I think you should have a mechanical engineering degree to assess that “crack.” (Jk) That stopped being a “crack” long ago!
Honestly, I could repair that with no problem whatsoever and it would be stronger than the original in a few days at most if given all the resources I know the state has at their disposal.
Not very smart officials when they call that a crack.
Looks like a clean break to me and anyone with eyes.
The view showing the small bolted on plate looks curious. Doesn’t look like a lot of support between the vertical and horizontal elements. The large bolted plate with the 100+ bolts doesn’t appear to do anything. Maybe the workers got paid by the bolt hole.
First we had a pipeline hacked, then this?
What’s next.
Sure glad we are in the capable hands of ????
Yes, a beam instead of a Pillar, as the article described it.
It should buff out.....
This is a very good example of the government in action. Is a broken beam in a bridge a serious problem? Obviously. From the photographic evidence presented... did it just break yesterday? No, it has been broken for a while and the bridge did not fall down because other parts of the structure are holding it together. So is this breathless speculation and stopping all traffic on the Mississippi River neccessary? Quite obviously not!
Does steel crack in structural members subjected to daily stress for years on end? All the time! But you see there is this new fangled invention called welding along with older techniques called grinding, cutting and riveting that can easily repair this section of bridge easily and permanently in a few days. An example of riveting can be seen in the steel plates holding the parts in question together in the photo. But will the neccessary repairs be completed in a timely manner? No, instead we will be subjected to endless hand wringing while politicians use this situation to convince the public that massive new taxes are needed for massive new construction projects. This is a better example of the crap that we are subjected to every day from our political overlords than the condition of our infrastructure.
Almost similar type of failure happened to a bridge next to a fire station that I worked at many years ago. I personally talked to one of the people hired to fix it. He told me that the repair would be completed in a week for minimal expense.
Instead the city chose not to fix it because they wanted to close down the fire station for budgetary reasons and they wanted to close the road down to make it easier to justify other development plans that they had for the port.
Ten years later it was decided that they needed the bridge because a traffic bottle neck had been created. Unfortunately, by that time the bridge had set neglected for all that time and rust had caused further damage so it cost a hundred times as much to fix and took months.
crack? CRACK??? i don't think that word means what they think it means... separation maybe, but more like divorceShoot, couple of come-a-longs and a golden arm would have that fixed in a jiff.
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.
Inspector Mr Magoo said he checked it and it looked fine.