In which I say nothing helpful about the disaster

It’s almost obligatory for anybody in this community to say, “I just drove over that bridge yesterday.” Or “last week.” Or “I drive it all the time.”

I think I must be the only person in Minneapolis who almost never goes that way. I’ve been trying to conjure up a memory of that particular stretch of 35W, and for the life of me I can’t. I live in the northwest suburbs, so I always angle off before downtown, and if I’m going north I angle off northeast. So I’m much less spooked than your average Twin Cities blogger today.

I’m very sad though.

And I still can’t get terrorism out of my mind. The whole thing just doesn’t add up. Somebody’s holding something back, I suspect, to prevent panic.

0 thoughts on “In which I say nothing helpful about the disaster”

  1. I’m glad you’re safe. What doesn’t add up? The police say, “There is nothing to suggest that this was anything other than a structural collapse.” If it matters, that’s what it looks like to me from photos. If terrorists did it, we’d have a bomb of some kind or suicide. Part of a Muslim’s desire to commit terrorism is to clinch his salvation by his own death in jihad. This is far too subtle for that.

  2. What troubles me is that this bridge was regularly inspected, and there was no sign of serious deterioration. I suppose there can be invisible stress, and inspectors can make mistakes, but it seems a pretty massive failure to be accounted for that way.

    I’m no expert. I’m just suspicious.

  3. Yeah, I would think someone did something wrong in the making of it, but I also know engineers are not a uniform lot. The keepers of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse told us they were thinking of moving it back from the shore to avoid an eroding foundation. Some engineers said that was impossible. Some or at least one said moving big things like that was what he did for a living. It was moved successfully several years ago.

  4. I noticed the quote from the DailyKos and wondered if that kind of short-sighted argument would win out in public. I don’t think funding for last year would have changed this situation, but I prob. shouldn’t judge one way or the other at this distance.

  5. Uh, oh. I just heard Rush complain or echo a complaint that Minnesota spent $1 million in taxes on the viking ship in Moorhead–that in light of complaints that taxes should have been raised for infrastructure.

  6. Yeah, it didn’t take ’em long. The joke is that there was plenty of money for bridge repair (we have a revenue surplus in this state, for pity’s sake), but the MN Dept. of Transportation didn’t think the bridge needed serious attention right away. For all anybody knows, their judgment was perfectly reasonable in light of what could be discerned.

  7. Yes, that’s where I stand on it. It’s very sad–shows how much we rely on each other to live moral lives and do good work.

    Have they said how long it will take to remake the bridge?

  8. “We were surprised that we didn’t have more people seriously injured and killed,” Minneapolis Fire Chief Jim Clack told The Associated Press. “I think it was something of a miracle.”

    I just saw that in a syndicated article.

  9. When metal fails, it doesn't "gradually fail" for month after month after month so that inspectors have time to notice it. Rather, its breaking-point gradually lessens and lessens over time, until at some point the weight-load exceeds the ability of a key part of the structure to handle it. Then, that part breaks; its weight load is instantly shifted to other parts which then also break under the suddenly increased load — and the whole thing spectacularly collapses in a matter of seconds.

    Fire, as in the cases of the WTCs burning, or the tanker-truck fire under the LA overpass, weakens metal in a matter of minutes and hours. Corrosion and fatigue take years and decades. But the collapse is always a matter of seconds.

    A bridge collapse is just another type of "landslide" due to gravity having its inexorable way with unstable junk. Too much rain weaking a hillside, or too much snow on a steep, slippery slope, cause precisely the same kinds of sudden slides and avalanches that "catch everyone by surprise".

    The 35w bridge was a bad design in that all the spans depended upon each other for support — meaning that when one failed, the rest crumpled as well. If it had been a suspension bridge or an arched causeway, the collapse of one span due to metal rot wouldn't have destroyed the whole bridge.

    > (T)he MN Dept. of Transportation didn't think
    > the bridge needed serious attention right away.
    > For all anybody knows, their judgment was
    > perfectly reasonable in light of what could be discerned.

    Exactly. And speaking of the word "light", there's a certain boondoggle costing in excess of $1 billion that does nothing, so far, beyond carry people from the downtown to the Mall.

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