Posted on 05/13/2021 5:33:08 AM PDT by GailA
The I 40 M Bridge going into AR from TN is out of commission, it spans the Mississippi River, NO Trucks, Cars, NO Boat traffic. Won't take long food, oil, and other necessities run low or out. https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fthememphian.blob.core.windows.net%2Fsized%2F54486_960&f=1&nofb=1
Because Blue City Controlled Memphis neglected a known crack for years till a Novice could see the crack in the pillar holding up the bridge. Major Artery for traffic. Traffic backed up miles.
With the amount of traffic across it, is by God's grace it Didn't collapse.
50 year old bridge audio into 911
JB Weld would be a waste. A few good Chinese zip-ties from Harbor Freight and we will have it up and running in no time!
On a serious note though..... how in the hell was this allowed to become this bad? As many have stated on this thread, a solid repair that would last awhile is not that difficult or expensive in the private sector, but we are talking about West Tennessee.
Makes me wonder how good the design is in the first place!
I have to go to the VA Clinic there on the West side, and I’m in Ft. Walton Beach, so the drive thru Navarre and I-10 is a huge pain!...................
Biden will tout this bridge as an example of why his infrastructure plan is needed and then somehow blame it on Trump’s neglect.
Wow. That’s not just a crack it’s a full fracture of the beam.
That sort of thing doesn’t happen overnight. Wonder what kind of bridge inspections have been ongoing, if any, over the years.
“Because Blue City Controlled Memphis neglected a known crack for years till a Novice could see the crack in the pillar holding up the bridge.”
Pillar? “a tall vertical structure of stone, wood, or metal, used as a support for a building, “
VERTICAL.
Beam. “A squared-off log or a large, oblong piece of timber, metal, or stone used especially as a horizontal support in construction.”
HORIZONTAL.
This beam isn’t just cracked, it’s BROKE!
When I was a kid, my friend who had a car, filled his trunk with bald spares so that when one of the bald tires on his car blew (or two) he would just throw on another bald tire and off we would go.
Don’t FIX the bridge yet. Just wait until it falls in the river like we do here in New York and they do in Minnesooooota.
But, but, but ... isn’t the ‘infrastructure’ of sending 4 year olds to free preschool equally important?
My wife’s nephew lives in south central Georgia and in his twenties got a coveted job working for the county road department.
He worked for them about a year or so then quit.
He said all they do all day is drive around the county, killing time and wasting gas, BS with other departments and basically screw around all day.
Remember, this is in very RURAL Georgia where good jobs are hard to find in the first place..................
First we had a pipeline hacked, then this?
What’s next.
Sure glad we are in the capable hands of ????
—
It’s all eerily reminiscent of “Atlas Shrugged”.
The two pics are of the same break. If you zoom in, you can even confirm the red spots on the bolts and the shape of the crack. In the second picture, due to the angle, the pipe the pipe you refer to is obscured by the vertical pillar.
The guy talked about the layers of steel and I think 4 out 5 were impacted.
The ONE good layer appears to be a narrow strip on the bottom of the beam. Since the rest of the beam has MOVED and the bottom strip is BENT, I would say that the only thing holding it together is that narrow strip on the bottom.
On second look, same rivet count/position on the gusset. The fracture line appears very similar?
The rivets on the angle brace match?
But the angle brace behind the lower cord does not appear to match?
And yet another view with a matching brace?: 
IMO, a long lens was used, compressing the background, making the drain pipe and other angle braces appear closer than they are.
///objects are closer than they appear\\\
I'm about 90%+ on this assessment.
Irt 87. Those 2 pictures look to me to be the same problem but at a different angle. If you zoom in on the bottom picture you can the drain pipe. Also the same defect appears on both pictures above the small plate with 10 rivets. It appears to be a rust spot or paint chip several inches up on the right side.
I hope neither of those women are involved with a 911 call if it’s my life at stake.
The bridge is 50 years old. They must have done something right for it to last that long.
Even if you ignore the position of the pipe which is a long way to the side in the first photo and directly behind in the second... there is the matter of the riveted plate on top of the other rivited section that goes to the support beam above it. In the first picture it is the same width from top to bottom, in the second it appears V out where it crosses the top of the beam and is wider at the top. This should not be affected by the angle of the lens.
This does not matter to the overall gyst of the conversation and I am not saying that your theory is without merit. To me the first photo released appears to be of an almost identical failure but the details do not seem to match completely.
We were talking about the bridge in Pensacola that was damaged in Hurricane Sally. It’s BRAND NEW!.................
You can't see it because of the different angle. If you look at the break itself and the bracket next to it, it's obviously the same thing.
I have never repaired a bridge, but I do have experience repairing heavy construction and lumber mill equipment. As others have said the steel in the area that broke was under stress and has likely hardened and will be prone to further cracking. That can be likely be corrected by heating it and controlling the rate that it cools. Then it should be welded back together and the riveted plates should be extended to cover the broken area. After that the section of steel on the other side of the repair if it were not heat treated also will have to be watched for signs of a similar failure. There are tools available that can assess the hardness of the steel. This should be a job that will take at the most a few weeks and not months.
In the mean time it seems obvious that the bridge is not going to fall down and without traffic putting further stress on it... river traffic should be allowed to resume immediately. Government hand wringers should be prescribed Valium and sent home for bed rest which is what they have been doing during the “pandemic” for months now any way. We should all apologize for waking them up in such a rude way.
Well, the Biden proposals are, but what will actually pass will be for physical infrastructure.
No, there are other incongruities in the photos as well but it hardly matters to the conversation. The broken section needs to be temporarily braced and then the repairs need to be done. This same type of thing that is found and repaired on bridges and heavy equipment all over the world every day. Most of the time it is not on a major thoroughfare so the public seldom even notices.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.