Dangling from one of the biggest floating cranes on the East Coast, the largest chunk yet of the fallen Francis Scott Key Bridge was moved ashore Sunday.

The approximately 450-ton section of truss sat Monday morning at a processing yard at Tradepoint Atlantic in Baltimore County, where orange sparks flew as workers sawed at the steel. Minutes later, a clawlike pair of shears attached to an excavator tugged on a weakened steel member, folding an entire triangular section of truss onto the ground.

“To date, this is the largest single lift of steel that we’ve had,” said James Harkness, chief engineer for the Maryland Transportation Authority. “When they brought it in yesterday, they actually had to cut it in half, because it was about 90 feet tall. So in order to make it manageable for the crews working in the processing yard, they cut it down.”

Officials estimate that a total of 50,000 short tons of debris are sitting in the Patapsco River, blocking access to the shipping channel that leads to the Port of Baltimore. The debris is steadily coming ashore in Sparrows Point, and once it’s cut down, it will be sent to local recycling companies.

Though there’s still a mountain to climb, the weekend’s operation to bring the large piece ashore is yet another milestone, said Navy Capt. Sal Suarez, the service’s supervisor of salvage and diving.

“Getting through all that, it worked out the way that it was planned. You’re a little bit ahead — a day ahead — of schedule,” Suarez said. “So it was, I don’t want to say celebratory, but it’s moving in the right direction. Everybody’s happy about that.”

Divers spent “days” studying and working on the portion of the bridge truss that was submerged in the Patapsco, Suarez said. Beneath the water, crews used a diamond wire saw to cut it into a manageable section, then attached rigging so that the massive Chesapeake 1000 crane could pull its first bridge piece out of the water and all the way to shore. The successful lift was a relief, Suarez said.

“They were pretty sure they had cut all the trusses — turns out they did — but if they had missed one, they would have had to stop the lift, go back down and cut the other truss,” he said.

The piece also may have been several hundred tons heavier, Suarez said, but chunks of the roadway fell to the bottom, rather than coming up with the steel.

Meanwhile, crews still are working to refloat the Dali, the giant cargo ship that toppled the bridge with more than 1,000 containers aboard, bound for Sri Lanka.

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