WI - 35W bridge in Minneapolis collapses!

[Buzz Mills]

Guess where the fasteners for the bridge are manufactured?

China??

 

[PrayersForMaura]

Guess where the fasteners for the bridge are manufactured?

Pakistan?

 

[JBean]

Pakistan?

CHINA

 

[PrayersForMaura]

CHINA

doh~ :doh:

 

[JBean]

China??

They are going to do us in.

sorry Buzz I missed your correct answer.

 

[JBean]

I was listening to a guy on talkradio say he has seen so much carp come out of there in terms of fasteners, nuts ,bolts you name it. It is even mismarked and inside it is not even what it is supposed to be.
There corner cutting techniques across the board are going to kill us all off.

 

[Gina_M]

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/009234.html

About 2/3 down the page, a post from a civil engineer:

A bridge can end up on the "deficient" list for something like too-narrow shoulders, old bridge rails, bad pavement, narrow lanes, etc, that don't mean "it will fall down if nothing is done soon". Not saying all bridges are ok that are on that list, just that not ALL of them are like that.

 

[Buzz Mills]

With 70,000 - 80,000 bridges across the US in need of repair, terrorists could just wait around until we do outselves in, which may happen unless a there is a movement to permanently monitor and improve the infrastructure of this country. It should be a campaign issue.

Right now I think Minnesotans are showing compassion, but once the dust has settled, I think anger will replace the compassion. Senator Amy Klobuchar got it right when she said, "A bridge in America just shouldn't fall down."

If they (Al Qaeda) keep us in Iraq and Afghanistan, spending 15 billion a month, while letting everything here go to the dogs, it will happen. Bush was planning on building our largest permanent army base in the world in Iraq; he has plans of us being there permanently if we don't stop him.

 

[SadieMae]

CHINA

It figures...take the cheap route. Buying those from China not only cost American's their jobs, it cost them their lives.
Sorry but I'm sick of tax dollars that should be spent supporting business and manufacturing in the USA going to foreign businesses and "American" companies that have their manufacturing done overseas.

 

[Gina_M]

http://forums.thecarlounge.net/zerothread?id=3370044&postid=40633745

Interesting post towards the bottom, from a Forensic Structural Engineer in Minneapolis:

Also, visual inspections can only tell you so much. You really have to do dye-penetration, mag-particle, or ultrasonic to truly tell that a connection or element is ok. And the cost and effort of doing those tests on EVERY connection of EVERY bridge is prohibitive. Just because a bridge has been "inspected" does not mean it is safe or cannot fail.

 

[PrayersForMaura]

I was on my way to DC to today and a cameraman was in front of me in line at the security checkpoint... he was on his way to Minneapolis to get more video, quotes and scoop with a reporter on the way. This tragedy has just gripped the nation.
One more thing for people to worry about amongst all the other crap we deal with daily

My dear grandmother used to hate going over bridges. She has been deceased for years... she hated going over water. She'd literally get down on the floor of the back seat and almost hypervenhilate.

I can't help but think she's crying up in heaven over this.


The photos from the scene are just unbelievable.
I wonder how long it will take to clean up the wreckage, and more importantly find other missing people.

It's just amazing looking at the slabs of concrete ... looks like toy cars floating in the water. It's so unbelivable! I feel so sorry for everyone who was on or around the bridge when it fell. God, how scary. I just can't fathom anything like this happening.

 

[SeriouslySearching]

I wonder if those bolts were under recall with the Elmo, Dora, etc. toys from Mattel and everything else from China lately?!

 

[Buzz Mills]

I was listening to a guy on talkradio say he has seen so much carp come out of there in terms of fasteners, nuts ,bolts you name it. It is even mismarked and inside it is not even what it is supposed to be.
There corner cutting techniques across the board are going to kill us all off.

I was reading about that problem not too long ago; cheap steel was being used in fasteners, rivets, etc in critical areas of construction--if you remember a ship called the Titanic, it had cheap rivets and they all popped and the side of the ship was opened like with a can opener--that was one of the fatal errors. They've forunately caught some of these befiore they have caused problems on very large critical projects.

 

[Buzz Mills]

It figures...take the cheap route. Buying those from China not only cost American's their jobs, it cost them their lives.
Sorry but I'm sick of tax dollars that should be spent supporting business and manufacturing in the USA going to foreign businesses and "American" companies that have their manufacturing done overseas.

The Chinese literally purchased a lot of our steel manufacturing plants, packed them up, and shipped them to China.

Some of their steel, lately, is pretty good quality, but not all.

 

[cheko1]

The bridge was designed with single points of failure, rather than the highly preferred redundancy in safety. Only two lanes were open in each direction, so it wasn't overloaded; however this could have caused an imbalanced load, depending on the structure, and which lanes were open. Whether the construction/resurfacing is involved is dependent on how much of the roadbed they were removing at given points. I've heard conflicting reports as to whether construction was still going on at 6:00PM--there are always harmonics that could be involved. and the train was passing by underneath the bridge at the time.

Construction work was going on Buzz at the time of the collapse.
My son had just been on the bridge shortly before it collapsed & he said they were jack hammering on the south end of it

 

[PrayersForMaura]

I am so surprised that the death toll is not higher, but this still doesn't make the few deaths that did occur any better
I just saw a bit on CNN about one of the victims who died. He daughters were adopted. They and her husband were on TV talking about what a great woman she was

this is so sad

 

[JBean]

http://forums.thecarlounge.net/zerothread?id=3370044&postid=40633745

Interesting post towards the bottom, from a Forensic Structural Engineer in Minneapolis:

Also, visual inspections can only tell you so much. You really have to do dye-penetration, mag-particle, or ultrasonic to truly tell that a connection or element is ok. And the cost and effort of doing those tests on EVERY connection of EVERY bridge is prohibitive. Just because a bridge has been "inspected" does not mean it is safe or cannot fail.

I think this is going to be an important issue. All these bridges are being inspected, but what does that truly accomplish? It can detect the outward cracks etc, but this is a real wake up call.

Next... airplanes.

 

[Trino]

They are going to do us in.

sorry Buzz I missed your correct answer.

If they haven't already.

 

[Buzz Mills]

I was listening to a guy on talkradio say he has seen so much carp come out of there in terms of fasteners, nuts ,bolts you name it. It is even mismarked and inside it is not even what it is supposed to be.
There corner cutting techniques across the board are going to kill us all off.

Bush quibbles and vetos every bill that is going to cost money, except when it comes to paying for the war. He's OK with that. He's going to veto the Homeland Security Appropriation Bill because it is $5 Billion over what he wants it to be. $5 billion is a week and a half in Iraq.

 

[JBean]

I am so surprised that the death toll is not higher, but this still doesn't make the few deaths that did occur any better
I just saw a bit on CNN about one of the victims who died. He daughters were adopted. They and her husband were on TV talking about what a great woman she was

this is so sad

It's going to be significant when the totals are in. But the fact that so many survived is pretty amazing.