It will be interesting to see how they rebuild this bridge. Will it become a reinforced concrete structure?
50 cars in the river
20-30 workers on the bridge at the time.
Im guessing the resurfacing work vribrations caused a damaged failing critical steel connections near one of the river pylons. The entire bridge did not unzip, it collapsed in almost one piece. Connection failure.
If they use as much road salt in MN as we do in VT it would not be surprising if one of the steel members or a concrete pillar was weakened by salt.
Quite possible. It doesn't look like there was a modular approach to the structure. If one support goes, the whole thing is pulled down with it. It's all tied together.
Plus, I suspect that there's plenty of rusty fasteners there.
Good guess. I believe bridge supports are to be inspected regularly. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if these funds hadn't been diverted to pay for social programs. Either that or the inspection work was handed to incompetent third party payola contractors.
The sides folded and the south end shifted. The south end shifting would account for the twisted steel. Did you notice on the precipices that the cement roadway has some kind of heavy fabric or material handing down? What is the purpose of that fabric within the layers of cement. Anybody know?