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August 2, 2007 12:37 PM PDT
Aging infrastructure at heart of Minnesota disaster
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"We just don't have enough inspectors and inspections," said William Ibbs, a professor of civil engineering at the University of California at Berkeley. "It didn't surprise me. It is a tragedy, but unfortunately it doesn't surprise me."
At least 79 people are injured and 4 have been confirmed dead after a bridge spanning the Mississippi River in Minnesota collapsed on Wednesday, according to several reports. Several cars were also trapped in the rubble.
To a large degree, the difficulty of adequately maintaining infrastructure is caused by the sheer scope of the task. "Did you know that there are over 600,000 bridges in the U.S.?" Ibbs said. "And there are also pipelines, roads, dams, schools."
Star Tribune/MCT
Mississippi River in Minneapolis
collapsed during evening rush hour
Wednesday, killing several people
and injuring dozens more.
More than 500 bridges failed in the U.S. during the 1990s, he said. Some were sudden, spectacular failures of commuter bridges that involved fatalities. The majority, however, were out-of-the-way bridges that often failed slowly, or at least in an observable way that gave people advance warning of danger.
But age and budget shortfalls are also factors.
"The age of the infrastructure in the U.S. is old. A lot of the highways and bridges are 30 to 35 years old," said Essam Zaghloul, CEO of Fiber Optic Systems Technology, also known as Fox-Tek. "The roads are old, and they aren't always safe." (The type of bridge that collapsed in Minnesota, an arch bridge, was popular in the 1950s, said Ibbs, but it was phased out when engineers came up with new designs that were cheaper to construct.)
The Toronto-based Fox-Tek has created a fiber-optic sensor system that monitors the health of steel structures. It primarily sells its systems--which can cost tens of thousands of dollars--to oil companies that want to prevent leaks in oil pipelines, or to other private sector clients. It has sold systems to monitor bridges and other public works, but has largely backed out of pursuing more of this business because most government agencies don't have the budgets to fund such projects.
"They try to manage the best they can with the funds they have," Zaghloul said.
The Fox-Tek system detects minute changes in the strain of a structure due to internal corrosion or other factors. The changes in the strain are forwarded via a fiber link to a ground station near the sensor. The data gathered is then converted mathematically into a predicted rate of failure.
The data then lets building owners schedule preventive maintenance.
It isn't just big structures such as bridges that have people worried. In Massachusetts in the last two weeks, officials have been scrutinizing manhole covers and storm drains after a driver was badly injured by a grate dislodged by a truck. Other incidents have since been reported in the greater Boston area, and crews are scrambling to weld the metal elements in place.
And it's not just public infrastructure that's at risk. Private facilities break too. BP got into hot water last year after pipeline leaks in Alaska. The leaks were attributed to corrosion and led to a multimillion-dollar cleanup.
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Paying for the repair of streets, and water systems, and wastewater systems is not a high priority and we always pay out more in the long run then spending the necessary funds for maintenance. Same issues as health insurance. Nobody needs government until a tragedy happens...
2. Aging infrastructure at heart of Minnesota disaster
That pretty well says it all!
In other parts of the world they are driving over bridges that were made back before cars were invented. Our bridges are old after 30-35 yrs!!!
I'm confused !!!!
on military spending debt. For this money you get a continual
stream of manufactured "enemies" and "wars". The U.S. now has
14% inflation, unemployment in the same neighborhood, and
negative GDP (see shadow statistics for these real numbers).
Welcome to your life in the military welfare state.
handle the load, that is going to be placed on it, or is it going to
fail too?
There's no reason I should have to pay for a bridge 2000 miles away that I will never use.
alone so far this year whereas in whole of Europe (population 2 times of whole of US) not
450 people have been shot to death all you have to do is consider the following facts:
1- US does not even provide its citizens with such basic & necessary service as Universal Healthcare. Whereas in Europe they get Universal Healthcare, Education, Daycare & more. Can you imagine how much healthier & more educated & relaxed they are as a result!
2- They have excellent public Transpiration systems in Europe, whereas we have 3rd world
country class public Transportation and crumbling. Just take the TGV from Paris to anywhere
in France and then take Amtrak in US and you will see my point.
3- We pay the same taxes as Europeans, if not even more in most cases, when you consider
property Taxes that we pay which they dont. But we just get NOTHING for our Taxes except
a gargantuan Military, one unnecessary War after another and a few multi Billionaires.
And that is why Europeans societies & economy are getting stronger & richer as you can
see by the ever rising Euro against the Dollar.
The question is then HOW is it possible that we pay same Taxes as European & Canadians but get just about NOTHING of the social (Universal) services that they get and as a result we
are getting poorer & poorer every day? The answer is the lies & lies of the Big media in USA.
From "The reason why Iraq was invaded", to "What is happening in Iraq now..", to "We have
better health care than Europeans or Canadians..", etc. etc. etc.
And the Big media is not just CNN, CBS, WSJ, NYT, Fox, etc. but it is also Google, Yahoo
and every other source of information that is Wall Street based.
What is the answer? It is for us to find alternative & independent sources of information.
That is why we recommend the following:
get your search engine information from AnooX (www.anoox.com),
get your news from RealNews (www.RealNews.com)
or find other alternative & independent sources of information, just dont get them from the
Big media in US.
Yet, they never have enough money for education, health care and infrastructure. All vital to the overall health and success of our country.
We are only beginning to pay for the all the poor decisions of the US over the past 50 years. There is much more of this sort of infrastructure failure to come.
I just wonder how long it will take for the majority of Americans to realize it and then demand change. We are rotting from the core and yet we still do not change.
scored 50 deficiencies? She was confused about the numbers but even more confused about what "deficiencies" meant. Actually, a deficiency
rarely involves structural integrity issues. The bridge that fell was deemed perfectly safe despite that 50 score. If the cause were metal fatigue, not visible due to paint, then perhaps sandblasting of critically important structural members may be required in the future for inspections. I also saw a new electronic device that can monitor the movements of the various parts of the bridge and report any changes in behavior to local computers. This would be a very valuable method of preventing loss of life. nearly always a bridge starts acting funky before it falls, and changes are often noted by those who travel the bridges every day. The media is eternally confused whenever they deal with technology (politicians too, who seem to be mostly trying to figure out how to play this bridge collapse to their advantage). The media needs to have a bridge engineer look over their news scripts and remove all the hysterical BS these news channels are broadcasting. They're trying to scare woman drivers away from driving over bridges.
I am not saying that the construction team did a sloppy or negligent job. Sometimes things go badly even when you do everything right. I hope that we do not make honest workers into scape goats (If someone did violate procedure and cause this accident, they should be brought up on charges).
I live in this area and see firsthand what kind of congestion problem we have here.I seriously doubt this bridge was designed with todays load in mind.Well over 100,000 vehicles used this bridge daily.Although this is an 8 lane freeway,at rush hour it gets so congested that traffic slows to a stop at times and is bumper to bumper.At the time this happened (6pm rush hour) the 4 northbound lanes were basically at a standstill and full of vehicles from one end of the bridge to the other.The southbound lanes did not contain nowhere near the congestion so we had a lopsided load as well.This particular bridge also didnt have any center support by design.The construction that was being done at the time had absolutely nothing to do with the supports of the bridge and is not to blame here.
Like alot of the freeways and highways here it was built in the late 60s and 40 years later the demand is so high that many become congested at the morning and evening rush hours.I might also add that the temperature that day peaked at 92 degrees F.The other bridge you see in the picture is 10th av.
For now the traffic is being diverted to MN highway 280 to I-94 where you can get back to 35W from there.280 is a 4 lane highway to I94 so I see the congestion there is really heavy now and backs up the entire I35 from the 393 to 694 loop.
The worst part is it will take YEARS to rebuild this thing and will undoubtably be of better design.we hope.
- America Already has plenty of "free preventive care."
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by R.Jefferson
August 5, 2007 10:39 AM PDT
- In NY if your poor or indigent, you can live comfortably off state cheese. How do you meaningfully implement a hybrid ?preventative care? and private insurance health care system?
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See all 56 Comments >>What about fat people, who claim to not be able to help themselves and in 5 years gets diabetes, heart disease or crashes their car in to a bus full of children because their asthma acts up and they can?t breath? This is probably the greatest medical funding black hole there is. Being fat is completely preventable but and not conducive to good health. Yet this is America and can enjoy such frivolous and oxymoronic things as fried ice cream.
What about hood rats that eat nothing but hoho?s, fast food, and grape drink, and chill on the porch from 2pm til midnight? That?s not nutrition. And what happens when these hood rats turn 14 and have a new liter of broodlings? NYS will step in and give free baby formula and healthcare to the darling mother and children. Again, human behavior complicates matters.
Preventive care is what human beings should do to themselves without the governments help or interference. Eat fruit and vegetables, go for a walk, volunteer, plant a tree, read a book to a kid, be a mentor, advocate for those who cant, run for elected office, and you shouldn?t have time for bad habits.