A Canadian truck driver hit an overhead girder, apparently while yelling “Jenga!”
Basically, our vital national infrastructure just got bombed out by our neighbors to the north. Can an invasion be far behind?
If they don’t have eels they can just pass me by thank you very much.
Really sad that we are not using rails for stuff like this, especially when the destination is right along a major line.
Sorry!
It wasn’t me, I swear!
http://news.ca.msn.com/top-stories/washington-police-blame-bridge-collapse-on-alberta-trucker
Does 3 constitute several? Three, was how many people were in the two vehicles effected by the collapse.
One, a pick-up with a husband and wife, was actually on the bridge and the car containing a college student was on the approach too close to stop.
The wife in the truck had some broken bones and internal injuries. She’s still in the hospital. The two men were treated and released.
The fact that no one was killed or more seriously injured is phenomenal. Just a short time earlier and it could have been dozens.
Three rescued victims! Ah HAHAHAHAHAH!
My nipples explode with delight!
One advantage of this design was that the damage was limited to one section. It’s essentially a series of bridges. So instead of the entire 1,000 foot span going for a swim, it was just the one segment.
The husband of the woman had a dislocated shoulder which he popped back into place before attending to his wife because that’s just how we roll in the PNW!
Skookum.
If it were the fault of the motorist, that’s gong to be expensive for their insurer.
Heh, we had a dog named Skookum!
ISTR reading earlier today, that one witness said he’d passed the truck and then saw the strike in his rear-view mirror. My thought was: ‘Hm. I wonder if he passed the truck at high speed on a narrow (‘narrowed’ by the wide load) bridge and caused the driver to veer right and hit the structure?’
A few hours after hearing about this yesterday, I went to Google Maps to see where Interstate 5 crossed the Skagit River. Google Maps showed Interstate 5 as not crossing the river. Did someone already alter the website?
Trucks can be a menace on narrow bridges.
We had a truck darn near burn a bridge on I-40. It’s still closed for repairs. The fire weakened some of the steel.
http://www.fox16.com/news/local/story/Update-Truck-Driver-Dies-after-Rig-Catches-Fire/NToPr2X9vkqCD3C5ulxaIQ.cspx
I just heard an interview with a guy whose car went into the river. He assumed they were going to die, and his wife will be in the hospital overnight. However, he witnessed the truck hitting the bridge. He said the driver had edged toward the middle, as required, but another truck traveling the other way didn’t allow him to stay there. He had to move right and hit the superstructure. The truck that hit the bridge kept on going and made it across. The witness wasn’t so lucky.
They estimating 47 million could be lost in in lost economic output, as well lost jobs and tax revenues.
They should see if the Army Corps could put in a pontoon bridge while they rebuild a new one. The Army built supply bridges across the Rhine in WWII in just a few days. They had to because the permanent bridges were destroyed.
There’s already a temporary bridge. It’s a four-lane local bridge right next to the damaged bridge, and there are interchanges close to both sides. The area is built up on both sides of the freeway, so I don’t know if it would be possible to build the approaches for another bridge.
They will probably take a cue from Seattle and grab that borer when it finishes down there, replace the bridge with a tunnel.
Google had already adjusted the map to account for the accident by late this morning.
Even the notorious Apple Maps routes you around the bridge. Curiously, when I look at street view near the south end of the bridge, there is a DOT truck on the southbound side with an orange sign, “Road Maintenance Ahead”.