I dont think it had anything to do with pouring new concrete or having rush hour traffic.
The bridge is most certainly designed to handle a full liveload capacity way more than if the entire bridge was a parking lot.
I bet there were some unidentified cracks in the steel and that the vibration work from removing the concrete top , and scoring new concrete led to a failure of one steel member in a critical location over the river span. The There is very little redundancy in that truss span design. As the main span dropped, it pulled down the spans over land.
My main point is that it is very likely it was a combination of many factors, which when all added together caused the collapse. One factor alone, or two, wouldn’t do it.
Rather than subtracting my suppositions from the possible causes, I think it would make more sense to add your supposition to the combination cause theory.
The dry weather, the ground sinking slightly under at least one of the piers, the construction, the traffic, the salt and just normal oxidation, stress cracks in vital areas, and the pull of the moon.
I just don’t think it was one particular thing that caused this collapse, in my very armchair quarterback and highly unqualified opinion. I suggest instead that it was a combination of many factors, and it should teach us to be more aware of that fact.
I humbly salute and admire the people of Minnesota, in or not in official positions, construction worker or idle pedestrian.
One of the principles where I worked for a long time was “SET THE EXAMPLE”.
They certainly have.
In actuality the same was done after the major hurricane strike in the gulf, but the media suppressed it.
Call me a bushbot, but few know that President Bush went down there, and pulled children out of the water, into helicopters, carried them to the Navy ship that was the only source of food, water, and the most important thing at that time, a hot shower. The back of his shirt was wringing wet with sweat and dirt.
He got on the ship, waited his turn, and showered just like everyone else.
The personnel on that ship kept hot water going non stop for days and days, even though the ship had turned into a Hotel and had many more people using it’s services than it was equipped for.
Drunks, bums, children, firemen, police, townfolk all needed and used the showers to get the nasty polluted water off their skin before it ate their skin completely off.
No paper mentioned this. No photos of President Bush, walking along in half darkness, drenched with sweat, carrying a child.
There were photos, but they weren’t done by the MSM.
Even if they had been there and wanted to, I imagine our President would have declined.
He wasn’t doing it for show.
Sometimes we need to remember what great citizens we still have in our country. The rescue workers, firemen, and Joe Citizen.
The guy or girl who doesn’t cry and run away. But who leaves a crushed car to pull children out of a bus. Not knowing if the steps between them and that bus might be their last. Not caring.
People who believe that they are their brother’s keeper.
That is my UNITED STATES. Those are my people. One day I may have to prove myself worthy of those principles.
If I do, then my pride will be justified.