I can hardly believe that this plan could be taken seriously by ANYONE. Apparently the plan involved talking the bridge down by using welding equipment on one of the main cables.
Facts about the cables: Suspension Cables - four 15 3/4" diameter wire ropes.
Number of Strands in each cable - 19
Total Length of Wire in cables - approximately 3600 miles
Miles of wrapping wire on each cable - 243 miles 943 feet
Does anyone know how long it would take to go through one of these? A week, maybe? Using something that generates a bright light?
Brilliant!
Plus, since the Brooklyn is one of the few suspension bridges that has 4 cables instead of 2, wasn’t there a good chance that taking out one of the 4 wouldn’t even compromise the bridge?
I’m basically looking for engineer types to tell me if my suspicions that this was one of the doofiest plots ever are correct.
Traditionally, it’s someone on the bridge who needs to be talked down, not the bridge itself.
Reminds me of a line about Michael Dukakis, when he was trying to get the Big Dig funded: “If Mike wants to depress the Central Artery, all he has to do is talk to it.”
As the above says, a thermal lance would NOT take a week. I don’t want to hazard a guess but probably short enough time that it would be worth considering. You’d still have to conceal the activity of course. And to make it really effective you’d want to do it during rush hour, which would make concealing it that much more difficult.
The four cables would mean the BB would be a poor choice as well. In Ken Burns’ early documentary on it, they stated that Roebling had designed the bridge with a safety factor of 10x (i.e. ten times stronger than it needed to be!) but due to some bad wire (not from his company) it was only six times. ‘Only’ six!
Have you ever watched someone cut a train rail in half? They could cut through that cable like a knife through butter. Put a hard hat on a person and park an official truck next to the cable and that bridge is comming down. Nobody would notice in time to react, even if they had cameras on the bridge.
Seriously, could I get some more information on thermal lances? I first heard of them in the Anarchist’s Cookbook- renowned for inaccurate information. Just how big are they? How much power do they take? Could you get on motorcycles and joust with them? I NEED to know.
They don’t take any power at all - just a source of compressed oxygen. They are hollow tubes filled with iron rods. You pump oxygen in at one end, and light the other end with a torch. Make a most satisfactory display.
