Apparently this container ship was only half loaded to capacity. And it seems likely that a container ship would hit it given the vicinity of such container ships. I'm generally confused on this matter.

It hit the support completely dead on and stopped. All of that momentum and force went directly into the bridge. The pulse from that impact would have been enormous.

Why would you anticipate that a container ship would have to hit the bridge? What about the flip side to that... How many bridges have never been hit by a container ship or alternatively how many times have an almost fully loaded container ship come to a dead stop after hitting a bridge?

According to a quick search and reporting due to this event, apparently a quick number is a few dozen full collapses in the past 55 years, which doesn't seem to account for impacts and collisions that didn't result in full collapses. So that seems like a lot of bridges indeed, along with a lot of deaths and economic impact.

The reason why I would anticipate a container ship hitting that bridge is because of the video we've all seen. It's a huge ship that is going the slowest it can while still retaining control over the vehicle, unattended, through a tight spot, close to a bridge with zero protection from ship collisions, and all with a ship design that is apparently (according to other comments) effectively impossible to correctly maintain and keep running at all times. So I think the better question is, why wouldn't you anticipate a collision?