The ship that brought down a Baltimore bridge to be removed from collapse site in the coming weeks

BALTIMORE (AP) — At the site of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse, crews plan to refloat and remove the grounded Dali container ship within roughly the next 10 days, allowing more maritime traffic to resume through Baltimore’s port.

The ship, which lost power and crashed into one of the bridge’s supporting columns, has been stationary amid the wreckage since the March 26 collapse. Officials expect to have it removed by May 10, according to a news release Tuesday from the Port of Baltimore.

Six members of a roadwork crew plunged to their deaths in the disaster. Four bodies have been recovered while two remain missing.

Crews have identified “areas of interest” where they believe the bodies could be, but they’ve been unable to access them so far, Maryland State Police Superintendent Roland Butler said during a news conference Tuesday afternoon.

“We’re working in generalizations of areas where we think they should be, based on sonar images and other mapping techniques,” he said.

Officials declined to provide a projected timeline for how long the cleanup will continue and when the victims’ families can expect to be made whole. So far, 3,300 tons of debris have been removed from the Patapsco River.

“What we know is that we’re putting forth every single asset that we have at our disposal to bring closure to these families,” Gov. Wes Moore said during the news conference.

Last week, officials opened a temporary deep-draft channel that allowed some stranded cargo ships to finally leave the Port of Baltimore. Others entered the port through the channel, which closed Monday so crews could focus on extracting the Dali from the wreckage.

A large span of the steel bridge came crashing down on the Dali’s bow, damaging the ship and destroying some of its containers. Removing those pieces of bridge is the next major priority in the cleanup process, officials said.

“That work is remarkably complicated,” Moore said, because cutting the spans into shorter sections could risk destabilizing other pieces of wreckage.

Crews are using the largest hydraulic grabber in the country to help in that effort, he said.

Once the Dali returns to port, officials said they expect to open a 45-foot channel by May 10 that can accommodate more large cargo ships. They plan to fully restore the port’s 50-foot main channel by the end of May.

Thousands of longshoremen, truckers and small business owners have seen their jobs impacted by the collapse, prompting local and state officials to prioritize fully reopening the port in hopes of easing the economic ripple effects of the collapse. Officials have also established various assistance programs for unemployed workers and others impacted by the closure.

—

Brian Witte contributed from Annapolis, Maryland.

A vessel, left, moves past the stranded container ship Dali, through a newly opened deep-water channel in Baltimore after being stuck in the harbor since the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed four weeks ago, Thursday, April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Workers remove wreckage of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge, Thursday, April 25, 2024, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Workers remove wreckage of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge, Thursday, April 25, 2024, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Workers remove wreckage of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge, Thursday, April 25, 2024, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

The collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge lays on top of the container ship Dali, Thursday, April 25, 2024, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Storms that pummeled much of Nebraska with torrential rain, high winds and large hail spun up fierce tornados in Iowa Tuesday that caused extensive damage and an unknown number of injuries in at least one rural town and took down several 250-foot (76 meters) wind turbines.

Iowa State Patrol spokesman Sgt. Alex Dinkla said multiple people were injured in Greenfield, a town of about 2,000 around 55 miles (88.5 kilometers) southwest of Des Moines, and there was a lot of damage in town. He didn’t know the extent of the injuries.

Des Moines, Iowa, television station KCCI-TV showed at least three wind turbines that were toppled by an apparent tornado in southwest Iowa, and at least one was in flames with black smoke pluming from the bent structure.

The Adair County Health System hospital in Greenfield was damaged in the storm, but Mercy One spokesman Todd Mizener said he had no further details. The hospital is affiliated with Mercy One, and officials were on their way to Greenfield to assess the damage.

Mary Long, the owner of Long’s Market in downtown Greenfield, said she rode out the storm at her business in the community’s historic town square, which largely escaped damage. Long said there appeared to be widespread damage on the east and south sides of town.

“I could hear this roaring, like the proverbial freight train, and then it was just done,” she said.

Camille Blair said the Greenfield Chamber of Commerce office where she works closed around 2 p.m. ahead of the storm. She emerged from her home to describe widespread damage and scattered debris.

“There’s a pretty significant roof damage to several houses that I know will need whole new roofs," she said. "And I can see from my house it kind of went in a straight line down the road.”

In far southwestern Iowa, video posted to social media showed a tornado just northwest of Red Oak. Further east and north, the National Weather Service issued multiple tornado warnings for areas near the towns of Griswold, Corning, Fontanelle and Guthrie Center, among others.

Iowa was already braced for severe weather after the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center gave most of the state a high chance of seeing severe thunderstorms with the potential for strong tornadoes. Des Moines public schools ended classes two hours early and canceled all evening activities ahead of the storms.

Earlier in the day, residents to the west in Omaha, Nebraska, awoke to weather sirens blaring and widespread power outages as torrential rain, high winds and large hail pummeled the area. Thousands of customers lost power and the deluge of more than 5 inches (12.7 centimeters) of rain in less than two hours flooded basements and submerged cars. Television station KETV showed firefighters arriving to rescue people from vehicles.

In Illinois, dust storms forced authorities to shut down stretches of two interstates due to low visibility. Winds gusts of between 35 mph (56 kph) and 45 mph (74 kph) hit the McLean area, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Chuck Schaffer.

“There is no visibility at times,” state police posted on X, formerly Twitter.

The storms follow days of extreme weather that have ravaged much of the middle section of the country. Strong winds, large hail and tornadoes swept parts of Oklahoma and Kansas late Sunday, damaging homes and injuring two in Oklahoma.

Another round of storms Monday night raked Colorado and western Nebraska and saw the city of Yuma, Colorado, blanketed in hail the size of baseballs and golf balls, turning streets into rivers of water and ice. Residents cleaned up Tuesday using heavy construction equipment and snow shovels to clear ice that had piled up knee-deep.

The storm in Yuma shattered vehicle windshields, pounded the siding off buildings and broke many windows. lt also brought heavy rain to the city of about 3,500 people about 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of Nebraska, stranding some cars in the streets. The hail was still about a half-foot deep (1.83 meters deep) on Tuesday morning and front-end loaders were used to move it, said Curtis Glenn, a trustee at Yuma Methodist Church, which had flooding and hail damage.

Glenn, an insurance claims adjuster, said the combined sounds of the hail, rain and wind sounded like “a gun going off while you’re on a train.”

“It’s not something you ever want to see or ever want to see again,” he said of the storm, the worst he has seen in his years working in the insurance industry.

Last week, deadly storms hit the Houston area in Texas, killing at least seven. Those storms Thursday knocked out power to hundreds of thousands for days, leaving those Texans in the dark and without air conditioning during hot and humid weather. Hurricane-force winds reduced businesses and other structures to debris and shattered glass in downtown skyscrapers.

Tuesday's storms were expected to bring much of the same high winds, heavy rain and large hail to Minnesota, Illinois and part of northern Missouri, said Bob Oravec, lead forecaster with the National Weather Service.

He said the system is expected to turn south on Wednesday, bring more severe weather to parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and southern Missouri.

—-

Beck reported from Omaha, Nebraska. Associated Press writer Colleen Slevin in Denver contributed to this report.

This image provided by JJ Unger, shows hail damage to the window of vehicle, Monday night, May 20, 2024, in Yuma, Colo. Residents in the small city in northeastern Colorado were cleaning up Tuesday after hail the size of baseballs and golf balls pounded the community, with heavy construction equipment and snow shovels being used to clear hail that had piled up knee-deep the night before. (JJ Unger via AP)

This image taken from video provided by JJ Unger, shows hail damage to a window of vehicle, Monday night, May 20, 2024, in Yuma, Colo. Residents in the small city in northeastern Colorado were cleaning up Tuesday after hail the size of baseballs and golf balls pounded the community, with heavy construction equipment and snow shovels being used to clear hail that had piled up knee-deep the night before. (JJ Unger via AP)

This image provided by JJ Unger, shows hail surrounding a vehicle, Monday night, May 20, 2024, in Yuma, Colo. Residents in the small city in northeastern Colorado were cleaning up Tuesday after hail the size of baseballs and golf balls pounded the community, with heavy construction equipment and snow shovels being used to clear hail that had piled up knee-deep the night before. (JJ Unger via AP)

Workers clean out shattered glass at the Wells Fargo building as clean up from the previous week's storm continues in downtown Houston, Monday, May 20, 2024. The city closed off streets in a six-block exclusion zone downtown, from McKinney to Polk and from Smith to Travis to ease traffic around the area where broken glass and debris are prevalent. (Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle via AP)

A police officer and an employee of nearby Dingman's Collision Center push a car that had been caught in flood waters in Omaha, Neb. on Tuesday, May 21, 2024 (Chris Machian /Omaha World-Herald via AP)

An early-morning storm knock tree branches onto the Pacific Street sign on 42nd Street in Omaha, Neb. on Tuesday, May 21, 2024. (Chris Machian /Omaha World-Herald via AP)

Heavy machinery clears debris washed out by flooding from nearby construction sites in Omaha, Neb. on Tuesday, May 21, 2024. (Chris Machian /Omaha World-Herald via AP)

Water pours out of a parking lot onto the ground in Omaha, Neb. on Tuesday, May 21, 2024. (Chris Machian /Omaha World-Herald via AP)