Like they knew that the bridge was broke before, but just sat on the news til they could push an infrastructure bill? Seriously?
You are speculating that engineers and others knew that the bridge support was broken but did not do anything about it, leaving the public in great danger for untold days, weeks or months and instead waiting until there was a moment where it would generate publicity for infrastructure works that are overwhelmingly supported by the public already?
I heard the engineer’s 911 call on the Rachel Maddow show this evening. That’s right - he called 911 to inform them that the bridge needed to be cleared, NOW, and river traffic needed to cease in case the bridge collapsed onto a boat.
Wow. That’s hardcore.
I would have thought that the Arkansas Department of Transportation (who the bridge inspectors reported to) would have direct access to high level officials in the Arkansas Highway Patrol–and that the Patrol would have contacted the Memphis Police and others to coordinate the shutdown.
If you called 911 to shut down the bridge, their first instinct would probably be that you were some nutcase.
The dispatcher may indeed have wondered that. Maybe the inspector wanted the fastest response, and felt that was the way to do it?
The 1st edition of A Policy on Design Standards – Interstate System was released by AASHTO in 1956, just a few months after the interstate system itself was established, so it is pretty likely the bridge was designed in accordance with the standards.
If you believe that a 60-year-old bridge wouldn’t be having serious structural problems unless “some inspector got a $100 bribe when they were building the thing”, then I think you may be somewhat naively over-optimistic about how long the average bridge is expected to last.
Nope, read the 2017 “Infrastructure Report Card” linked above. The US bridge system has been having problems for quite a while now because of the high average age of bridges and their consequent deterioration. That’s largely why there’s been all this fuss about the need for major infrastructure investment in the first place.
Perhaps, but they’d probably send at least a car to find out what’s happening out at the bridge, just in case it’s NOT a nutball.
Indeed, they seemed not to have any idea what the first call was even remotely about. The caller said “we had a critical find on the bridge and we need to get traffic off of it immediately” which isn’t useful information to a non-engineer.
ARDOT replaced a multilane Arch bridge over the Arkansas river in about 5 months. It’s the Broadway Bridge that connects LR and North Little Rock.
The engineering contractor did a lot of pre-planning. Materials must have been purchased and prestaged. They tore down the old bridge in Oct 2016 and opened the new one March 2017.
There’s so many outdated bridges to replace. Engineering construction would be a good career choice for a young person today.
I’d bet it was the contrast of seeing just how abysmal US roads were earlier in his US military career in 1919, when the Army created an expedition from Washington DC to San Francisco by road to see what the difficulties might be, and the excellent German Autobahn system scarcely 20 years later during WWII.
While Eisenhower didn’t conceive of the plan, it sounds like he was a very willing advocate and ally.
Not for the bill but for their project specifically. They want to make sure it gets funded. 2 trillion sounds like a lot but when you see the price tag for these bridges it isn’t. One St Louis project had a price tag of 695 million.
If you’ve ever lived anywhere they have been trying to pass a bond issue you understand how they bring out the scary pics and video to push it.
This bridge opened in 1973 making it a youngster at 48. Bridges should last a 100+ years with just maintenance and deck replacement. There are wooden bridges that have lasted 100 years, umpteen million dollar steel bridges should at least last that long. The 250 million plus ones we are building now sure as hell better or my progeny should hang the people who built thems progeny.
The problem is, budgets get cut and proper maintenance isn’t being performed. And folks are shocked when a bridge doesn’t meet it’s design life…
It depends on the breakdown voltage of the river.
Are you sure you want to advertise that you’re a person of interest?
I’m sure that happens in all sorts of situations, from public infrastructure to private property.
In this particular instance, what proper maintenance would have prevented this from happening?
Or do we not know that yet, until we figure out what exactly did happen, and why?
The load carried by the now-broken span has now been transferred to other elements of the bridge, possibly exceeding their design allowances. For example:
The bridge is not safe to even stand there on its own without inspection for other damage and finite element analysis of the remaining structure.
Duct tape cannot fix ducts.
You need foil-backed HVAC tape for that.
Alanis Morissette should have worked that into her song