This has been a very tough day

[acords]

I'm sure by now you have all heard about the bridge collapse here in Minneapolis. All in all, I believe that we were very lucky.  At this point there are only 4 confirmed dead.  While I know that the number will rise, only 20-30 people remain missing.  The bridge collapsed around 6:00 PM Central time.  Four blocks away is the Metrodome where the Minnesota Twins had 1st pitch scheduled for 7:05.  It was the middle of rush hour traffic.  This could have been so much worse.  My future nephew is a firefighter in a nearby suburb.  His company was called to action.  I can't say for certain that Sean took these photos, but he emailed them to me this afternoon.  He also noted that he had photos he couldn't share at this time.  I can only assume what they are. As a truck driver, I crossed that bridge at least once per day if not more.  The Governor is trying to say that his goal is to have that bridge rebuilt in 1 year.  While I would remain hopeful for this, my best guess is 2+ years.  This is based on several engineer friends that I have.  140,000 cars crossed that bridge daily.  I just don't see this as a 1 year fix.  Anyway, here are the photos Sean emailed me











Please keep the families involved in your thoughts and prayers

[Oldman]

Ya I saw this today in the paper... unreal... so sorry for those folks. Susan and my heart goes out to them.

[Arcs_n_Sparks]

Acords,

We had an overpass go down due to a tanker fire a few months ago in California. As an engineer, I thought it would take at least six months to get it fixed (concrete typically take 28 days to reach full cure strength). It was done in less than 30 days. The Pentagon was repaired in less than a year after 9/11.

The Empire State building was done in little more than a year. If you move all the people that want to push paper aside, you can get it fixed in less than a year.

Arcs_n_Sparks

[LilSmoker]

Absolutely shocking!, i watched it on the news yesterday morning, hopes and prayers for those that are still missing.


There was another report about this yesterday evening on a news program, they were saying that 2 years ago this bridge was tested by structual engineers, after carrying out extensive tests, they gave the bridge a mark of 4 out of 9 ?

Apparently there are another 100 bridges built the same way accross the U.S. ?, if this is true there is obviously a real cause for concern.

Anybody else heard anything similar?, or is this hearsay?  ???

[manxman]

Absolutely shocking!, i watched it on the news yesterday morning, hopes and prayers for those that are still missing.


There was another report about this yesterday evening on a news program, they were saying that 2 years ago this bridge was tested by structual engineers, after carrying out extensive tests, they gave the bridge a mark of 4 out of 9 ?

Apparently there are another 100 bridges built the same way accross the U.S. ?, if this is true there is obviously a real cause for concern.

Anybody else heard anything similar?, or is this hearsay? 

Awful news, I was watching the same news program and was amazed that there were concerns about the bridge over a considerable amount of time yet it remained open. 

[Habanero Smoker]

Bridge collapses are scary. Over the years, I can recall several bridge collapses in New York. I think the last one was about 16 months ago. You will be surprised on how quickly they can rebuild a bridge, especially if it is part of a major highway.

[begolf25]

You are right, this could have been a lot worse based on the timing. It is a shame because as Manxman said, this looks like something that could have been prevented.

[Oldman]

Video... this is painfull.    http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2007/08/02/vosli.mn.i35w.bridge.collapse.side.view.cnn  There is a commerical before it... this is heart breaking.  The second video will auto start after a few.... If it does not rip you apart you are not human..there are other follow up Videos....
Olds

[winemakers]

I am a forensic civil and work on collapse events frequently.  There are always a series of things that go wrong to allow a tragedy to occur.  Now we need to figure out how to muzzle the talking heads of the media, let the recovery be completed, and allow the professionals to determine the cause. Be patient, this will likely take some time.

mld

[acords]

muzzle the talking heads of the media

Beautifully stated!!!

[Oldman]

Apparently there are another 100 bridges built the same way across the U.S.

From the reports I read today there are 270 bridges in that state that of the same basic design and in the US there is close to 2,800 bridges based upon that design.

I'm not convinced that it is design fault. Contractors pull a lot of chit. 

[acords]

There was another report about this yesterday evening on a news program, they were saying that 2 years ago this bridge was tested by structural engineers, after carrying out extensive tests, they gave the bridge a mark of 4 out of 9 ?

From what I've seen on this, the 4 out of 9 is a federal government rating.  These inspections are done by state engineers and the information is reported to the federal government.  This rating system is used to more or less decide where federal dollars go.  On the surface it looks like a pretty bad rating, but I'm not convinced that this was a tragedy waiting to happen.  I think once the NTSB has completed its investigation we will be able to put this to bed.  I guess I'm of the mindset that sometimes bad things happen and there isn't always somebody to blame. 

[Consiglieri]

First, thoughts and sympathy go out your way for all that has happened.

My college roommate is a civil PE in California who is involved in bridge design, etc.  I spoke with him earlier today about this tragedy and his thoughts.  He sympathized with everyone, of course, and was thankful that damage was not as bad as it could have been.  He says that there may be enough information to help define a solution so that this type of event is not repeated.  Of course that's little solace to those who have suffered.

I haven't reviewed the stories well enough to know what's happened.  I do know that typically there's a rush to find the responsible person(s). 

[HCT]

Acords, just thought I'd share this with you. First the Mianus Bridge, then almost I-35W. Here's the article,

At 2:30 on Wednesday afternoon, only four hours before the span collapsed, trucker David A. Pace was crossing the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis in his Chevy Tahoe SUV.

He was returning to his home in Luck, Wis., from a Wyoming vacation with his wife, Helen, and daughter, Alexandra.

Statistically, Pace's Mississippi crossing might seem insignificant. He was merely one of thousands of drivers speeding home from vacations or hauling freight along the busy I-35 corridor through Minnesota in the afternoon hours before the bridge gave way.



But he is the same David Pace who, at 1:30 a.m. one June night 24 years ago, was hauling empty beer cans across the Mianus River bridge along Connecticut's I-95 when that bridge plummeted to the waters below, killing three fellow motorists. The Paces - Helen was along for that ride, too - sustained broken backs, crushed ribs and head injuries during their 70-foot plunge to the river, and they still suffer pains.

Pace moved from Georgia to Wisconsin 16 years ago and still hauls freight throughout the U.S. He learned of the Minneapolis tragedy Wednesday night just as he was settling down to a cup of tea and preparing to cook dinner for his family. His mother called and told him to turn on the news.

"I went berserk as soon as I saw the pictures of the bridge on TV, because I couldn't believe the government had let this happen again," Pace says. "My mother kept saying, `No, David, accidents happen.' But I don't think this was an accident. A bridge is a mechanical thing that has to be periodically inspected and fixed, and I was so irate that I started hollering at the wife and all over the house."

On Wednesday night, Pace received a phone call from his best friend in nearby Milltown, Al Springer, who had just heard about the bridge collapse on the news.

"Al asked me if he should come over to be with me now, because he knew that I was in the Mianus bridge collapse years ago," Pace says. "But I told him I'd be all right if we could just talk on the phone for a while."

Pace, 51, retains vivid memories of his fall to the river on June 28, 1983, a night that he says was both physically wrenching and spiritually baptismal.

Along I-95, while his wife dozed beside him in the cab of his tractor-trailer, Pace watched some children in a station wagon ahead of him to ward off his boredom. A mile or two later, Pace could feel the bridge buckling through his steering column before he was visually aware that he was plunging toward the river.

"The next thing I knew we were heading for a column in the middle of the river, and then we were in the water," Pace says. "The only other thing I remember is seeing Jesus Christ wrap his arms around my truck to save us, and I have been a believer ever since. Helen and I were able to get out of the cab before it started to sink, and then we hung onto the ribs of the trailer until some boaters picked us up."

In the years since then, Pace had rarely worried about crossing long bridge spans. Luck is just over the Minnesota-Wisconsin line, about 70 miles northeast of Minneapolis, and Pace says he has ridden over the now-fallen I-35W span about twice a month for years. On his freight-hauling trips across the country, Pace visits Connecticut several times a year, he says, and often crosses the rebuilt bridge across the Mianus. Until Wednesday, he says, he didn't even think about bridge collapses.

"Ever since Mianus, whenever I go over a bridge anywhere in the states, I say to myself, `Relax, it can't happen again. That was a once-in-a-lifetime event,'" Pace says. "Well, you can imagine my reaction when I pulled in from my vacation in Cheyenne and saw the news. Now I know that it isn't true that this was a once-in-a-lifetime event."

Pace says that the issue of accountability has always bothered him.

"I pay anywhere from $10,000 to $14,000 in highway user taxes every year," Pace says. "There are 800,000 trucks like mine on the road today, and that comes to millions of dollars a year. Why isn't that money being used to inspect and fix our bridges? I am angry, very angry about this. How many people have to give their lives to get proper inspections? I pay huge taxes to keep these roads safe. I have ridden one bridge to the water already, and now do I have to do it again?"

In 1986, the Paces received about $700,000 in damages (after lawyers' fees) from the state of Connecticut. But most of that was eaten up when Pace gambled on building homes just as the national housing market collapsed, and the rest was consumed by paying his father's hospital bills. But Pace is proud of defying the odds in other ways.

"At the hospital in Connecticut, the doctors told my parents that I would never be able to drive a truck again, and they told them that Helen and I would never be able to have children," Pace says. "Well, I'm from Luck, Wisconsin, now and I still drive a truck, and my daughter, Alexandra, was born 18 years ago. We named her after my Connecticut attorney in the bridge collapse case, Alexander J. Holland of Greenwich."

Pace says that his doctor has suggested several times that he give up trucking. He still experiences back and leg pain from his accident 24 years ago, residual injuries made worse by the hard, bouncy ride of his tractor-trailer. But he likes the road and the living that freight-hauling has provided his wife and daughter.

"Like they say, I'm too young to be feeling this old," Pace says. "So I'll be staying behind the wheel. All I can tell you is that, after yesterday, I'll sure be looking at bridges a lot differently."

[Oldman]

OPPS!!!!!!!!!!
Florida just decided to close a bridge yesterday that had --NOW GET THIS-- chunks of concrete falling off of it for a few years... WHAT???  Chunks.... no big deal the bridge only averaged 550 cars per day... no worries.
Who in the Yuck are these people. How do they get and keep their jobs.