Posted on 08/01/2007 4:28:27 PM PDT by ButThreeLeftsDo
Just turned on the news. 35W bridge collapsed in the Mississippi River. Cars, trucks, semis.....
Fires burning, tanker trucks, at least one school bus, more than ten cars......
Just now breaking.......
One witness used a rubber band analogy to describe how parts of the bridge fell, snapped and twisted... the mechanics of stretching a rubber band then letting it go.
Engineers say the open construction virtually guaranteed when one section failed the whole bridge would collapse.
:) Not necessary- thanks though..read it right AFTER I replied!
/consipracy theory
That would better explain the rubber band effect I heard about last night. But that video doesn’t show the whole bridge, so how do you know?
Witnesses are known to be poor in emergency situations. That’s why I said it was witnesses and not authorities, also because it’s hard to believe the center would drop first.
Which side is the train on, south or north, please?
With all those newsies standing in a cluster on the ramp from University Ave, I’m surprised it took them almost 23 hours to start interviewing themselves... but there you go. Greta, meet the local news.
Watch out for Geraldo!!!!!111
"That would better explain the rubber band effect I heard about last night. But that video doesnt show the whole bridge, so how do you know?"
The S end leads in the fall. Watch it hit the water, then lay lown from the S to the N.
It's not that the witnesses aren't somewhat right. It's just that they're not good observers. The lead is subtle, but the spash down shows it well.
Twin Cities traffic cameras:
http://www.dot.state.mn.us/tmc/trafficinfo/cameras_map.html
Click on 35W camera over the river and you can see a live picture.
There is probably unreleased footage from last night. We’ll have to wait a while to see that.
Jack Cafferty on CNN just read about 10 emails blaming the war in Iraq based on lies and lack of priorities of the lying Bushies as the reasons for the bridge collapse. One of the emails he read went “heckuva a job Bushie”.
Nothing and I mean nothing, cant be politicized by thesscum bagsheavens. They must be the most miserable human beings on the face of the earth. And yes, I hate them. I can barely hide my contempt for them anymore. I’m sick of them using these tragedies to bring up their agendas.
Prayers for you and your family.
In that section it leads. However if the rubber band effect (steel failures) is true, wherever the failure started, the bridge didn’t necessarily fall in order.
There are traffic cams all over that bridge according to at least one Freeper. We haven’t seen them online, so they must have recorded some crucial evidence.
Look for the Union/Liberal label.
Nick Coleman of the St. Paul Pioneer Press has already blamed Republican tax cuts for this demise when in fact road taxes have been diverted to light rail (a fiasco in itself) and were vetoed on a 5 cent gas tax increase while gas prices have been $3.00+
The poor victims haven't been removed from the river yet and they are already playing this politically.
Despicable!
Yeah. If you click on “Incidents” then look for the two cameras that say “Other”.....click on camera 628. Camera 634 doesn’t really show anything.
This link will take you right to the “Incidents” page....http://www.dot.state.mn.us/tmc/trafficinfo/incidents.html
Sure, if we weren’t in Iraq, we would have all kinds of Marines and Navy Seals available to go in and pull all of the people and cars out of the river.......
These jerks will stop at nothing to blame every single thing that’s wrong in this world on Bush and the WOT.
Yes....it was. Harmonic resonance that did in the Tacoma Narrows bridge....
I don’t know if that’s what happened here... I’ve heard the train beneath it was causing a lot of vibration as well..
It could well be that chemical forces are the culprit here though... there are, today, some reports of know corrosion.
This will be a very interesting investigation..
I don't think it's easy, but neither is setting the charges for a bridge.
Absent any evidence otherwise, that is a very reasonable statement.
Has anyone mentioned that 40% of the 2.7 Trillion Dollar Budget goes to “Entitlements”, That’s 1 Trillion Dollars. Take some of this (lets say 20%) and go fix the infrastructure throughout the country. I’m sure there are other structures which are ready to fall down now that will kill others. This is supposed to be the job of our elected leaders, which who by the way new this bridge had a structural rating of 50 out of 120.
I didn't see this explanation using a rubber band as an analogy, and I wouldn't really use one. The video shows the the roadbed+all the steel in the trusses fell pretty much intact. Which means the roadbed was released at an expansion joint somewhere out of view in the pic. The pic also shows the east side leading the down fall, so the initial break (release of the roadbed) occurred somewhere around the SE post. The SW side then immediately gave way, because of both the torque applied from the missing SE support and the stress applied, because the whole section is falling and pulling away. That left the entire SW side free to fall straight down. The sopport on the N side just acted like an obstacle.
Camera 628 takes you there but only in real time. Nothing from the actual collapse.
Prayers continue for the ones who perished, the injured, their families, and the whole state of Minnesota.
God bless......
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.