First vessel uses alternate channel to bypass wreckage at the Baltimore bridge collapse site

A tugboat pushing a fuel barge was the first vessel to use an alternate channel to bypass the wreckage of Baltimore’s collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge, which had blocked traffic along the vital port’s main shipping channel.

The barge supplying jet fuel to the Department of Defense left late Monday and was destined for Delaware's Dover Air Force Base, though officials have said the temporary channel is open primarily to vessels that are helping with the cleanup effort. Some barges and tugs that have been stuck in the Port of Baltimore since the collapse are also scheduled to pass through the channel.

Officials said they're working on a second channel on the southwest side of the main channel that will allow for deeper draft vessels, but they didn't say when that might open.

Gov. Wes Moore is set Tuesday to visit one of two centers that the Small Business Administration opened in the area to help companies get loans to assist them with losses caused by the disruption of the bridge collapse.

Crews are undertaking the complicated work of removing steel and concrete at the site of the bridge’s deadly collapse after a container ship lost power and crashed into a supporting column. On Sunday, dive teams surveyed parts of the bridge and checked the ship, and workers in lifts used torches to cut above-water parts of the twisted steel superstructure.

Authorities believe six workers plunged to their deaths in the collapse, including two whose bodies were recovered last week. Two other workers survived.

Moore, a Democrat, said at a Monday afternoon news conference that his top priority is recovering the four remaining bodies, followed by reopening shipping channels. He said that he understands the urgency but that the risks are