The ship that hit it is close to the size of an aircraft carrier. Nearly 1000 ft long and over 100,000 tons of dead weight.

That was a huge vessel

They do work, as a ship hit one not long after the new Skyway bridge opened. Following that incident, they added more Concrete Dolphins to protect the pilings on the approaches to the main span.

After the Skyway accident they did a good job protecting the new bridge.

They do seem like a really good way to protect a bridge.

they work best when put in from the original design, but can be added later as well, depending on the site.

Is it to divert the ship, or to lift it and use friction to slow momentum?
I've never seen those near a bridge before.
I've been over the causeway bridge in Tampa, but not sure if that was an older bridge. Last time I was in Tampa was over 20 years ago.

I've seen them on some smaller bridges. Here's one:

https://cbs12.com/news/local/us-1-bridge-to-close-jupiter-fdot-city-of-jupiter

The new Skyway bridge opened in 1987.

At the very least, the pothole workers should have had some water safety equipment.

Baltimore's Key Bridge may have lacked collision protective measures for modern cargo ships: Experts
...
Modern protective measures for bridge piers include adding "fenders," which are protection systems designed to protect the bridge from vessels transiting under or in the vicinity of the bridge, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

Fenders on modern bridges include "dolphins," which are large circular walls filled with material such as sand or concrete and "artificial islands," armored artificial islands around the piers made of a sand core that is protected against wave and current action by armored slope protection, according to the Coast Guard.

However, it is not yet known whether or not the Baltimore Key Bridge had fenders at the time of the crash.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/baltimores-key-bridge-lacked-collision-protective-measures-modern/story?id=108510431

Link to tweet

Hard to see what would have diverted it.

Engineers are supposed to design structures to be safe and this bridge obviously wasn't.

There's going to be a lot of " shoulda-woulda-coulda" going on, but honestly, the same thing could have happened in any of the large port cities where these large container ships are docking.

This is a case of getting funds and time to update infrastructure. Consider the number of major bridges built 30/40 years ago that are just starting to need updating and retro-fitting, and multiply that by 20 for major bridges built before 1980. That's a lot of infrastructure that has been ignored or outright villified by GOP supply side/tax break deregulators since the 1980's.

Haele

Baltimore's Key Bridge may have lacked collision protective measures for modern cargo ships: Experts
The bridge was created before pier protections were standardized.
...
Modern protective measures for bridge piers include adding "fenders," which are protection systems designed to protect the bridge from vessels transiting under or in the vicinity of the bridge, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

Fenders on modern bridges include "dolphins," which are large circular walls filled with material such as sand or concrete and "artificial islands," armored artificial islands around the piers made of a sand core that is protected against wave and current action by armored slope protection, according to the Coast Guard.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/baltimores-key-bridge-lacked-collision-protective-measures-modern/story?id=108510431

Construction and Commerce, LOTS of room for learning, for ALL of us.

You need protective barriers before the ship hits the bridge infrastructure.

Unfortunately, a lot of bridges need a lot of work.
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/bridge/nbi/no10/condition23.cfm