re: Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore has collapsed - container ship wrecked into it

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Would you think the black smoke is just the generator getting a load

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I'm sticking with my original theory that the main never shut down and the black stack is from the main going full astern, and the subsequent blackouts and relights are the egen coming online and tripping. I dont know of any blackout recovery proceedure that would attempt to restart the main plant without the egen coming online first but again, I don't know much about container ships.

It's also possible that the gear tripped but the main generators stayed running, the main engine tripped, and the blackstack was the main plant loading back up and then restarting and reversing the main. Everything I've ever done, if the main breaker opened for any reason the generators shut down automatically and the emergency kicked on and got on the buss. Main generator then restarted, got on the buss, egen got off, and non criticals could start coming in. It's possible that container ships are pure old school though - non-synchronizing gens and manual resets and stuff. Eta: even 80 foot pushboats must have auto-start generators now. I can't believe a container ship would be allowed to operate unescourted in US waters without at least that...