I 35 W bridge collapse

Watching the coverage from about 30 mins after the fact, I was struck by how much the news orgs need a generalist to vet some of their ridiculous statements.

The most glaring problems were the statements on how many cars might have been on the bridge. Simply looking at the cars trapped in sections of the spans where they couldnt have gone into the water shows that the bridge was luckily and remarkably empty considering the time of day.

At time of this posting, the known death toll has reduced to four from as many as 25 heard claimed, and I think that the claim of 50 cars in the water is high. Thus I would expect the final death toll to be around 12 -15 which is not a 'good thing' but certainly is amazing considering what it might have been if the bridge had NOT been under construction.

Just now Fox News is remarking on the # cars involved. Someone has noticed what I have, done a 'trap count', and estimated 60 vehicles were on the spans at time. And the on-scene wonders how that squares with '50 in the water'.. saying some 'discrepancy'.

Failure cause:

Much is being made of 'structurally deficient' rating. This is alarmist and sensational. Those who pay attention have noticed 'wave' symptoms while stopped on interstate bridges
From this point on until the sensation dies out, we're going to be besieged by the chicken little of the world complaing that every interstate bridge is about to collapse.

... notice especially the news focus on 'children involved. For some reason it seems necessary to focus on children infants and pregnant women... even just heard of a mention of a Quebec collapse which killed 6 'including a pregnant woman'. It's great that there were no serious injuries on that school bus or that would be all we were hearing. Do I not have 'concern for the li'l chirrun'? Of course I do. But lets get some perspective and stop this asinine personalization.

Or are we all becoming tort lawyers... or the jurors they love to seat?

About the school bus, again. Early on, the local person on Fox News repeated a rumor from WCCO that a school bus had plunged into the water. While we were looking at live shots of the school bus.

Flipping channels

I primarily watched Fox... not impressed as I note above, but going to MSNBC, CNN, and CNN-HN, found Olberman covering it with Geraldo-like pathos, CNN-HN using Nancy Grace to hint at some scandal that would undoubtedly break in the coming days. CNN had in my view the best and most dispassionate coverage. In the 10 minuets or so I watched CNN they covered all the salient details without a lot of conjecture.

What to look for in near future:

Calls for Federal funds to renovate / rebuild every interstate bridge in the country.

And of course, "Dubya hates commuters and li'l chirrun" because he didnt immediately fly to the Twin Cities and gum up the works with his security detail.

 

Heh... I SHOULD have shut off the TV while I was writing that.

If I had I might have wondered and wished for Landshark and our other members in the area to check in. One of those things you originally have in mind and let yourself get distracted away from.

 

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technol ... 19981.html

Yes... this is how we can give Hillary her wish to tax BIG OIL

And various Congressional vote buyers some clout with the local voters.. in fact I WANT THIS EARMARKED!

Rather than a bridge to nowhere for nobody.. fix what we've got!

Just make sure those Interstates and bridges actually EXIST, first.

Ah..ahhh... ahhhhhhhhhhh... MURTHA!

 

Re: RE: I 35 W bridge collapse

Well, here it is.. for you who are waiting on the anger and 'reality based analysis'.

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Well, Bush deranged moonbats aside...

Since I like to be proved right as well as the next guy, I predict the problem will be found to be bad design aggravated by poor maintenance resulting in stress fractures around riveting/bolts giving way.

The design you will note is of the modified {shallow} arched truss variety which are stabilized by many diagonal support beams to make the structure more rigid. which is 'old theory' for spans of any considerable length.

However, the more you rely on diagonals to provide strength and rigidity, the more critical are the points where they intersect the longitudinal beams.. that is, those which parallel the roadway. Loss of just ONE crossbrace on a shallow arch could cause that section to drop and pull the rest down with it.
Not known is whether there were 'pivot pins' on the supporting columns/piers. These are used to relieve stress on those triangular intersections thus minimize shear force on the rivets or bolts.

PLUS if I see the original correctly, the roadway was flat, end to end. They dont build them that way anymore. some arch in the road would also have helped.

 

Minneapolis lead off on BBCnews last night. Wonder when the last time that happened was? Just sort of weird to see the city plastered all over the news when its generally anonymous.

How long do ya figure its going to take to build a bridge. This is going to be horrendous on traffic.

edit; This may sound pretty harsh and cynical but at least that many people die around the country on the their commutes every day. Its a tragedy every day when it happens but when it occurs on a freak accident like this we do the touchy news stories and the rescue workers are heroes bit. Not saying they're not just sayin........

 

The part that made me want to gag is that all last night we heard how those kids on the bus were paniced scared out of their wits and bawling.

Tonight we heard they were a-l-l-ll 'heros'.

News pukes make me .. well they make me wanna puke!

Adn no, Spencer, it is NOT harsh and cynical... none of us wants harm to come to anyone there, but someone has to maintain perspective.

Unlike reporters who go out of their way to quote some pussy, unknown gender, who's now afraid to get in their car.

O--o-o-h-hhhh the HUMANITY!!!!!! {Did you get that burning guy jumping out the zeppelin, Elmo?}

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Rebuild the bridge? 9 months tops...IF...

It's high time the governments get smart and do what was done in California after the Nothridge quake...ONLY let contracts to those with the best records in construction. Put in performance and incentive clauses to get it built quick AND good.
It can be done.

And keep politician hands OUT of it.. there a stretch of I 70 in Ohio where the SAME company gets the repave contract every 3 years and it turns to crap washboard within a year or two.

 

Oddly, life in the city isn't much different than it was two days ago... just a little snarlier traffic. The local news coverage came off much better than the CNN/Major Network coverage... a lot less sensationalist and more subdued, especially as we continue to get daily coverage.

I always find it interesting that when something like this happens, life quickly just goes on. You hug your spouse/significant other, be thankful it wasn't them, and get back to the daily grind.

I'll probably head up to one of the higher floors in my office to get a peek at the scene (it's about 2 miles from my office)... more curiousity than anything else.

 

It goes back to resilience of human nature, MNL... we all are embedded with survival genes, the only thing that can change this is continued time in the spotlight... with well-wishers commiserating and feeling sorry for you.

Some one said: 'We are all actors on a stage'
Just human nature.

Good to know you werent affected... cheers!

 

I-35W UPDATE

Now 5 dead, 8 missing.... there obviously are no '50 cars in the water'

That's more like it. If I can remember how these things turn out, why cant the news pukes?

 

Obviously the attention has long passed but heres an update for those interested.

http://www.startribune.com/10204/story/1370130.html

In summary.....
1- MNDot engineers were it appears quite clearly concerned with this particular bridge, perhaps more than any other bridge, and had openly discussed the possibility of the bridge collapsing (though they thought it remote) and the concequences of

2- There was consensus that SOMETHING needed to be done

3-Preparations for installing reinforcements plates were underway but on January 17th of this year the consultants hired to anaylize the bridge a company by the name of URS out of San Francisco, reversed its verdict on the reinforcment plates saying that drilling for the retrofit could weaken the bridge

My take on it;
Its clear the bridge was a topic of discussion and its clear the MNDOT was taking action on it, about as quickly as one could realistically hope for such a large gov't department. Its quite easy to play the blame game after the fact and believe me many are (see Star Tribune Columnist Nick Coleman who has received face time on a national level on the topic http://www.startribune.com/357/story/1375755.html )

But at the end of the day there were no good options for MNDOT, they don't have unlimited resources and no one expected such an event to occur, particualary so soon. They can't come in and close every bridge they think there might be an issue with, might as well close half the bridges in the country right now and spend billions repairing them right today, because you never know they may just collapse. How realistic is that? Not very! They were stuck in a catch22 and got extremely unlucky. People are going to try and hold their feet to the fire and in turn the Gov up top and thats to be expected, there always needs for a scape goat wether it be Tim Pawlenty or Liam Rosenio

 

I said there were not 50 cars in the water, I called the actual toll, and I said MN should do what California did after Northridge....
Well:

http://www.startribune.com/10204/story/1379333.html

Am I a genius or what!???
Answer: No. Neither did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express on the day.

But you notice I do use common sense to point out what should be at least understandable to many and obvious to a few.

It also helps that:

1. Ted Stevens, Robert Byrd, Trent Lott and John Murtha arent involved.

and

2. Even if they were, it's too high profile for any scumbag pol to make friends happy or money from kickbacks.... Especially after what happened with the Big Dig.

 

Re: RE: I 35 W bridge collapse

UPDATE:
The Working Theory in the Investigation centers on the Gusset Plates.

{What's that?, It's where the sections are connected}

Your own 'Foremost Authority' says, yes... and no.. I dont think it's JUST the Gusset plates OR MAintenace.... look what I said on the 'flat design'

If it's TOO flat the stresses will be 'pull' on connectors rather than 'push'. If it's 'push' the adjacent member bears some of the stress, if it's pull, all of the stress is on the connector and rivets/bolts.

No, again I am not trained in it... it's just common sense which you can easily replicate by bending some sheet metal into an arc of varying height and looking what happens when you press on it.

 

Or.. empirically acquired common sense.
:twisted:

 

The bid process didn't go without tussle. Complaints were abound after the company awarded with the contract was neither local (Colorado) nor the lowest bidder. The criteria used to pick a winner took into account more than just bottom line $$$$$$$$. According to some people thats a bad thing.

As in stay AWAY from my money!! Which is really sort of stupid in this case as we have a Republican governor who's main accomplishment is balancing a budget that was in a world of hurt when he inherited it without raising income taxes. Besides the bridge just like fell down, do you really want to look like your rebuilding it on the cheap?

 

Dont forget the California quake rebuild process... was a REAL winner.

Best plan, coupled with performance bonuses... bet if you looked at the FULL bottom line to the CA economy, turned out the least expensive overall.

 

I 35 Bridge VICTORY!

It's rebuilt, not just better than ever, better than required and It's open... 3 months early!

5 Engineering Lessons From the New, Reopened Minnesota Bridge

 

Re: I 35 Bridge VICTORY!

Maybe, Maybe not. But it helps a lot when the first blog you read on 'power-up' is Glenn Reynolds' Instapundit Despite being an obvious and almost self-confessed shill for Amazon.com*, he's the one with an 'interest in everything' I have an interest in.
- Made even more remarkable because he's a Law Prof at UT, and if you pay attention to what I write you know my general opinion of lawyers.

I dont attribute him with a 'via' on here because this is not really a blog; on a blog the 'rules' say I'd have to give him credit for pointing out the sources. So just bear in mind when I post a site chances are about 80% I read it first on Instapundit.

At any rate, to get back on topic I have to point up to Spencer's hint on how the bridge rebuild COULD have been a 'business as usual' political and financial circle jerk.

This project should be a model on how to approach our infrastructure rebuilds. It would force most large project contractors to emulate this one and remove the corruption now rife in contract awards.

* he supports the blog and makes a little on the side by Amazon paying him credits for 'click-from'.

Oh... and by the way, just a LITTLE self-congratulation by me, The FUSA 'Foremost Authority'. Did you read my post just above that? I said how it should work out and what it should be modeled after. It Was. It Did.

And I remind you -rhetorical you- a 'Foremost Authority' is NOT an "Expert on Everything'. In fact he neednt be an Expert on Anything {and I'm not}, just know where to go to find the expert and who really might be one, rather than just blowing smoke. eg; I readily defer to you -rhetorical Don- in analysis of English soccer... even soccer, period!

So there! heh....