Leaders in the Columbia River shipping industry say there’s a growing risk that the 95-year-old Lewis and Clark Bridge will be struck by a large ship and collapse. Ships have doubled in size since the shipping channel was first put into use. Without modern sensor technology, it’s increasingly difficult for pilots to calculate clearance margins when passing through the channel. In the event of a collapse, it would be similar to the magnitude of the 2024 Francis Scott Key Bridge disaster in Baltimore.

Henry Brannan, a reporter at The Columbian newspaper and The Daily News in Southwest Washington, joins us to discuss efforts to prevent the bridge’s collapse, like realigning the channel on the Columbia river and retrofitting the bridge with modern sensors.

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News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/03/23/think-out-loud-ship-pilots-lewis-and-clark-bridge-risk-collapsing/