The Hoan Bridge was inspected only a few days nefore the partial collapse in 2000.
Posted on 08/01/2007 4:28:27 PM PDT by ButThreeLeftsDo
Just turned on the news. 35W bridge collapsed in the Mississippi River. Cars, trucks, semis.....
Fires burning, tanker trucks, at least one school bus, more than ten cars......
Just now breaking.......
The Hoan Bridge was inspected only a few days nefore the partial collapse in 2000.
Look at the ratings the inspections gave it - a 4 out of 0-9 for the sub-structure!
Too much money is going to trains here, not the infrastructure for the over-travelled highways here !!!
Hi Saca!
Got coffee?
“””open grate bridge””” Old Savannah River bridge had metal grates - it has since been replaced by the Eugene Talmage Memorial suspension bridge...another palm-sweater!
http://www.lmpics.com/Engineering/Savannah.aspx
DO you think that is the reason? I haven't heard anyone mention this...
That was my take also. Just a note, the youtube video says from the North side of the bridge.
I am a FHWA certified bridge inspector, with additional certification for Fracture Critical Steel Bridges, and have inspected bridges in the past, so I am getting a kick out of these posts.
I have posted about that in the past and have been criticized in this forum for “sucking on the government teat”, even though I actually work for a private engineering company doing inspections for government entities. Many here were critical of the Federal requirement to inspect bridges regularly. One person here went so far as to state that there should be a sign posted at the entrance to each bridge saying “Cross at your own risk”. I wonder what he is saying today.
It looks from the photos that it was a fracture critical steel bridge. That means there is no redundancy. If any one of a number of parts breaks, the whole thing comes down. Newer bridges (and this is a newer one, being only 30 or so years old) are usually built without redundancy. Why? Because it is cheaper. No one wants the government to spend more than absolutely necessary.
Bridges such as this one are supposed to be inspected once a year (non-fracture critical are inspected every two years). There is a report that this one was listed as “structurally deficient” in the past. This does not mean that the whole bridge had to be replaced immediately. Probably, the whole bridge was not deficient. Some things are relatively minor in cost, but can cause collapse if ignored. If this was the case here, it should have been repaired by now. Sometimes repairs are not done. Sometimes they are not done correctly. Sometimes other deficiencies are missed.
I will be very interested in what the investigation comes up with because as of right now, nobody knows anything.
Hope you were watching F&F a few minutes ago. They actually had a REAL expert on bridges; a young lady that exuded knowledge (at least to me, she did)of bridges and their structure. She said that heat would not be a factor; in fact, just the opposite. Steel is much more likely to fail in colder temperatures. Following having this lady on, they then went to the governor, and he immediately went into a diatribe about state inspections,et.al. There you go. Wonder if they got out of their airconditioned/or heated state vehicle to perform said inspection.
You could see through the holes you were driving over as the deck was being spot-gap repaired on the other side. The corrosion was terrible and I deal in steel somewhat and know that surface rust is not always a bad think -- I'm talking wholesale scaling. They got it to survive until replacement in part due to almost constant repair.
While shaking is normal, this thing was failing so rapidly that while you were stopped on it for alternating trafice around repairs, you could see bits and pieces falling loose. I kid you not.
Well, also brought up in the morning radio talk show I listen to on WMAL in DC, the theory that a large barge might’ve hit the bridge overnight as it was going under it, and then the ones in charge of the barge did not report it to authorities for fear that they might be prosecuted is another possibility.
I just don’t think that terrorists would target Minneapolis - St. Paul. This is a city that is “friendly” to the liberal though that the war on terror is “just a bumper sticker slogan”... plus, it is a city that houses more members of CAIR outside of the DC metro area.
Did you check out the youtube video?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1874950/posts?page=1760#1760
Interested in hearing your analysis.
I agree, being in construction, these forensic issues are very interesting but take time to really be understood.
As for right now, I am going to list the cause as "Excesses During the Clinton Years." until I have something better.
I had to drive that bridge (the old one) during my driver’s ed class in high school. It was the “ultimate test.”
The new one’s not so bad. My son was driving it twice a week this past summer as he was taking a class that was only being offered on the Sarasota campus of USF. Once he was caught in a bad rain storm...he said that was interesting. They now close that bridge if the wind gets above 40 mph.
I live on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and work in D.C. I take the Chesapeake Bay Bridge twice a day.
It'd be interesting to get our hands on a copy of that inspection and have you go over it...
It would have to be explosives and it would be instantly detectable. Bring in independent explosives experts and let them look.
Then there will never be any valid questions about this.
I got the feeling there is going to be a lot of CYA going on in the next few weeks and months in Minnesota.
Heard on the last radio newsbreak that the official death toll has been reduced to four.
Who knows? Could be a contributing factor. But everyone tells me I am wrong.............
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