Really remarkable how efficiently and rapidly the transit police reacted to the Key Bridge warning.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/27/us/baltimore-key-bridge-mayday-call-radio.html

I don’t know how long it took the radio call from the ship to make it to their dispatch and for the word to get passed, but out in the field the call to close traffic resulted in traffic being stopped at one side within 20 seconds (!). No chatter about what do you mean and extra questions. Just information given well — first the request, then the reason — and immediate action, also conveyed well — that it was done, and what the circumstances were.

And then only 12 seconds later someone asked if there was a work crew on the bridge. Which does seems to be the logical order of what to attend to when.

12 seconds later a transit cop on the other side of the bridge confirmed he was being asked to stop traffic. That was a little slower but still was pretty rapid and maybe merited a confirmation.

Which resulted in five seconds later the dispatcher saying yes but immediately expanding to alert that any crews need to be pulled off too, and offering a suggestion of how (contact the foreman).

15 seconds later the other side of the bridge reports they have complied and stopped traffic and that as soon as another unit arrives to keep the traffic stopped, they will drive onto the bridge to look for work crews. This is volunteering to risk their own life, no hesitation.

Unfortunately, 29 seconds later the bridge is already down. Had the officer been on their way, which was just about to happen, they would have died too.

I often am interested in learning from teamwork and studying how professionals react under pressure. So often this is in the context of a failure, such as a cockpit voice recorder after a crash where the crew failed to act expeditiously or in some other way wasn’t able to solve the problem when perhaps in theory they could have.

It’s so wonderful to instead get this glimpse into highly competent behaviour in the face of a black swan event in the middle of the night, where the team does exactly what they should have in exactly the right way, communicates with maximal efficiency and professionalism, saves some lives, and through luck manages to avoid having to sacrifice their own life unnecessarily even though they were willing.

It’s very moving and instructive and I hope these exemplars will be helpful in training other law enforcement and operations teams.