Free Republic

A preliminary investigation has found that a gasket failure caused a chemical gas leak that forced the temporary closure of a heavily used bridge connecting Delaware and New Jersey on one of the busiest travel days of the year. Officials with Croda Inc. said Tuesday that initial findings show that an incorrect gasket fitted on a pipe during construction of its Delaware ethylene oxide production plant failed Sunday. The company is sending the gasket to independent experts for analysis and confirmation.

An apparent construction error six decades ago could have caused the fracture discovered Friday in a steel beam that forced the closure of the Delaware River Bridge, an engineering expert who viewed pictures of the cracked truss said Sunday. An image of the cracked truss - a supporting piece - on the bridge that runs between Bucks County in Pennsylvania and Burlington County in New Jersey shows signs of holes that had been mistakenly drilled into the steel beam and then filled with plug welds, a typical solution in the 1950s when the bridge was built, said Karl Frank, professor...

A ruptured bridge truss, the bracing structure of beams below the surface, under the westbound lanes of the bridge left the heavily traveled bridge closed to traffic on Friday. The fracture was discovered during a routine check of a painting project and the bridge, which handles roughly 42,000 vehicles a day, was shut down. ... One official added that the fracture could have been caused by changing weather conditions, Philly.com reported.