Holy Crap! Major Bridge Collapse

[High Lord Tolkien]

I just heard a very interesting thing about how they are going to figure out why the bridge collapsed.

They have software that will make a virtual reconstruction of the bridge and then they will damage a section of it to "see" how it will collapse.
If it matches the current condition of the collapsed bridge they will know that that was the section that brought it all down.

I just thought it was a pretty clever way to figure out what happened.

[aliantha]

That's pretty cool, HLT -- thanks!

I don't like Dubya and I think the war in Iraq was a mistake from the get-go. But I agree that blame for the current infrastructure problems in the US cannot be laid totally at his feet.

There have been reports for *years* -- decades, even -- that our highways and bridges and levees, etc., need serious maintenance or things are going to start caving in on us. And we have chosen to put our money elsewhere -- because we *needed* to, in a lot of cases, but also because the price tag was so high and the political fallout so costly (because politicians who implement tax increases tend to lose their jobs at the next election). It's a lot more fun to bring pork home to your district, in terms of new construction projects, than it is to try to drum up excitement for a tax hike to pay for repairs on existing stuff.

Kinda like America's love affair with credit cards: It's lots more fun to go to the mall and plunk down plastic to buy shiny new stuff than it is to pay to have the old stuff fixed. Never mind paying off the plastic -- that's *really* no fun. And we here in America, as a society, are all about *fun*. Bread and circuses, ladies and gentlemen.

Now that attitude is beginning to bite us in the butt. The Big Dig cave-in, the levees falling in New Orleans (and btw, did anybody see that an appeals court is siding with the insurance companies, saying they don't have to pay out to the people who lost their homes when the levees broke?), this bridge collapse in Minneapolis: what worries me most is not that this stuff is happening, but that it could be the tip of the iceberg.

You can even *kind of* lump 9/11 in there, in the sense that nobody expected the WTC towers to fall.

This is not a Democrat fault or a Republican fault; it's a systemic fault, a fault of hubris that we as a nation are infallible. I am typically an optimist, but I am starting to wonder more and more whether we are headed the way of the Roman Empire.

</soapbox>

[Cagliostro]

That's not CHEAP. This issue needs to be raised now, when people are feeling it. We all know what will happen if we don't - Paris or Britany will do something stupid, and we'll forget all about it.

Unless, Frith forbid, Paris or Brittany (and please, can I add Lohan?) ends up as part of one of the oncoming tragedies. Wouldn't it be quite the news day if one of them were going over that bridge when it collapsed?

[wayfriend]

It looks like they are making more and more a direct connection between the collapse and underfunding infrastructure costs.

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (CNN) -- State engineers recommended in 2000 that the Interstate 35W bridge that collapsed last week be replaced or redecked, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported Wednesday.

That 2000 recommendation followed reports beginning four years earlier that raised concerns about the bridge, Star Tribune reporter Pat Doyle said Wednesday on CNN's "American Morning."

Engineers were so concerned, "They ended some reports with exclamation points," Doyle said.

The bridge was undergoing minor resurfacing when it collapsed and was not scheduled to be replaced until 2015 at the earliest, Doyle said.

The Star Tribune reporter said that two years ago a consultant hired by the Minnesota Department of Transportation recommended that steel plates be used to reinforce the bridge superstructure.

"MnDOT opted for what they refer to as a more efficient or most cost-efficient alternative to that which is essentially inspecting the bridge," Doyle said.

Five people were killed when the eight-lane bridge plunged 60 feet into the Mississippi River during evening rush hour August 1. Eight people are missing. [link]

[aliantha]

I love that. They decided it would be cost-efficient to just inspect the bridge, instead of shoring it up with steel plates. *headdesk*, as Batty would say.