The day after an off-course ship sent the Francis Scott Key Bridge tumbling, Brenda and Nicole Kelarakos have come to see the wreckage and say a prayer.
The mother and daughter live north of the Baltimore Harbor. Tears are shed as they look out at the mangled mess of steel in the water.
They're devastated to know six roadworkers died when the bridge went down. "No-one should lose their life filling potholes," Nicole says.
They're also heartbroken by the loss of something that, to locals like them, was much more than a bridge. For many Baltimoreans, it stood as a symbol of national pride, identity and history.
"It's a bridge that [has] significance to our country," Nicole says. "The Star Spangled Banner. The lives that were lost for that fight."
She's referring to Francis Scott Key – in whose honour the bridge was named – and the national anthem he penned here at Baltimore Harbor. He'd been inspired by the American flag flying over Baltimore after the defeat of British invaders in the War of 1812.
"It's not just a bridge," Nicole says.
Indeed, the Key Bridge was considered so iconic at the Key Brewery, a nearby namesake, that a big TV beamed a live shot of it into the bar.
"When the bridge was up there, the regulars really liked it," brewery manager Joe Gold says.
Now, the screen displays an empty vista of sky and clouds. In the foreground, a pair of ospreys are sometimes seen in front of the camera, using driftwood from the port to furnish their nest.
"We take a lot of body blows as a city," Joe says. "The last thing we need is another hit."
A city with a 'PR problem'
Baltimore – between Washington DC and New York in America's north-east – has a population of 570,000 and shrinking.
Its reputation is a rough one. Many people simply know it as the violent, drug-infested setting of early-naughties crime drama The Wire.
"Which is terrible," says Joe. "Does The Wire exist here? Yeah. But here's where it exists," he says, pointing to a small pocket in the city's south-west on a map.
"Baltimore is a city that has a PR problem. We have a wonderful place, but nobody talks about the good stuff."
The bridge catastrophe promises to create all sorts of new difficulties.
It's shut down a port that employs 15,000 people, and indirectly supports the jobs of more than 100,000 others, for weeks if not months. The daily cost has been estimated at $US15 million ($23 million).
Supply chain issues are certain, albeit still unclear. Nicole says some locals have panicked over the thought of COVID-like stock shortages.
"I went into a Costco yesterday, line going all the way down the store [for] toilet paper, waters, everything."
And, particularly for residents on the peninsula north of the harbour, travel times have become much longer, with the loss of the one quick link to downtown Baltimore. Commutes have almost quadrupled for some.
Then there's the sight of a skyline irreversibly mutilated, literally overnight, in a way that has left many people rattled.
'It's hard looking at this'
North of where the bridge was lies a highway lined with dollar stores, pawn shops and petrol stations. Since the disaster, residents have been driving the road to a rise where a break in a concrete wall provides a view of the wreckage.
Among those gathering, greeting each other with knowing nods and standing in silence is Derric A Gregory Sr. Like many longtime locals, his life has been framed by the bridge.
He played baseball with the bridge as a backdrop, worked his first job at the port and traversed the crossing "hundreds if not thousands of times".
"It's hard looking at this, remembering what was," says Derric, who lives in the Turner Station neighbourhood that sat at the northern entrance to the bridge, but has now become a dead end.
"This whole community is a blue-collar community. So this resonates with us because these guys were just like us – they were workers."
Graham Connor is one of those blue-collar workers. The painter and sandblaster had seen the Key Bridge from a vantage point many had not.
Every few years, he'd ascend to the top of the 56-metre tall structure to give it a new lick of paint.
Teetering on a narrow steel plank with plunging drops either side was an operation that required "guts inside of ya", he said.
"Oh it ain't funny … when the bridge is swaying one way, but the wind's coming the other way … you're in trouble."
An invisible workforce
This week's tragedy shares eerie similarities with another on the same Baltimore highway in the same week one year ago.
Six highway workers were killed when a car involved in a high-speed collision smashed through a work zone. Many were migrants from Central America.
When Tim Young, who works at a local refugee resettlement service, heard more road workers had been killed this week, he knew it would likely be migrants caught in the tragedy.
"The first thoughts my mind drifted to is that there's a really good chance that the people who were out there at 1:30 in the morning filling potholes, doing the most demanding and dangerous jobs, are likely to be newcomers," he says.
About a quarter of construction workers in the US are foreign born, census figures show. Around Baltimore, that figure is 39 per cent, according to immigrant service CASA.
Six of the victims of the bridge disaster were immigrants from Mexico and Central America. Some were recent arrivals. Others were fathers, family men who had lived and worked in the US for more than a decade.
"Immigrants were absolutely essential to building Baltimore. And they will be equally essential to rebuilding Baltimore," Tim says.
A mammoth rebuild
Now authorities face a monumental challenge to clear dangerous debris from the major shipping channel and rebuild the bridge – an operation that could take years.
The largest crane on America's eastern seaboard has been sent to help move more than 4,000 tonnes of debris.
Barges are also on their way to the scene to begin pulling pieces of fallen steel and bitumen from the water, allowing divers to safely resume their search for the four remaining victims.
President Joe Biden wants the US government to pay the full cost of rebuilding. It's given Maryland $60 million in emergency funds to start the clean-up. But some estimates put the total rebuild cost around $2 billion.
This Easter weekend, Joe Gold's priority is supporting the port workers. The brewery is hosting a charity concert to help those suddenly out of work.
"We're still trying to mourn and be respectful … and then you start thinking, who might need some financial help as this unfolds?" he says.
"And we thought, the port workers, because the port is going to be closed forever and they're not even getting paid."
For now, the Francis Scott Key Bridge is memorialised in the brewery's window. Alongside six roses placed to pay tribute to the lives lost sits a local artist's painting of the bridge, stamped with a common city tagline: Baltimore Strong.
