Bridge Collapses

[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.....

[Wolf]

The really sad thing is there are about 40,000 more bridges just like it in the good ole USA.

[Wolf]

I'm sorry, I was wrong the number of bad bridges is 70,000

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070803/ap_ ... dge_safety

[Nitetimes]

Stepson just told me about it. Went and looked at some of the pics. What a mess!! We have lots of those bridges around here and if the liquid salt they are using now works on the bridges as fast as it does on the cars we'll have lots more of them real soon!!!!

[Bigwoods]

I have used the bridge several times over the years. It had an automatic deicing device that sensed ice and spayed a chemical it automatically.
The injured and deceased are in our prayers.

[Roly Nelson]

Wow, John, sounds like you are really anti-contractor. Having been working in the commerial construction field for 45 yeas, I can't tell you all of the hoops you have to jump through just to get a project approved structurally. Yes. architects and structural engineers can design on the cheap, but the various bldg departments and government agencies also check these plans and make strengthening demands that are often well thought out, but sometimes rediculous. Field inspectors are relentless if plans and specs aren't followed.

I ran work for a large General Contractor as a Const Supt for many years, had constant problems with sub-standard sub-contractors who would try, but not succeed in doing shoddy work. This bridge failure was an event just waiting to happen. The flaw in truss construction is, once just one member of the truss fails.......all the others follow unfortunately. It's 40 year old technology and was built with no structural redundancy, like they are today.

Those steel bridges always need constant repair, the Golden Gate painting crew never quits, when they reach the end, they start all over again. Just like a car, if you don't maintain it, it's gonna bite you in the butt. The Feds have to step up to the plate, spend some serious money and do more than visual inspections. Structural steel can be x-rayed to find problems. Retrofitting costs money, but where does Congrss spend the money........just think of the proposed bridge-to-nowhere in Alaska..... Our tax money at work.......bummer.

I do believe there will be many more bridge problems in the future, probably even worse than this tragedy, unless the faulty ones aren't corrected soon. Time will tell.

Roly, (perhaps the covered bridges were a good idea after all)

[Podunkfla]

That is truly a disaster. It's wonderful that busload of kids was saved; but certainly awful for the many who lost their lives and their families.

40 and 50 years ago many bridges were built that were considered well engineered at the time, yet many are failing now. Even looking at the pictures, one can see it was lightly constructed for a 4 lane span. It only had one central steel arch of spanning over 400 feet. If any component of that steel truss failed the whole thing could (and did) collapse. There was no redundancy built into the structure so say the engineers. Today bridges are designed so parts of the structure can be damaged and the bridge will not fail. The scary thing is there are thousands more in similar condition. Maybe this was a terrible wake up call to the powers that be to fix these problems before another disaster happens. My heart goes out to the families that lost loved ones and the injured. I hope we learned something by this.
Sadly, considering the whole Katrina mess, I have my doubts.

[Gage]

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.


Edited per request.

[Miriam C.]

yo! Anyone want to take a deep breath and leave off the name calling.

100,000 cars across daily is enough to tear any bridge down and the Mississippi River is apt to cause it's own problems. Wonder if the ground shifted some.

[Dixie Flyer]

The infrastructure of the country is definitely aging. (Again)

Folks should note that probably 20-30% of the roads and bridges we have today were built by the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) back in the Thirties.

Now, alot of those have been replaced, but even those replacements are now 30- 40 years old. Just like the bridge that fell into the river off of I-40 (or was it I-20?) a few years ago. That was a relatively young bridge. (30 years maybe)

Instead of funding all these social programs whereby folks get a check for doing nothing, we should right now put those folks to work rebuilding the infrastructure of the country. I would much rather my tax dollars go towards that than useless programs that really benefit no one.

The CCC worked very well back in the Thirties during the Great Depression and it could work again in some form or fashion.

I feel so bad for the folks in Minneapolis. I just can't imagine what folks are going through. All they were doing was just driving down the road across a bridge........

[Coca Cola Teardrop]

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.

It is a tragedy and when something like this happens no one wants to take the blame.

Please just pray for everyone involved.

Linda

[Betsey]

Living near the Twin Cities and having family and friends who live there (all less than a mile from the 35W bridge), this is pretty much all we have been hearing about since it happened.

It is interesting to note that the finger pointing is mostly coming from news media and people outside of the area. The focus of the concern from within is people oriented - what is needed, how to help, etc. Of course, there needs to be (and there currently is) an investigation but with all of the conflicting "reports" everything is speculation to this point. Best to let those who are designated do their job.

We count ourselves among the blessed that our family and friends are safe. However, we share in the grief of those who are not as fortunate. As with any disaster, this affects the whole community. This is already a stressful situation. Angry/sarcastic comments do not improve a stressful situation. Please consider your words.

Betsey

[Mike B]

Your tax cuts at work...

[caseydog]

Our Interstate Highway system was amazing when it was first established. But that was a long, long time ago.

In the interest of "tax cuts" and other so called, "conservative values", we have not invested much in maintaining what was once a modern marvel.

I'm not going to be a abusive as Gage, but I imagine the bridge was well built when new, but it was probably not meant to handle the workload that it does today, and it was a forty-year-old steel-frame bridge. We also know a lot more today about how steel ages and fatigues, and have better techniques for joining steel components together to prevent failures. I'm not hesitant to suggest that the bridge may have just been past due for replacement.

We really won't know what happened for a few months, after a thourough investigation is completed. But, we DO know that something went terribly wrong, and I hope that we learn something from this catastophe.

The old saying goes, "An once of prevention is worth a pound of cure." But, we seem to be opting for the pound of cure a little too much these days.

[caseydog]

That is truly a disaster. It's wonderful that busload of kids was saved; but certainly awful for the many who lost their lives and their families.

40 and 50 years ago many bridges were built that were considered well engineered at the time, yet many are failing now. Even looking at the pictures, one can see it was lightly constructed for a 4 lane span. It only had one central steel arch of spanning over 400 feet. If any component of that steel truss failed the whole thing could (and did) collapse. There was no redundancy built into the structure so say the engineers. Today bridges are designed so parts of the structure can be damaged and the bridge will not fail. The scary thing is there are thousands more in similar condition. Maybe this was a terrible wake up call to the powers that be to fix these problems before another disaster happens. My heart goes out to the families that lost loved ones and the injured. I hope we learned something by this.
Sadly, considering the whole Katrina mess, I have my doubts.

I listened to an engineer on NPR talking about this bridge, and ones like it. He pointed out that we have learned an incredible amount about how to build, and how not to build, this kind of bridge since the 1960's. One thing he pointed out is that the methods used to joing the steel components together is considerably different today than what was used then, We now have sophisticated computer modeling, and can make things fail in the virtual world, and push "virtual" steel and joints on a computer way beyond what the real structure will ever be pushed.

I still can't help but think that the original engineers of that bridge had no idea how much traffic that bridge would someday be expected to support. I wonder how many bridges that we use today were not designed to handle the loads we put on them.

CD