Fox News just reported that traffic was at a standstill when the bridge collapsed with traffic bumper to bumper.
Here’s my guess at what happened. At rush hour with traffic stopped, the density of cars was far greater than the bridge could support. Probably was designed for something like that but with the accumulated metal fatigue and corrosion over the years, a structural member gave way and the rest collapsed like dominos. Just my guess.
That’s what it appears to be. Nothing insidious.
make me think of that movie The Mothman Prophecies
Maybe, but it’s bumper to bumper every morning and evening.
sorry, dead weight is much different than live weight. the bridge would have been designed to hold that much dead weight. ROP and if I’m wrong...
The first thing hubby said was “Look at the tankers and the cement truck! All that weight!”
Someone on the bridge said it was bumper to bumper traffic, and he was going to the Twins game!
I am just stunned.
I am in the Steel design and construction business. And I can tell you that the various loads that you mentioned, are the very ones that are always taken in consideration when designing a bridge. In fact, in steel construction, there is so much over designing that goes on, that it really takes something unforseen to bring a structure down (eg. earthquake, barge hit, etc.) Im not saying that it could not be a design failure but that is usually not the case. Also, a fourty year old bridge is not that old. But I am sure the various engineers of record will pour over the design dwgs, to see where the failure might have occured. Also if this bridge was under construction, you can be that before the project took place, a team of civil engineers were all over it to make sure it could structurally take the construction project.
Could have BEEN the stop and go traffic, kind of like marching over a bridge. Route step Hua.
That is a problem with a lot of our old infrastructure. Designed 30=40 years ago for much less traffic. That is what happened to the Sivler Bridge. Built in the 30s for Model Ts and other occasional vehicles. The night it fell, it was loaded down with cars and trucks, Christmas shoppers returning home and rush hour traffic.
There was a cement truck on the bridge too. I don’t know if it had cement in it at the time but that would have been very heavy.