BALTIMORE —  Witnesses could not believe their eyes early Tuesday morning, looking at where the Francis Scott Key Memorial Bridge once spanned the Patapsco River. The span collapsed in the water below overnight. Rescue efforts are underway after several vehicles fell into the frigid water.

A large container ship was believed to have struck a column of the bridge around 1:30 a.m., fire department spokesman Kevin Cartwright said. There are at least seven people but up to 20 people in the water and a mass casualty response is underway. 

Video footage obtained by WJZ shows a fiery explosion before the collapse, in which a ship appears to hit a strut of the bridge. 

‘Can’t believe it’s gone’

A witness told WJZ’s Mike Hellgren the sound accompanying the collapse was massive, shaking his home. 

“Earthquake – sounded like a big bash of thunder,” the resident said. “And then just like I said it felt like an earthquake, the whole house vibrated. Like my house was falling down.”

The resident said he never thought in his “wildest dreams” he would see something like this happen. 

“I’ve been in this neighborhood 57 years, I remembered when they built this bridge,” he said. “Can’t believe it’s gone.”

Another resident speculated about the possible implications of the crash.

“This is going to be catastrophic for many reasons,” he said. “Number one, the harbor’s blocked. Number two, we’re not going to get any more new car deliveries at this time. Amazon is just on the other side of the river and you can forget your same-day, next-day delivery packages. The beltway is going to be a parking lot. The tunnels are going to be over-jammed.”

“I was there yesterday,” another resident told WJZ, a thought surely shared by many Tuesday morning. “To see the bridge gone knowing I was on that bridge not even 10 hours ago – it’s devastating.”

Francis Scott Key Bridge

The Francis Scott Key BRidge bridge spans the Patapsco River and is a link of I-695. Officials say commuters should take I-95 or I-895 Tuesday morning. 

Officials said Anne Arundel County Fire Department, the Baltimore County Fire Department , Maryland Department of the Environment and the Maryland Transit Authority are among the agencies responding to the incident. 

The 1.6 mile-long bridge, named for the author of the Star Spangled Banner, opened in 1977 and is one of three toll crossings of Baltimore’s Harbor, according to the MDTA.