Baltimore Bay bridge collapses
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@89th said in Baltimore Bay bridge collapses:
@George-K said in Baltimore Bay bridge collapses:
Interesting.
Quite surprising those foundational supports aren't protected more given the sizes of ships going between them, obviously this is viewed in retrospect.
Hindsight is 20-20.
Did we have container ships in the 1970's like the one that struck the bridge?
@Jolly said in Baltimore Bay bridge collapses:
@89th said in Baltimore Bay bridge collapses:
@George-K said in Baltimore Bay bridge collapses:
Interesting.
Quite surprising those foundational supports aren't protected more given the sizes of ships going between them, obviously this is viewed in retrospect.
Hindsight is 20-20.
Did we have container ships in the 1970's like the one that struck the bridge?
Installing bumpers isn’t hindsight, it’s something they’ve been warned about. Bridges have been having them installed for several decades.
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@xenon said in Baltimore Bay bridge collapses:
Yeah - this seems like a freak, highly improbable thing.
Freak, highly improbable things eventually happen when you have 2000 cargo ships going in and out every year
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Some images from some area photographers.
Please love yourself.
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Beautiful. I wonder if the replacement bridge will be the same design?
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Also seen on Twitter: Biden says that the US Government will cover the cost of rebuilding the bridge and all other damage.
Why?
Doesn't the owner carry insurance?
By way of comparison, when the train derailed in East Palestine, he said that Norfolk Southern should pay for the cleanup.
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Also seen on Twitter: Biden says that the US Government will cover the cost of rebuilding the bridge and all other damage.
Why?
Doesn't the owner carry insurance?
By way of comparison, when the train derailed in East Palestine, he said that Norfolk Southern should pay for the cleanup.
@George-K said in Baltimore Bay bridge collapses:
Also seen on Twitter: Biden says that the US Government will cover the cost of rebuilding the bridge and all other damage.
Why?
Doesn't the owner carry insurance?
By way of comparison, when the train derailed in East Palestine, he said that Norfolk Southern should pay for the cleanup.
What is the comparative hit to jobs, commerce and transportation?
You do know this completely fucked all harbor tunnel traffic basically forever, right?
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Why do you say that?
I will admit when I saw the news originally I thought to myself that my next couple of DC trips will definitely be flights.
@jon-nyc said in Baltimore Bay bridge collapses:
Why do you say that?
I will admit when I saw the news originally I thought to myself that my next couple of DC trips will definitely be flights.
3600 trucks crossed the bridge daily. Many of those trucks are Hazmat. They now have to take a massive detour because they can't use the tunnels.
As for everyone else, in addition to losing the bridge to get to Dundalk and Essex, those trucks now have 30 or so miles of mixing in with the other traffic.
This is going to fuck the port, the state, the city and I-95 for a long while.
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A widely circulated video of the Key Bridge failure drew attention to the disastrous collapse of the upper bridge structure. But engineers who reviewed the footage said that did not appear to be the culprit in the disaster. Instead, they said, the superstructure failure was most likely a secondary effect of the pier crumbling beneath it after the collision.
Engineers who reviewed images of the bridge both before and after the collapse said no significant fender structures were visible. Only fairly small structures were visible in photos taken at the foot of the pier, and they did not appear to be substantial enough to be able to stop a large ship, some of them said. They said the structures may have served another purpose entirely — like preventing water from scouring and undermining the pier’s foundation.
Benjamin W. Schafer, a professor of engineering at Johns Hopkins University, said, after looking at images of the bridge taken before the disaster, “If you zoom further out, you can see these large cylinders that sort of define the shipping channel. They are to direct the ships and they are part of the bridge structure. Some would say those are protective structures. But I haven’t seen any evidence of fenders myself.”
In some bridges, engineers may elect, instead of fendering, “the alternative of making the pier exceptionally strong,” said Shankar Nair, a structural engineer with over half a century of experience who is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. But the visual evidence so far, he and others said, suggested that the pier was simply not strong enough to survive the collision.
The structure’s apparent vulnerability left some engineers dumbfounded.
“This is a huge shock,” Dr. Nair said. “A bridge of that size and importance should not collapse when hit by an errant vessel.”
