Posted on 05/06/2014 10:51:17 AM PDT by C19fan
For almost a year and a half workers had been constructing a bridge to cross the main Interstate that runs between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, but it took just minutes to bring the entire structure crashing to the ground. The blaze began after a construction workers' blowtorch was fanned by strong winds and ignited the wooden scaffolding that was being used to build the new flyover, across Interstate 15 in Herperia, California. Driven by high winds, the fire took hold extremely quickly and began burning the supports surrounding the bridge. Debris began to fell onto the I-15 minutes after the fire began, the road was eventually closed to traffic at 1:30pm yesterday as the $32 million construction project slowly turned into a pile of ash and twisted metal.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Stand by for the I-15 truthers.
-PJ
But we are just a bunch of hicks down here - not sophisticated like those Cali folks...
Thanks, I see them now.
Is this common practice for that type of construction in CA?
I’m way too late to make sense of this. Would quote Darks but too late.
Proof positive the truthers were wrong.
they should get tha guy who rebuilt all them bridges in record time after the earthquake
I really don’t know if this is common in CA. I went to
Google street view and found both concrete and steel bridges on I-15 in that area - but always pre-cast concrete.
Building forms like that is usually associated with construction where long term traffic disruption is not a problem. And this bridge was a brand new connection across I-15, so quick timing wasn’t really an issue. Now there is the small matter of having to protect the motorists below from falling debris for months and months.
I have a suspicion - for ARRA projects (Stimulus), there is a ‘buy American’ provision. Its possible that in California, so much of the steel comes from China, that concrete has become the preferred material for Stimulus projects. However, I really don’t know why they wouldn’t pre-cast on what looks like a very normal bridge.
It was covered locally — including live aerial shots.
Have probably logged about a million miles (no joke) driving in SoCal, I’ve never seen anything other than wooden falsework on freeway bridge projects.
Here in Texas, they build bridges largely out of pre-cast beams, rather than casting them in place. Casting in place has the significant benefit of employing dozens of extra workers, all of whom will vote for more of the same.
A great comparison between California hwy construction vs. Texas hwy construction is the 8 years it took to build a single connection between I-880 and Cal 237 and the less than 4 years it took to build the entire "High-Five" interchange between I-635 and US-75 in Dallas.
California loves their make-work, long-duration highway construction projects. With the single exception of I-35, Texas prefers completed highway projects.
I've lived both places. If you like California, please stay there.
OSHA = Ordinary S__t Happened Again.
The are always there after the incident.
The rules, at my company, were when using any fire or spark producing equipment , PROPER extinguishers where to be at that exact location.
You are absolutely correct.
“Everything in order.
Except important stuff like a water truck.”
“Proof positive the truthers were wrong.”
Oh, no doubt. If you walk into a high rise building, built in the last 75 years, it will have fireproofing - stuff sprayed onto the steel members.
Its not a big secret that heat and steel don’t mix, and fireproofing has been embedded into building codes for a very long time.
But the Truther argument is a classic strawman argument:
“There is no way fire melted steel”.
Well, they are right. And just like that, they’ve put the opposition in the impossible position of defending the notion that common fire melts steel....melted, as in changed to a liquid state.
While it is possible that deep in the pile of rubble, the weeks long fires did melt some of the steel, that was not the cause of the collapse. Rather, heat weakens steel, columns buckle, and beams sag....and buildings go down.
“PROPER extinguishers”
They probably had to decommission the halon extinguishers...for the children.
Very good(great) question!
As the answer may lead to a politician and his associates, please don’t hold your breath, waiting for an answer.
this happened because we don’t spend money on infrastructure like they do in China./sarc
The bridge, the bridge, the bridge is on fire!
Burn, mother{censored}, burn!
DANG!
Your observation of straw and wood leads me to think that the EPA would not allow water as a extinguisher. Save the fish!.
Stay safe and above the green grass!
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