Posted on 08/09/2007 6:32:29 PM PDT by jim_trent
Interesting! Thanks for posting.
Great stuff, Jim. Your input here on this disaster has been excellent!
Been watching this one with interest, since I used to be involved in large industrial accident/fire investigations many years ago.
Rust + connection failures + stress cracks = very bad medicine.
I hadn't thought of the implications of going to thinner steel, but of course that would mean a narrower margin for error (and rust).
This sounds like the way the Kennedy/Johnson administration ran the Viet Nam war from the White House basement.
It's actually not symptomatic of the age ~ rather of the Democrat dominated political structure in this country.
This same sort of approach is where we get the Global Warming panic. Government weathermen and computer programmers create climate models that satisfy the demands of their politician bosses.
These problems are a demonstration of why every function of government must eventually be tied into the economic and totally privatized.
Read you with great interest as I am not knowledgable about briges. You seem to have offered fine commentary with an expert eye. Canadas’ road and bridge structures, I have read, are worse than ours. This tragic episode is a bridge ‘9/11’..I do not know if anything will be done nationally in the forseeable future. Anyway, thanks for your effort in producing a thoughtful opinion and evaluation. It was a good read. I hope your evaluation passes to a higher level.
Jim, that’s fascinating. Thanks for taking the time to write it up. Very interesting.
Very interesting....thanks.
Your prediction is now part of the public record. At least one set of honest eyes has been cast on this disaster. We’ll see what the “official” whitewash ... er, I mean ... conclusion ... is.
Check here.
Also there is a very interesting inspection report dated June 0f 2006.
Check here .
I wonder if there are more bridges like this.
Thanks for the report. Very interesting.
A FReeper's point of view is usually much more valuable to me than the usual press release.
*Sigh*
This appears to have been completely avoidable.
This is what I love about FR! We have a wealth of experts in so many fields.
Thanks for the insight on this tragedy
Bet there are a lot of private inspection firms that are glad they didn’t do the last few inspections. Just think of the liability. With a report like this, the state is going to pay out alot in civil lawsuits.
If the bridge was being inspected by state employees, who knows what the didn’t find.
I’m sending this to my engineering son. Thanks
Wait a minute, I thought it was Bush’s fault!
“I wonder if there are more bridges like this.”
That was rhetorical, right?
There were thousands of bridges built about the same time using the same materials, and designed by engineers of the same generation of background and training.
Luckally, not all of them are subject to the same corrosive environment, but some are.
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