Hello there. Welcome to the program. I'm Egon Kossu. Well, Baltimore and the state of Maryland are to get $60 million in federal aid to deal with the bridge collapse that's brought chaos to the Port of Baltimore. The accident happened after the bridge was hit by a giant ship on Tuesday. Officials say their first priority is to find four workers who are presumed to have died. They then hope to clear the wreckage to allow shipping to resume through one of America's busiest ports. The governor of Maryland, Wes Moore, says it's a very complex operation.

This is an incredibly complex job, and our timeline will be long. And all of us can remember when the container ship that got stuck in the Suez Canal a few years ago when that happened. It's important to remember that it took five weeks to dislodge that ship. Well, if you think about what the dolly is, the dolly is almost as long as the Eiffel Tower, and the dolly has the key bridge on top of it. We're talking 3,000 to 4,000 tons of steel that's sitting on top of that ship.

That's the mayor of Baltimore there. Erin Delmer rather is in New York for us. What do we know about this aid from Washington?

Well, we know that it came speedily. Usually, it takes a few days for aid like this to be dispersed from the federal government. But in this case, it has only been three days since we saw this bridge collapse. We also know it's in the amount of $60 million. And yes, that will allow recovery and rebuilding efforts to begin to get underway. But Egon, this is not what it will take to rebuild this Bridge. That sum has been estimated to be potentially as high as $2 billion. And what that means is that Congress is going to have to pony up and fund some of this mission here. It's part of why when you hear Governor Westmore and other Maryland officials speak, you hear them, including in the sound bite you just played, hearkening to bigger world and national events, talking about the cargo ship that was stuck in the Suez Canal, talking about the Minneapolis Bridge collapse here in the United States years ago, even saying this was as big as the Eiffel Tower. They're trying to tell Congress members that this could happen anywhere. It has global implications, national trade implications. That's the message that they're trying to put forward to try to get Congress people whose own constituents may never cross this bridge to be willing to spend their constituents' taxpayer dollars on it.

Erin, thank you so much. Well, Scott Cohen is the President of the ILA Marine Workers Union in Baltimore and joins us now. Thank you so much for taking time out. Let's start with that aid from Washington. Is that enough?

It's a drop in the bucket on what it's going to cost to rebuild this bridge. There's so many other things connected to… It's not just the bridge itself. For the people that I represent, it's the shipping channel being closed and all the commerce that cannot get in and out of Baltimore Harbor.

What more needs to be done, do you think?

There was six lives lost, obviously, and they recovered two of those souls, but there's four more still down there. That's the first priority. Then the second priority is to open the shipping channel. I think the actual rebuilding of the bridge is It's somewhat down the line from that.

How long do you think the situation is going to take to be rectified?

That I do not know. No one knows yet. I know that the Army Corps of Engineers and the surveyors are already on it. It depends on how the wreckage is laid in and how far across the channel it is. It's a pretty wide channel. It accepts two-way ship traffic. I believe I believe it's about 700 feet wide. If they can get half the channel open to one-way ship traffic, we can get the port back open.

What's the impact that is being felt on the ground by your members, by the workers?

Well, I represent 2,400 Union doc workers in the Port of Baltimore, and they're very nervous, obviously. They don't know when this thing is going to open back up. Their lives depend on it. It's how they put food on their table and take care of their families. Everyone's still in a state of disbelief at this time.

Do you think that the local communities will take long to rebuild after this?

I think it reaches farther farther than the local community. We do a lot of cargo here for the Baltimore, Washington, Metropolitan area. A lot of the community does work at the port. I think that's where the strain is. The bridge itself, while it's a tragedy for sure, there is other options to get across the Patapsco River here. There's two other tunnels. It was three routes to get across the bridge. This is going to be impactful for sure, but that is not shut it down. But this bridge being in the shipping channel shuts the port down. A lot of the community will be affected. Okay.

Scott Cowan, President of the ILA Marine Workers Union in Baltimore. Thank you so much for joining.