Dana Moore to head Baltimore’s Key Bridge response and recovery efforts
The city’s equity officer is recruited by the mayor to coordinate planning with state and federal agencies
Above: Dana Moore speaks at a Stoop Storytelling event in 2013. (Brew file photo)
The Brew has learned that Mayor Brandon Scott will tap a cabinet officer and veteran attorney to head the city’s response to the collapse and reconstruction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.
Dana P. Moore, currently the director of the Office of Equity and Civil Rights, will start Monday as Senior Advisor for Key Bridge Response and Recovery, aiding port workers, business owners and others, and coordinating with the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Unified Command and private groups engaged in the recovery effort.
“Her role is to be the point person to make sure the right things happen for the city and the port,” said a City Hall source, who cited a memo circulating about her appointment (see below).
Her new job has not yet been publicly announced by the mayor’s office, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment this afternoon.
Serving as acting city solicitor and deputy solicitor in the Young and Pugh administrations, Moore was appointed to the equity post by Scott in December 2020. She will be temporarily replaced by Caron Watkins, another Scott aide.
Memo describing Dana Moore’s new job as senior advisor in the Key Bridge recovery effort.
Never Warned
Moore’s appointment is one facet of the multi-government response to the March 26 bridge collapse, which resulted in the death of six workers who were filling potholes on the span when it was struck by the runaway container ship Dali.
“We will do everything to support the families and to ensure that our city comes back stronger,” Scott said today at a news conference called by Maryland Governor Wes Moore.
Moore said the bodies of four of the men have now been recovered from the Patapsco River at the site of the fallen bridge. The fourth person, found over the weekend, is not being identified yet at the request of the families.
Moore also reported on efforts to remove the wrecked bridge so that commercial shipping in and out of the Port of Baltimore can resume.
“We are on track to open a temporary 35-foot-deep channel by the end of the month,” he said.
Meanwhile, lawyers for two of the victims and a worker who survived the crash said the men were never warned ahead of the crash.
Attorneys for Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes and José Mynor López as well as survivor Julio Adrian Cervantes Suarez spoke at a Monday news conference.
Cervantes, who survived, escaped because he was able to roll down his work vehicle’s manual window, attorney L. Chris Stewart said.
Cervantes, who cannot swim, was injured and clung to debris until he was rescued, Stewart said.
Authorities said another worker rescued the night of the crash was in good condition but refused treatment and left.