Posted on 07/12/2006 11:26:51 AM PDT by Aquinasfan
Howie Carr reports that an "unnamed source" has revealed that the 3-ton ceiling panels in the Ted Williams Tunnel, several of which collapsed killing a driver Monday, serve no structural purpose. Their purpose is strictly aesthetic.
At a news conference yesterday, spokesmen for the turnpike authority intimated that the panels help to remove exhaust from the tunnel. The unnamed source claims that the panels only serve to hide the ceiling fans.
Good photo. I'd like to see one of a section JUST before it's poured, though. I think there's probably more steel in place at that point.
Still, looking at this, it's easy to see how they could have installed hangers at this point, or at least hanger anchors. I mean, it would be a regular grid, so it could have been dealt with in the support under the rebar used for pouring.
Amazing that they didn't do this, it seems to me. Bad engineering...no question about it.
I used to work in a place that was a recycled factory, with loads of ducts and pipes running all over. Someone got the bright idea to paint them all bright, cheery colors. It actually looked good!
"I used to work in a place that was a recycled factory, with loads of ducts and pipes running all over. Someone got the bright idea to paint them all bright, cheery colors. It actually looked good!"
Yeah. All those old factories and warehouses being converted into loft condos do the same thing. I've always found it amusing to visit someone who lives in one of these condos. They pay huge bucks to live in a place with exposed waste plumbing and more. I've spent a lot hiding that stuff in the basement of my house.
I expect the obstacle to that is that all the sources with first-hand knowledge of the matter don't want to be named, since they'd prefer to stay alive than be knocked off by the union/mob for "ratting".
Apparently they started using sleeves like this for tunnel sections that were not yet cast.
http://www.simpsonanchors.com/Catalog/mechanical/blue-banger/index.html
There was no coordination on the early sections. They designed the ceiling independently from the tunnel roof.
RINO Ryan, the disgraced and convicted ex-governor of Illinois, got into real trouble when a truck driver who'd bribed him, directly or indirectly, got into a fatal accident in Wisconsin that killed a whole family. Except for the eternally charmed Swimmer, a fatality often changes everything and leads to a genuine investigation with genuine accountability for the perps. Let's hope it happens here. Of course, the final consequence might be that the whole Big Dig gets shut down be foe major parts collapse, killing thousands, because of shoddy construction.
I worked in CT as a commercial investment analyst; we only got involved in huge projects ($20M and up, mostly up).
Massachusetts was one of my territories and so we followed the Big Dig for years because anything that happened to the project affected commercial building projects in Boston.
The graft and absolute corruption went on for so long and so visibly, that I realized the entire legislature must be benefiting in some way by turning a blind eye. It's one of the biggest rip offs I've ever seen.
"There was no coordination on the early sections. They designed the ceiling independently from the tunnel roof.
"
Clever, that. For Pete's sake.
No, it can't.
Maybe a catwalk above the panels, with lots of headroom? That would make for an even bigger bore, at an even more outrageously expensive cost, with ever so much more room for payoffs, bribes, graft, theft....
If the "dead" space was needed for exhaust reasons, as mentioned, hanger straps would automatically been designed in. The whole thing sounds like a poorly conceived "make work" project.
Make work, you got that right. US taxpayers paid for that crap. Not Massachusetts taxpayers
When will the next ones fall?
But remember, I'm just a blue collar guy.:-}
Who will be held responsible for this fiasco?
Really the only hope for full disclosure here is in the civil courts. If the lawyers for the woman who died are not just in it for a fast buck and refuse to settle, all kinds of things will surface. If not, I doubt anything of substance will happen.
It is true that Ted Williams got no support. Had the Red Sox had decent pitching, Ted could have had at least three World Series titles.
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