined that the derailment was caused by a broken rail. Do you agree that we must pass the Railway Safety Act immediately?
Homendy: On the Railway Safety Act, I will say it addresses several of NTSB's open safety recommendations, including information for emergency responders. We still have work to do to conclude our East Palestine investigation and issue those recommendations. That will conclude at the end of June, and we will provide that information for the committee, but we do have 190 open rail recommendations that can be acted on today.
Klobuchar: Okay, very quickly, thanks to the Chair’s good work, the Senate FAA reauthorization bill includes a requirement that all aircraft be equipped with a 25-hour recorder. Will that help you in your investigation?
Homendy: Absolutely. And it will help operators improve safety.
Klobuchar: Okay, thank you very much.
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