Fallen bridge: 'Stress test' preceded collapse that killed 6

abc ^ | Andrea Gomez

[CGASMIA68]

Maybe?

Any activity related to adjustment placement what ever is a call for all traffic to be halted under and or across the thing.
Some one made the call to NOT stop traffic and that someone is toast

[Rebelbase]

You missed the /s....

[Diana in Wisconsin]

“...it was unclear what builders were using as temporary supports.”

I guess they assumed the cars and people beneath would hold it up?

What a nightmare for all involved!

[GOYAKLA]

In my Florida town they built a Pedestrian Tunnel under the main highway when it was rebuilt! No bridges falling nor kids throwing boulders onto cars!

[Pravious]

Seems like a MUCH better idea.

[DuncanWaring]

Cars.

[Damsforgood]

So the long span is set, supports removed, and the concrete canopy with goes into compression. Is is surprising the stressing elements get “loose”?
Re-stressing tension elements over live traffic is completely irresponsible. Note the crane and man-lift adjacent to the initial point of failure. Looks like a crew is performing work on top of the canopy in the blurry video.
Possible over-stressing of the new concrete canopy and the top member buckled.
The “Responsible Engineer in Charge” is in real trouble as are all parties who allowed this over live traffic.
NTSNB will report in about a year.
Very sad.

[Real Cynic No More]

“This was about collaboration.”

Better to have been about tried and proven knowledge and expertise than koombaya.

[catnipman]

“950-ton concrete span”

seems like it would have been much safer to use a much lighter, all steel span like essentially all other pedestrian bridges ...

https://www.outtherecolorado.com/favorite-pedestrian-bridges-in-colorado-part-2/

[Moonman62]

But, this was done using Obama’s democrat money in a democrat congressional district in a democrat city for a liberal (democrat) university in a liberal city using (likely) illegal alien construction crews. I trust NO ONE in that entire group to follow the law, much less follow engineering and Code requirements.

...

Wow. You know South Florida really well. You’re right on the money.

[Moonman62]

Looking at the pics, there’s a traffic light maybe 500 feet away. The bridge wasn’t even needed?

...

I would like to see the statistics for injured pedestrians at that intersection. It’s been there for many years.

[Robert A Cook PE]

The designers AND the construction company were both big democrat money bundlers and donors themselves.

Mostly local democrat party donors to local democrat races, but that’s how you build the local contracts to get local contracts from local governments..

[Moonman62]

Tunnels are good places for muggings.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

EXACTLY RIGHT! Just like the Obama program that paid schools to not discipline trouble makers as a way of ending the bogus "schools to prison pipeline." See:

Collapsed FIU Bridge Was Funded by Federal Grant Program Criticized for Shoddy, Politicized Review Process
The TIGER grant program has come under fire for putting politics ahead of technical concerns.

By Christian Britschgi
March 15, 2018

TIGER was created as an economic stimulus measure under President Barack Obama and morphed into a permanent program. It has awarded $5.6 billion in nine rounds of grants since 2009. Members of Florida's congressional delegation publicly lauded the TIGER award to FIU.

"Thanks to this TIGER funding, FIU students will be able to walk from their student housing to class through a pedestrian bridge across Southwest Eighth Street," Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Fla.) said in 2013. "More jobs will be created in our community thanks to this grant, and I look forward to celebrating the project's success with everyone in South Florida."

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R–Fla.) made similar comments on Saturday. "FIU has come a long way since the TIGER grant that funded this pedestrian bridge was awarded in 2013," he said. "This project represents a true collaboration among so many different partners at local, state, and federal levels, and in both the public and private sectors."

It's time to get away from all the "true collaboration" BS and get back to good, sound engineering practices. This democrat love affair with "collaboration" and "public-private partnership" is a way to diffuse responsibility and cause confusion and shoddy work.

[Texas Fossil]

I trust NO ONE in that entire group to follow the law

Bump!

[Chewbarkah]

A post-mortem of what happened must look into the politics that drove the engineering. From initial appearances, failure began with decisions to require an artsy, landmark design, at huge expense and extra complexity, to market the college. Administrators wanted not to solve a need, but to look cool. There is obviously room in the middle of the highway for a center support and conventional bridge.

Testing and adjusting with the road open was idiotic and irresponsible, but almost assuredly driven by the politics of avoiding a public outcry over closing the road for 2 years. Contractors who get jobs are the ones who say “yes, we can do that...for the right price”. Trying to hold up a suspension bridge with one or two construction cranes was foolish beyond comprehension, but a consequence of reckless requirements. Why the main support mast was not built ahead to placing the spans is mysterious.

The non-engineers who insisted on these things will say they relied on others to make it all safe.

[DoughtyOne]

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[ProtectOurFreedom]

Somewhere in the country in the past few years, I drove under an overpass that was being demolished while traffic was still flowing UNDER the overpass bridge AND on the overpass bridge itself. There were probably 10 large excavators with the large hydraulic demolition points on the end of the boom chipping away at the bridge. It was astounding to see live traffic under and on top of a bridge undergoing demolition. I had visions of the whole thing suddenly letting go and killing many. I thought to myself, “MY GOD, what are these people doing?”

[Real Cynic No More]

If the post-tensioning cables became looser subsequent to initial tensioning, that is an indicator that the concrete surrounding the tension mounting mechanism likely weakened or even crushed over time. Especially since the tensioning steel should actually have increased in stress after the bridge was placed in position last week. Additional tightening of the tensioning mechanism while the bridge was under its dead load might have stressed the concrete surrounding the tensioning mechanism to failure, resulting in the catastrophic collapse.

[BenLurkin]

One small quibble, if I may. Traffic engineers are reluctant (and understandably so) to place columns near traffic lanes. Bad drivers have a way of finding them the hard way.