Matthew Whitaker to Newsmax: Bridge Collapse Begs Infrastructure Question

Among the questions that will need to be answered after a bridge collapse in Baltimore early Tuesday concerns the span's infrastructure, former acting U.S. Attorney General Matthew Whitaker told Newsmax.

A container ship rammed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge, causing it to snap and plunge into a river, taking several vehicles with it into the chilly waters, where rescuers were searching for survivors.

Whitaker said he saw videos of the collapse, and surmised "the cargo ship lost power and just obviously lost control and hit the major support and then caused this whole entire bridge of collapse."

"Clearly to me, it looks like an accident," Whitaker said on "Wake Up America." "You see that the lights on the ship go completely dark, which suggest a power failure.

"This is not obviously what the world shipping system needs, with all the problems in the Middle East of the Houthis and the Red Sea. I mean, this is the last thing … another container ship involved in something like this."

Whitaker said questions must be answered.

"I think one of the things that needs to be answered is … our aging infrastructure," he said. "You have a 50-year-old bridge that has a single point of failure when it's struck by a ship. I'd want to understand that piece of the kind of after-action report.

"I'd also want to understand how quickly the road was closed because, obviously, in the immediate aftermath of this, if you're driving along, you wouldn't know what has happened ahead of you. And so, how quickly were they able to get the bridge closed on two ends to make sure that nobody else tried to go on to this very dangerous situation."

Whitaker said the fact the incident occurred in the early morning hours likely prevented more casualties.

"My heart breaks for anyone that has been injured or lost their lives in this," Whitaker said, "but I also am encouraged because you know that first responders, law enforcement went immediately to that situation and ran their protocols.

"I think that's what's the most important part of all of this is that the law enforcement and firefighters and everyone that responded to this has trained for something substantially similar to this, an unexpected event."

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