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The local news stations always need to find a way to connect national tragedies to the local population. That firm designed many bridges across the US. They designed one of the bridges in St. Louis as well, so of course that was all over the local news. The bridge is 24 years old, I thought it was a bit of a stretch to try and link the two bridges.
And perhaps they should have left those red metal moving carriages as supports underneath the bridge until it was finished and routed the traffic around them until the cables were installed.
I thought that, too. You could have left a couple in the middle, just blocking one lane in each direction. It would have only been a slight annoyance to drivers.
OMG, so basically they put a bridge over an active roadway, that had no support. Who would think that would be an OK idea? Were they just hoping that it would stay up there by itself until they could get the cables on it?
The people responsible for this plan should be charged with manslaughter.
Last edited by Cloudy Dayz; 03-16-2018 at 06:49 AM..
For that kind of money they could have built a tunnel under the road complete with escalators. Of course, being Florida digging such a tunnel would likely cause sinkholes.
For that kind of money they could have built a tunnel under the road complete with escalators. Of course, being Florida digging such a tunnel would likely cause sinkholes.
I don't think a tunnel would have worked. If you look at the pictures you will see that in addition to the highway the bridge was going to span a waterway. A tunnel would have had to be pretty deep to go underneath the canal. Plus a tunnel in that area would probably just fill up with water.
That said, for that kind of money, they should have been able to come up with something better.
We have a number of footbridges in Boston over Storrow Drive. None of them are as wide or as clunky-looking. And in a hurricane and at the right wind angle, IMO the FIU bridge would have had issues with lift.
I wonder if they made models of this design and put any of them in a wind tunnel for testing.
The NTSB will conduct a thorough investigation with actual experts and we'll know what went wrong in a couple months.
Speculation is fine but wow, we have the armchair experts already stating as fact what happened and who is at fault?
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Who would think that would be an OK idea? Were they just hoping that it would stay up there by itself until they could get the cables on it?
