Former Oamaru Mail journalist Scott Preston, who lives a few minutes away from the disaster area, said he was in disbelief when he heard a massive cargo ship had smashed into the 2.57km-long Francis Scott Key Bridge while sailing out of Baltimore on Tuesday night (NZ time), sending cars and people into the Patapsco River below.
The ship reported a power issue before impact about 1.30am, which enabled officials to stop traffic on the bridge before the collapse.
Rescuers pulled two survivors from the icy water, but a further six missing people are now presumed dead.
"I was in bed at the time. I didn’t hear it, but a lot of people said they heard the noise of it at the time and didn’t know what it was.
"I didn’t actually know about it until the morning when my wife woke me up and poked her phone in my face and said: ‘Look at this - the Key bridge has collapsed’.
"It was kind of a crazy thing to hear."
The whole community was in shock at the news.
"You see that bridge, it’s a prominent part of the infrastructure around Baltimore and Maryland, and you think that bridge is going to last forever.
"No-one thought that this could happen, so everyone’s in shock at the moment and wondering what kind of impact it’s going to have on the area."
Mr Preston said the collapse of the bridge did not cut off people on opposite sides of the river because there were two traffic tunnels under the river.
"That could take years," he said.
"That shipping is going to go to other ports on the east coast for a while.
"Once that shipping goes elsewhere, there’s no guarantees it will come back.
"I know a couple of people who work on the port. They were told that the port was not operating until further notice."
It could lead to major job losses around the city, he said.
"After you think about the people who have lost their lives, you start thinking about the family and friends and acquaintances that are going to be directly impacted by this.
"It’s going to have quite a big impact for Baltimore."
It was "a miracle" the incident did not happen during the day, Mr Preston said.
"If it did, there would have been hundreds of cars on that bridge."
He said there would inevitably be a major investigation considering whether there was anything at all that the port authorities or the ship’s crew could have done differently.
"We’ll just wait for the results of that to see what the full story is."
US President Joe Biden has called for his team to "move heaven and Earth" to reopen the port and rebuild the bridge as soon as "humanly possible".
