I will give you this part of the coverage... 


 


I've heard several times on the coverage of the bridge collapse tonight that severe weather could become a problem.  Based on the current radar, I think  it could:

weather.png

The arrows represent the movement of the storms.  The circle, with a strong storm, is moving right toward the river.


Update:  It now looks like the storm broke-up.  Guess where?  Yep, right at the freeway.  There is something to this...

Update II - What the bridge used to look like:

image1.jpg

image2.jpg

image3.jpg

image4.jpg

I have no idea if this is true, but it is intereting:
A University of Minnesota Civil Engineer in a report to MN-DOT recently noted that this bridge is considered to be a non-redundant structure. That is, if any one member fails, the entire bridge can collapse. A key factor is that there are only four pylons holding up the arch. Any damage to any one pylon would be catastropic. The textbook example of a non-redundant bridge is the Silver Bridge over the Ohio River. It failed shortly before Christmas in 1967 resulting in 46 deaths. A single piece of hardware failed due to a tiny manufacturing defect. But that piece was non-redundant, and the entire bridge collapsed into the icy river. Today, bridge engineers design bridges so that any single piece of the bridge can fail without causing the entire bridge to collapse. It is tragic that the I-35W bridge was built a few years too early to benefit from that lesson.

Posted: Wednesday - August 01, 2007 at 19:06          


©