Posted on 11/01/2001 1:07:27 PM PST by evilsmoker
Talk show host Tom Sullivan just reported that during a press conference Gov. Davis said he was notified that there is evidence that terrorists plan to target the Coronado Bridge (San Diego), the Golden Gate & Bay Bridges (San Francisco) and an LA Bridge (didn't catch the name) tomorrow, Friday, Nov. 2nd.
As to your question about black shoe/brown shoe, I actually wore both types of shoes, sort of. I was in Naval Air Intelligence (brown shoe), but was attached to COMPHIBGRU3 for the Persian Gulf War (making me a black shoe for the duration).
The Port of Los Angeles is America's busiest port with record volumes of cargo moving through the 7500-acre harbor. Its strong performance is attributed to a solid U.S. economy and the recovering Asian economies with a renewed manufacturing demand for American exports.
The Port itself is a major reason for the remarkable cargo volumes. Its world-class facilities and infrastructure maximize the one-stop shopping concept of cargo transportation and delivery favored by most shipping lines. Ocean carriers can send the majority of their West Coast cargo to Los Angeles with full confidence in the Port's modern cargo terminals and efficient train/truck intermodal network.
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So, LA claims to be #1 in container traffic in the country without counting it's competive next door neighbor, Long Beach. Together, I do believe that they are number 1 in the world.
South of the bridge, the commercial ships (if any were actually being built any more in S'Diego ...) from NASSCO are built to fit underneath, just like the LHA/LPH/LSD's as mentioned before. Theorectically, yes. (Then again, theorectically, you could use a buried nuke too there.)
Practically speaking, using enough megatons of conventional expolive to blow the sand away would be 100's (thousands ?) of times more than would enough to totally destroy any parts or pieces of the Coronado Bridge tha tare blocking the harbor.
So rather than blow up hundereds of feet of sand into a channel several hundered feet wide to get a channel 20-22 feet deep ... why not just blow up the little pieces of the bridge that are still sticking up out of the water?
Please note the part about the floating bridge sections. No way that taking out the Coronado bridge would block the water traffic ... the bridge traffic, yes, but not the ship traffic.
Since the middle sections of the Coronodo Bridge "float", there would be no blockade of the water traffic unless the pylons themselves came down.
Funny, since I was a nuke EDO and spent all of my duty in new construction and shipyards .... I had more days "underway" as a midshipman in a couple of summer training missions than on ten years of active duty.
H**l, I've had more months in drydock than I've had days at sea.
(Course, those tended to be 14-18 hour days in the drydock, so I'm not sure I actually saw my family anymore than if I'd been at sea....)
I live by tons of bridges here in Fla. It bothers me that the highway patrol in CA is going to be "on" the bridge. What good is that going to do? People again have been told to go about their daily lives and use the bridges. Nuh-uh, not me.
Did they forget that these are suicidal bombers who will probably ram through any checkpoints or maybe they'll show up by boat like with the Cole. And, if they change their appearance and don't get profiled, they're on the bridge. Or, I'm thinking it will be a bridge but somewhere else.
Oh but I have. Sorry to say I own two properties in Wilmington, and drive over that bridge 2 to 3 times a week. My wife uses it daily to get to Long Beach.
Although I personally would be greatly inconvenienced, I do not live where the majority of people live and that is north of the bridge.
Even if the above was not a reality, it's not as convenient not having the bridge, but that is nothing like what would happen if you took out one of the bridges in SF/Oakland. The real damage, if the LA bridge was targeted, would be to block commerce in the container traffic.
i enjoy crossing the vincent thomas bridge any time i get the opportunity. they did away with the one-way toll last year.
the view is incredible. on a clear day you can see 25 miles north to downtown l.a.
Yes it does (my step-daughter graduated from Banning about 3-4 years ago ... are you her age?).
And these oil refineries pay a lion's share of LA's tax's and LA doesn't want the Harbor to secceed for that reason. But I digress ...
The "rumor" is that the terrorists are looking for bridges ... if we shift to oil refineries, we will be hear all night!! :^)
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