Damn! They’re preempting a lot of TV with live coverage of this, haven’t gone to commercial in a long time. So far it looks like no casualties.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57586023/i-5-bridge-collapses-in-nw-wash.-people-in-water/
Looks like 3 people went in but no casualties!
“Washington state was given a C in the American Society of Civil Engineers’ 2013 infrastructure report card and a C- when it came to the state’s bridges. The group said more than a quarter of Washington’s 7,840 bridges are considered structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.” Not good.
A couple of years ago bridge on I-35 collapsed in Minneapolis. It was at the evening trafic. Bridge was loaded. It was unbelievable that something like that would happen.
Red I’m glad you brought up the report card. Its staggering how poor our infrastructure as a whole is. From my personal experience having worked as a civil engineering for 8 years and specifically on bridges for half of that time deficient bridges are all to common. Good thing their were no fatalities.
Yeah, that was the one that caused every state and the federal government to look at all their bridges. It was amazing how many red-listed bridges they were. There are 2 large bridges that connect NH to ME that were at the top of the list. One is going to be completed this year, the other is set to be replaced next year ( a tanker tried to take it out a couple months ago, but only damaged it…now there’s a big fight about who’s going to pay for the repairs ).
Best part of this story: No fatalities. That could have been much worse…
+1. We find endless ways to waste tax dollars, but direct precious little $$ to safe infrastructure.
i live in a state with a D rating. The winters take a toll, and we have the highest truck GVW by a factor greater than 2. The roads are 3rd world quality in places.
This wasn’t a case of failing infrastructure - an oversized truck hit one of the supports.
It’s great to hear no one was killed!
We had one collapse back in 1975 in our area on a very foggy night. I think 7 drove off and four people died.
Interesting story about the bridge collapse is it was covered by Reader’s Digest and a kid in Kentucky read the story and sent a note which made it to a local church down the road from us saying he would trade tree seedlings for clothes. The church drove to that rural part of KY and saw the poverty and started gathering clothes to take to Kentucky. That first year I think they took something like 8 or 10 vehicles. Last I heard they were still doing the trip and taking tractor trailers full of clothing, food and other items.
Spring time in Chicago. I really should get winter tires with steel rims.
Infrastructure would seem to be a good place to invest tax dollars, but repairs don’t make for sexy news conferences.
I would think that if one truck hitting one support is enough to take down a bridge it’s till failing infrastructure. just not spontaneous failure.
It was in May of 1980 that the ship Summit Venture hit a piling of the northbound span of the Sunshine Skyway bridge and caused it to collapse into Tampa Bay during morning rush hour traffic.
That was an eerie morning. It was strange later to drive over the other span and see the broken bridge hanging over the bay.
Could be crappy engineering and/or construction defects. But failing/poorly maintained infrastructure is more likely.
agreed on both points. I am not a structural engineer (IANASE?) but I would think that basic design/construction failure would likely have showed up much earlier in the bridges life span.
In 2002 a tow barge hit a support of a bridge over the Arkansas River killing 14. The barge driver blacked out and to make matters worse, a guy posing as a US army captain took charge of the disaster scene for two days!
Surely, better maintanance might have helped. The article mentions that it was a “fracture critical” bridge - meaning that the bridge design would collapse if one part failed. I bet it’s old engineering standards. There was probably a time when bridges weren’t designed to take hits like that and they are now.
As far a I know, that’s a pretty good grade compared to other states. This is what decades of not investing in our infrastructure gets us.
Careful now, only commies love bridges!