Bridge Collapses

[Hamcan]

I am a retired Highways techie, 29 years with B.C. Ministry of Highways. When it comes to highway infastructure "s**t does not happen" without someone knowing about it long before it happens.

Bottom line: Engineers do the inspections, Politicians make the decisions.

Regards, JG

[Ira]

I am a retired Highways techie, 29 years with B.C. Ministry of Highways. When it comes to highway infastructure "s**t does not happen" without someone knowing about it long before it happens.

Bottom line: Engineers do the inspections, Politicians make the decisions.

Regards, JG

You got major earthquakes up there?

No?

What if you have one, and stuff gets destroyed, people die, and people start blaming you guys for not building to earthquake specs?

Yeah--s*** does happen. Mother Nature could care less about our capabilities as mere mortals.

[caseydog]

No they need to beat this dead horse or it will just happen again, and again, and again. Maybe when/if something like this happens to a loved one of yours your tune would be different. Hey only 160,000+ chances that it will.

My thoughts and prayers are with the folks that lost love ones or were injured in this incident, but I have a lot better chance of being killed or maimed by a reckless or drunk driver than to be hurt by a bridge collapsing.

While I am not trying to minimize this accident, use a little common sense. I for one will continue to us bridges without contending with all the hysterics and fear mongering.

Dave

I'm not seeing how this is "fear-mongering."

The American Society of Civil Engineers has been saying for years that we are not maintaining our infrastructure, or replacing outdated elements at anywhere near the level we should. But nobody listened until this bridge collapsed.

There was plenty of warning that New Orleans was not safe because the levees were in need of repair and upgrade. Then came Katrina, and people were shocked? The people who warned that the levees would fail were probably accused of "fer-mongering" by people who didn't want to spend billions of dollars making the levees strong enough for a major hurricane.

We had a fatal steam pipe explosion in downtown New York -- of a 100-plus year old steam pipe.

Now, with a bridge failing on a major highway, maybe it is time to take a closer look at our infrastructure. That's not fear mongering, that's just good common sense, IMO.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm getting kind of tired of watching one of the smartest and wealthiest nations in the world repeatedly getting caught with our pants around our ankles by catastrophes that we were warned about.

CD

[caseydog]

I am a retired Highways techie, 29 years with B.C. Ministry of Highways. When it comes to highway infastructure "s**t does not happen" without someone knowing about it long before it happens.

Bottom line: Engineers do the inspections, Politicians make the decisions.

Regards, JG

You got major earthquakes up there?

No?

What if you have one, and stuff gets destroyed, people die, and people start blaming you guys for not building to earthquake specs?

Yeah--s*** does happen. Mother Nature could care less about our capabilities as mere mortals.

I'm reasonably sure there was not an earthquake in Minneapolis when that bridge collapsed.

In 1973, my town was mowed down by a Tornado. That is a good example of "s--t happens." But, there wasn't a tornado last week at that bridge, either.

When a 40-year-old bridge collapses without a natural disater as the cause, I think "s--t happens" is hard to pin on the collapse.

I'm not sure what the purpose of this argument is, anyway. Are some people saying we should just chalk this up to fate, and not look at our infrastucture? What's the point you're trying to make?

Maybe I am naive, but when the American Society of Civil Engineers gives our national infrastructure a grade of "D", that raises my eybrows. When you punctuate the ASCEs position with a bridge collapse and a 100-year-old stem-pip explosion, you've got my complete attention.

[Ira]

When a 40-year-old bridge collapses without a natural disater as the cause, I think "s--t happens" is hard to pin on the collapse.

I'm not sure what the purpose of this argument is, anyway. Are some people saying we should just chalk this up to fate, and not look at our infrastucture? What's the point you're trying to make?

My main point is that human nature is human nature:

Payoffs will always be made. Shortcuts will be always be taken. Inferior cement and steel will always be used. People will always make mistakes. The "smart" ones will not be listened to when they warn everyone. And a buck is a buck.

And it will always BE about the buck.

Human nature hasn't changed since we were apes.

Why does anyone think it's gonna change now?

[caseydog]

When a 40-year-old bridge collapses without a natural disater as the cause, I think "s--t happens" is hard to pin on the collapse.

I'm not sure what the purpose of this argument is, anyway. Are some people saying we should just chalk this up to fate, and not look at our infrastucture? What's the point you're trying to make?

My main point is that human nature is human nature:

Payoffs will always be made. Shortcuts will be always be taken. Inferior cement and steel will always be used. People will always make mistakes. The "smart" ones will not be listened to when they warn everyone. And a buck is a buck.

And it will always BE about the buck.

Human nature hasn't changed since we were apes.

Why does anyone think it's gonna change now?

Sure, I agree to a point. But, I think we have to try to fix things that are broken. I think we need to always take a good look at how we are doing things -- both on an individual basis, and as a society.

I guess that's where I am confused about your point. I'm sure you aren't suggesting that we just shrug this bridge collapse off and not try to find out if there are other potential catastrophes out there we could possible avoid if we look a little closer at things we now just take for granted.

That just doesn't seem to fit in with other positions you have taken before -- pretty progressive positions.

[CASHCOW]

rambling

[Wolf]

I'm just waiting to hear something like the workers on this bridge were illegal aliens and that someone cut something that they should not have because they could not speak or understand english.

[Ira]

Funny, can't delete this post:

Didn't mean to come on too strong with Mike and Brenda. My bad.

[Hamcan]

Ira we do indeed have earthquakes up here and apparently we are way over due for a big one on the coast and the inspection folks know which bridges are vulnerable [all of them that are built on the Fraser river delta for instance] , my point is still valid, engineers do the technical stuff and politicians make the decisions.
However, I fail see see how that has anything to do with the Minnesota bridge in question. The reports I have seen suggest it did not have adequate maintenance and use exceeded design standards, this sh*t that happened was not a random accident.

Regards, JG

[asianflava]

The last report I heard (this was a few days ago) was that MinnDOT knew there was a problem and had an outside company do an evaluation. The outside company came to the same conclusion, that there was a problem. What happened next was that instead of fixing the bridge, they decided to do more inspections.

[Ira]

I guess we're arguing about, or strongly discussing, nothing really tangible in the first place.

I guess my point of view comes from my personality as a cynic, and others here who are more optimistic about man.

[Dean in Eureka, CA]

I'm curious to learn what the problem was... Have they released the findings of the inspections that took place prior to it collapsing???
Was talking with Kevin last night and a mutual friend of ours had an intersting comment...
Some think that Mother Nature didn't have anything to do with the collapse....
That area of the country has temperature swings of 100 degrees or more. (Expansion and contraction)
Water that makes it's way into joints on the steel connections and voids or cracks in concrete, turns to ice. (More expansion)
This makes me wonder if the design wasn't suitable enough to combat the expansion and contractions of water and air temperatures...

[Podunkfla]

I'm curious to learn what the problem was... Have they released the findings of the inspections that took place prior to it collapsing???
Was talking with Kevin last night and a mutual friend of ours had an intersting comment...
Some think that Mother Nature didn't have anything to do with the collapse....
That area of the country has temperature swings of 100 degrees or more. (Expansion and contraction)
Water that makes it's way into joints on the steel connections and voids or cracks in concrete, turns to ice. (More expansion)
This makes me wonder if the design wasn't suitable enough to combat the expansion and contractions of water and air temperatures...

I imagine it will be months before they declare a definitive cause of the failure. They have now said they think the collapse started at the north end though.

[caseydog]

I'm curious to learn what the problem was... Have they released the findings of the inspections that took place prior to it collapsing???
Was talking with Kevin last night and a mutual friend of ours had an intersting comment...
Some think that Mother Nature didn't have anything to do with the collapse....
That area of the country has temperature swings of 100 degrees or more. (Expansion and contraction)
Water that makes it's way into joints on the steel connections and voids or cracks in concrete, turns to ice. (More expansion)
This makes me wonder if the design wasn't suitable enough to combat the expansion and contractions of water and air temperatures...

Well, the "big picture" won't be wokrd out for a while. But, there are some possibilities that are more likely than others.

One thing that is known, is that these steel structures are assembled in a different way today, than they were back then. That is because engineers know more now, thanks to lots of research and computer modeliing. They know what happens to different kinds of joints under stess over time.

And, we know that this structure was lacking in redundancy, so if the right steel members failed, the whole bridge would likely collapse. Built-in redundancy within stuctures is standard practice today.

We also know that there were a few different studies of this bridge that indicated that it was in need of significant work.

From what I have read, if I were to bet on an outcome, I would bet that one major reason for this failure is that modern traffic loads are considerably more than what the original designers anticipated.

Maintenance and other issues aside, if the bridge was never intended to take the kind of loads that were placed upon it, that alone would be a recipe for disaster.