A lot of us did come over here and bring some good building skills with us.
We still own quite a number of construction companies.
Waiting for mafia comments..3..2..1... :)
It wasn’t the original design and build but the lack of maintenance that brought it down.
I got to hear a talk by General Dozier who was held hostage a couple of months by the Red Brigades. he said the most terrifying part of the ordeal was when he was rescued and thrown into the back of an Italian police car.
He said he was sure he had survived the ordeal only to die in the back of a speeding police car.
Italian drivers are already nuts. Can you imagine one on such a mission who is in a hurry and has zero idea that he should yield to anybody else?
Hey, ya gotta get a little extra for yourself, bada bing!
The statement in the article “the new pre-stressed concrete was specifically designed to resist traction” makes no sense at all. The words torsion or tension don’t work much better.
As a former bridge inspector, I immediately noticed that the deck was cleanly broken off where it fell (on both sides). That is where the expansion joints would be. That needs to be investigated, but I have not seen any mention of that in any article.
Anyone who thinks that concrete of ANY kind will protect steel from corrosion is a fool. Expecially now that public works uses salt or brine liquid, we will be seeing more early failures in the future than we have had in the past. Once the steel starts corroding, there is no cheap way to fix the bridge.
I have been told by many bridge design engineers that we designed bridge for a 50 year life in the past, but we are designing them for a 100 year life now. Don’t believe it. The new bridges won’t live more than 50 to 60 years either, primarily because of salt.