Comments on: Search For Answers In Bridge Collapse

2005 Report Called Minnesota Bridge "Structurally Deficient" And Possibly In Need Of Replacement

[candy-apple]

Why is everything that happens in this country (good/bad) a political issue with some of you people? This is a tragic accident involving all walks of people. The problem(s) that caused the collapse of this bridge didn't happen overnight, it took years. Can't we just pray for the families of the victims of this horrible accident and leave political views out of it? If you're not religious, do what ever it is that you do and be thankful that your family doesn't have to suffer through this tragedy!!

[longdistdiag]

Putting aside the human part of the story... I understand engineers' avoiding premature diagnosis without having enough info to make a good diagnosis. I have my theories though for IF the cause was not related to the fatigue cracks. Take with a grain of salt because it is pure long-distance speculation.
The bridge construction is item #6 on the MNDOT pdf list of Minneapolis construction projects, listed as "Bridge repair, concrete rehabilitation..." I don't know for sure if parts of the concrete deck were removed, cut, or weakened during this repair work, but my theory is that the lane restrictions caused an unbalanced load and the trusses were loaded eccentrically and had a torsion component. The bridge repairs may have disconnected the deck diaphragm from the top chord of the trusses, leaving the top chord, which was in compression, unbraced at a local segment of the truss. The vibration of the train combined with the torsional load and the unbraced top chord may have caused the top chord to have buckled and failed in one spot creating a hinge in the entire truss. The way the bridge pieces are laying on the ground it kind of looks like a lateral torsional failure of the truss as a whole... it looks like the center of the bridge moved quite far in the lateral/horizontal direction.

[coffeehead-2009]

I agree jack. Easing of Regulations and lack of experienced construction workers. We are seeing it in our food and labor areas more and more - corporate power swaying what rights and protections our forefathers fought for.

I would SERIOUSLY check this out.

It just seems AWFUL funny that now they are taking a "serious" look at ALL the bridges and plan on PUMPING tons of OUR tax dollars into repairs --- so they can SELL them to their NAFTA super-highway FOREIGN investors?
Who gave these "capitalist" leaders the RIGHT to sell bridges and roads that ARE NOT THEIRS! They have given aways years worth of payments that u.s. citizens have made on our roads -sold to the highest profiteer to build "super-highways" ??? Really watch what they are doing.
Also - it is a 10 lane plan - which will need not only our paid for roadways/bridges but also an additonal 584,000 acres of land adjoining the corridor. yep -

The document states that SPP's mission is to make "our businesses more competitive in the global marketplace." That globalist doubletalk means producing U.S. goods with cheap foreign labor, thereby destroying the U.S. middle class.


Bush Admin Quietly Plans NAFTA Super Highway
http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=12090

Based on the lie that companies do everything better than governments do
Politicians are selling our bridges
http://www.hightowerlowdown.org/node/1309

[nkp007]

I live in this area where this happened and i've corssed this bridge countless times. There are things people say caused this that can be just ruled out like a Barge Crashing into the supports is out of the Question just look at the picture. Secondly It most likely a fail similar in a way to the O-ring failure on the challanger. Also you are totaly idiotic if you think we should blame the president for this like half of the people out there.

[pepperp1]

Questions are also being raised about a 2005 report in the U.S. Department of Transportation's National Bridge Inventory which rated the bridge as "structurally deficient" and possibly in need of replacement.

Ahhh I would want to know the bridge I am sitting on is structurally deficient bridge regardless of the reckless spin, sounds like our infrastructure needs some attention now if you pull those funds out of the 32,000 earmarks for things like bridges to no where maybe we can fix then ones we have. And who is this doofus governor who starts with covering for the fed and not my fault, whats with that, people are missing ever heard of leadership buddy

[roach9703]

Since a bridge report indicates significant issues with metal fatigue, it is VERY important to do thorough investigation.

[jack773]

I think they will not find the exact cause, or they will not admit it. The train, the workers with jackhammers and other highly powerfull tools, the barges, and the traffic each have their own set of vibrations. If all of those vibrations happen to freakily converge or meld at a certain frequency it could bring down a defective (as already proven) bridge.

[roger_inkart]

I'm not joking this time, you F**KING people really are losers.

Posted by infidel_us at 02:12 PM : Aug 02, 2007

Calm the h3ll down. Could one draw a parallel between the countless billions of dollars we're spending in Iraq a month and the crumbling infrastructure of the US? Certainly. That's not an unreasonable conclusion to draw.

The US treasury isn't bottomless as some the war supporters seem to believe it is.

[getcentered]

I don't know about yall, but I'm a Republican who would rather have my tax dollars given to churches who preach politics, and would rather spend billions killing a 100,000 Iraqis and thousands of US service men and women, then fix America%u2019s problems.






That%u2019s sarcasm%u2026.could you smell it?

[davidcolbour]

It sounds like a management induced due diligence error just like the Space shuttle O rings.

%u201CThe report said there were fatigued details on the main truss and floor truss system. Yet it concluded there was no need to prematurely replace the bridge because of fatigue cracking, avoiding the high cost associated with such a large project.%u201D

Is this conclusion supported by the facts? In this case due diligence pre determination would have cost a lot of money but I%u2019ve seen cases where it would have saved so money is not the issue.