Absolute tragedy! My thoughts and prayers to the survivors and victims.

Margarette

I know. Talk about a nightmare.

Shocking - what else can I say?

Get used to incidents like these, I guess. Remember the steam pipe explosions in New York City just a week or two ago? A crumbling infrastructure permeates many cities. It will probably get much worse before it gets better. Heck, you'd have to raise taxes to get the money to fix the problem of a crumbling infrastructure and we all know that ain't gonna happen easily (not in the States, at least).

http://fe30.news.sp1.yahoo.com/s/time/20......reakdown

On the good news front, at least there were nowhere near as many victims in the bridge collapse as initially feared.

Does make you wonder about our priorities doesn't it? Government funding to find out if it is scientific proof that kids usually ignore their parents when they are teens, and that Helmets help reduce head injuries (I have these two press clippings in my "Duh?" file at home). Money could be spent much better.

I heard in Canada that bridges are rebuilt for free every ten years.

Chances are, if I scrutinized the private automobile's or the residence of the prigs in our midst, I could deem them hazardous. Folks, this is not about a lack of funds or the apportionment of, but, the negligence on the part of the engineers who should have condemned a structure from public use.

Like the saying goes, "If it ain't broke don't fix it."

Or it may just be about the lowest bidder

True (that or bid rigging).

That's a lot of volunteer man-hours. Must be some extremely altruistic engineers & construction workers in Canada.

I think it's more about the corrolary -- "If it's broke, fix it."

There was a major story in most news papers last year about there being around 2100 bridges and overpasses that need replaced. I don't know the root cause of this one going but that some are in need of major work isn't a surprise and in some areas new bridges are being built to replace old ones, San Francisco area for example.

By all accounts, that's what the construction workers were doing.

More painkillers, Santa?

Hope you are feeling better.

John

I avoid pain killers....except when I passed a stone a few weeks ago. That hurt and after toughing it out for about 17 hours my wife had my sister come over and they forced me to go to the hospital and they gave me some pain killers that took care of everything. They liked me because I specifically told them that I didn't like the sensation of being 'high' and they said "don't worry, we'll take care of you" and they did!

As someone who spent seven years doing research on bridge deck durability, I have a slightly different perspective than other people on this. Bridges utilizing conventional construction techniques have a life span of 20-30 years before some type of major rehabilitation is needed. This life span is decreased for adverse conditions which can include multiple freeze-thaw cycles during the winter, excessive use of calcium chloride and other deicing chemicals, bridge deck cracking which allows water and chemicals to the reinforcing that will accelerate the erosion process, etc. Due to the large number of bridges out there, they are usually inspected once every two years unless deemed necessary to inspect more often. Very rarely will a bridge be condemned and shut down immediately upon inspection. The only time I've seen this happen is when a barge hits a bridge pier or something similar.

It seemed like they knew there was a problem with the bridge because there was some type of construction work going on (whether it be sealing, rehab, patching, etc.).

Margarette

Here's a pretty good preliminary report on bridges: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/us/20070803_BRIDGE_GRAPHIC.html

Or you can get the local report from http://www.startribune.com for updates... It's now reported 8 people are dead from this tragedy and it's absolutely amazing how so many people survived the 64 feet fall.