Bridge Collapses

[Eunice]

I ask that everyone of the forum pray for everyone involved with this tragedy:
Those that lost their life.
Those that lost a love one.
The volunteers that helped save lives.
The emergency workers that are working around the clock.
The hospital personnel helping with the injured.
The civil engineers trying to figure out what happened.
The construction crew that built the bridge.( I would think that the folks that helped build this bridge have a feeling of guilt some what)
The crews that will be cleaning up from the colapse.
Please just pray for everyone involved.
Linda

I agree with Linda. I have FAMILY and friends who have built bridges and dams all over the world. They are decent people who work hard and would never do anything to hurt someone. This is a terrible thing and I hope things are learned for the future. But things have changed in 40 years and what was considered safe then are outdated now and not because someone was taking shortcuts. We learn new things as time goes on.
Eunice

[Micro469]

Just watching the news tonight about the 40 year old bridge collaps in Minneapolis.
My heart goes out to all who lost loved ones in this tradgedy.
But it really, really burns my butt that this has happened. A bridge made of concrete and steel should by all rights last hundreds of years. I see here Greed... By the builder, the engineer, the government...both local and federal, and the inspectors who check the structure for faults.
The engineers who planned the bridge probably won the contract on the lowest bid
The people who built the bridge probably got the contract on the lowest bid.
The governing officials got the bridge built by awarding it to the lowest bidder.
In order to make a profit, the engineer probably cut corners.
In order to make a profit, the contractor probably cut corners.
In order to get the bridge built on time,(or get a kickback) the inspectors probably turned a blind eye to some discrepancies.
40 years later.... People are killed and maimed because a bridge collapses.
I sure hope that some of the contractor's family was among the victims....
(Not really, but it would be justice.)
Sorry, but something like this should never have happened. That bridge should have been shut down long before peoples lives are at risk.....

John, your out of line with your statement. Unless you know exactly what happened and know what caused it,you have nothing to say.

Gage,
I think the point I was trying to make was that it all comes down to a dollar value.... what's more important...spending money on the repair of an aging bridge .. or wait and see. Now we see.....

Roly's post was much more informative....I have been enlightened.


Edited by request also.....God, I hated doing that........

[Laredo]

A bridge is not a static object. Like any roadway or any ship, it requires maintenance -- and it requires maintenance that includes elements of both the roadway maintenance and the ship maintenance.
The failure will probably turn out to have an interlocking chain of actual causes, but this particular bridge was rated structurally deficient for its workload in 1990.
That's 17 years worth of continued use after it was known to be faulty, and unless St. Paul/Minneapolis is way different than DFW or Houston or Phoenix, none of those 17 years' use was LIGHTER in terms of the mass moving over the bridge or the constancy of the load.
It is indeed time that we wake up, America, and do more than say a prayer for those affected by a preventable incident like this was.

[caseydog]

John. Don't let Gage's remarks get to you. There are civil ways to voice a dissagreement, and then there are rude and obnoxious ways. He chose option two. That was his choice -- you didn't make him do it.

CD

[Wolf]

John has a point.

I have been in the construction industry for 30 years and have seen firsthand things that made me want to bury my hammer in somebody head!

Short cuts, under biding and people doing things that they had no business (or right) doing. I have witnessed people getting hurt as a result.

Did we forget what happened in New Orleans with the failing levies? This was a problem that was known about but the people charged with taking care of it did nothing!

This bridge has been unsafe for the last 17 years, why was it not closed down before this happened?

I find it a little odd that they were working on the bridge when it came down. Somebody cut or remove something that they should not have?

6 degrees of separation. There is a lot of blame here to go around. I feel for the people that lost a loved one for no good reason other then someone's greed and/or complacency.

[Micro469]

John has a point.

I have been in the construction industry for 30 years and have seen firsthand things that made me want to bury my hammer in somebody head!

Short cuts, under biding and people doing things that they had no business (or right) doing. I have witnessed people getting hurt as a result.

Did we forget what happened in New Orleans with the failing levies? This was a problem that was known about but the people charged with taking care of it did nothing!

This bridge has been unsafe for the last 17 years, why was it not closed down before this happened?

I find it a little odd that they were working on the bridge when it came down. Somebody cut or remove something that they should not have?

6 degrees of separation. There is a lot of blame here to go around. I feel for the people that lost a loved one for no good reason other then someone's greed and/or complacency.

Thank-you wolf....

[PaulC]

Hate to do this to all you naysayers but I agree with Gage. Unless you have proof of what happened stop speculating on it. It happened, people where hurt or died, for which I am truly sorry, but a 40 year old bridge with 40 year old technology. Gimme a break and stop looking for someone to blame.
Cheers
Paul

[Podunkfla]

I think what we have here is normal bureaucratic and political SNAFU. The politicians know they can get more votes with entitlement programs and other pork than biting the bullet and raising taxes (or cutting other spending) enough to properly fund things like neglected infrastructure maintenance... As in the New Orleans levees and thousands of old bridges, etc. And then, of course, big government is not very good at managing money in the first place... It always seems to go to huge companies with powerful lobbyists and a bunch gets wasted.

[Micro469]

Hate to do this to all you naysayers but I agree with Gage. Unless you have proof of what happened stop speculating on it. It happened, people where hurt or died, for which I am truly sorry, but a 40 year old bridge with 40 year old technology. Gimme a break and stop looking for someone to blame.
Cheers
Paul

http://www.goldenlandpages.com/hotspots/bridge/bridge.htm

http://www.goldenlandpages.com/hotspots/bridge/bridge.htm

[raprap]

There are bridges and Bridges. On my way to Denver, via Minden I made a point to ride across the Eads Bridge in St Louis. It was first built in 1874 for railroads and is still in use. Although it is not presently the most heavily used bridge in the area, but for almost 40 years it was the only bridge in the area. Moreover, there are some things to be thankful for, the Minnesota 35 bridge was in the summer, unlike the Sliver Bridge failure in December 67 on US35 in Point Pleasant WVA. In that disaster most of the fatalities were the result of hypothermia.

Now for the blame, every disaster is a learning experience. Boiler codes were the result of boilers blowing up, on riverboats, in railroad locomotives, in factories any when and any where boilers exploded. Fire codes result from fires that resulted in many lives--for instance the Hartford circus tent fire of 45 resulted from the use of paraffin being used for waterproofing. I don't blame the engineers, the contractors, or the inspectors--if I was to blame anything, I would blame the temporary ignorance.

As for bridges, one must remember they, like all manmade vertical structures, are inherently unstable. They're natural tendency is to be at their lowest potential and that is to be in the river. It is only the result of extraordinary feats of labor to keep that potential from getting down.

As for the victims and the heroes, my heart is out for the former and my head is high for the latter.

I do find it interesting that the investigation team is performing a finite link analysis to determine if there was a single failure fault with the bridge structure. I performed a similar analysis for my motorcycle once---it was scary.

Rap

[PaulC]

Hate to do this to all you naysayers but I agree with Gage. Unless you have proof of what happened stop speculating on it. It happened, people where hurt or died, for which I am truly sorry, but a 40 year old bridge with 40 year old technology. Gimme a break and stop looking for someone to blame.
Cheers
Paul

http://www.goldenlandpages.com/hotspots/bridge/bridge.htm

http://www.goldenlandpages.com/hotspots/bridge/bridge.htm

I must apologise to all you naysayers, our media is reporting on a vehicle bridge down here, not a railway bridge, as John has pointed out to me.

Cheers
Paul

[Miriam C.]

Rap, I think you got it. But one must never forget the river itself. And what about the train? Did it hit the bridge? Something else hit the bridge?

Personally I hate bridges unless they are low enough to touch the water with my toes while sitting on it fishing. Oh yeah and above safe water to swim in.

A prayer for the wounded and the families of the deceased is certainly in order.

[Micro469]

Your right Paul..It is a vehicular bridge. i was just trying to point out that bridges can last longer than 40 years. I had two links up there, don't know why the second link didn't come through. Even so, there should be no reason why a car bridge only lasts 40 years and a train bridge can last forever.
But that's not really my point. My point is that the bridge Should not have collapsed during use...IF IT WAS THAT BAD IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN CLOSED DOWN. And you can't tell me they didn't know it was deteriorating........

[PaulC]

Your right Paul..It is a vehicular bridge. i was just trying to point out that bridges can last longer than 40 years. I had two links up there, don't know why the second link didn't come through. Even so, there should be no reason why a car bridge only lasts 40 years and a train bridge can last forever.
But that's not really my point. My point is that the bridge Should not have collapsed during use...IF IT WAS THAT BAD IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN CLOSED DOWN. And you can't tell me they didn't know it was deteriorating........

John, I appreciate that it "should" last longer than 40 years but even the Romans had trouble making things last for more than that same amount of time. Unless you can prove to me, right now, that there is evidence of some sort of collusion between various Government departments and the Local Works department, I'll sit back and wait and see.
I'm thinking "Mother Nature" has a lot to answer for with this one not some engineer or architect who designed it.
Cheers
Paul

[Podunkfla]

Your right Paul..It is a vehicular bridge. i was just trying to point out that bridges can last longer than 40 years. I had two links up there, don't know why the second link didn't come through. Even so, there should be no reason why a car bridge only lasts 40 years and a train bridge can last forever.
But that's not really my point. My point is that the bridge Should not have collapsed during use...IF IT WAS THAT BAD IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN CLOSED DOWN. And you can't tell me they didn't know it was deteriorating........

John... I don't think it is possible to close down all (or even a few) the substandard bridges in America: "According to a 2005 Highway Administration report, more than 75,000 of the nation's roughly 600,000 bridges -- 13.1 percent -- were rated "structurally deficient," meaning some components of the bridges' decks or support structures were rated poor or worse." At best, with a stepped up inspection program, they may be able to keep another disaster like this from happening? But, closing thousands of bridges is not an option... It would bring the country to a halt. I'm afraid that is a utopian idea that just won't work in the real world.