Posted on 03/16/2018 6:54:17 AM PDT by BenLurkin
One woman who barely avoided the deadly collapse said she saw the structure crumble "in front of me, and it fell on the cars that were waiting for the light to change."
"I was near the light. I was the first car that moved forward when it changed and I was near the bridge. It was fine, and all of a sudden, I saw it collapse from the left towards the middle," Suzy Bermudez told reporters Thursday
...
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., tweeted Thursday that the cables that suspended the bridge "had loosened & the engineering firm ordered that they be tightened. They were being tightened when it collapsed."
Renderings showed a tall, off-center tower with supporting cables attached to the walkway. When the bridge collapsed, the main tower had not yet been installed, and it was unclear what builders were using as temporary supports.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
(Hindsight being 20-20...) Maybe they should have closed the road to traffic while they were doing the tightening of the cables. Seems like, with it only having been installed on Saturday, they didn’t have experience with adjusting the cable system. JMHO
That “stress test” is post-tensioning work on the cables running inside tubes in the concrete, pulling the ends together to create compression across the bridge. Needs to be done correctly and evenly and properly as the concrete sets after pouring.
But, this was done using Obama’s democrat money in a democrat congressional district in a democrat city for a liberal (democrat) university in a liberal city using (likely) illegal alien construction crews. I trust NO ONE in that entire group to follow the law, much less follow engineering and Code requirements.
Well, to be fair, bridge building is an emerging technology. We are only beginning to develop an understanding of it.
So now we know a new thing....don’t stress test the bridge with citizens underneath it. /s
This is rather off-topic, but back when I was in info tech, we had to run a ‘disaster recovery test’ every year on each system. They caused far more disasters than they prevented!
However, in computers, you could just delete your mistakes and move on.
FNC has presser on bridge collape (sic).
FNC just fixed it.
Oh... and install the support tower FIRST. We are leapfrogging forward in our understanding of bridge building on this project.
Lefty loosie, Righty tighty!!
Nothing.....................
NTSB and its chairman on scene. Is having the chair at the scene unusual?
About five years ago there was a horrific accident on one of the Interstates near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, when a girder that was being placed for a bridge spanning the roadway fell from the crane into traffic, with a fatality.
Ever since then PennDOT has insisted on full road closures whenever girders are being placed.
Semi-auto Concrete Nail Guns and the NRA!
"Hey Hey NRA - How Many Bridges Are You Gonna Collapse Today?"
Emerging technology?
Maybe back in the days of the Romans, now not so much.
A favorite old quote:
Fail-safe systems fail by failing to fail safely.
Whatever happened here, there should have been backup structure in place to secure the bridge when primary structure failed. A single point of failure should _never_ result in the whole thing crashing down.
FDOT was on site according to local media. At the presser just now at least one question was asked about the decision to allow traffic to flow. None of the many authorities present would answer the question.
We had one in our town. It connected the second floors of two buildings. Absolutely stupid. They finally took it down.
There’s a overpass currently being reworked at the junction of route 202 and the 30 bypass near Frazer, PA.
Not sure if they are replacing girders, but the crew has nets slung under the overpass to keep debris from falling onto traffic below. Every morning I’m in the traffic below, which passes under the overpass, on a curve, at 55.
Makes me nervous every time.
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