The bridge just fell down

[shorty6049]

So as some of you may have heard, we just had a bridge fall down in Minnesota. This was a bridge over the mississippi which held a main highway. luckily becasue it happened at the end of rush hour, there werent a HUGE amount of cars, but so far 41 people were injured, and 6 are dead. i just dont understand how a bridge would just fall in the river like that.....

 

[William]

I'm watching right now. Its pretty ridiculous. There were NO structural errors that they knew of. Its really quite alarming.

 

[Corry]

Yeah, it's quite scary...I have friends from the area that drive that bridge (from another forum I'm on).

 

[shorty6049]

yeah, i live probably about 15 minutes away from there, , i have a friend who drives home over that bridge every night, he had the day off today

 

[jstuedle]

We have been concerned in our little corner of the universe about the new chemical ice melt compound the state is using. It is much more corrosive that simple salt. It soaks down through the expansion joints of the bridges and attacks the steel. Maybe could be related? The TV said it was a steel failure not concrete.

 

[shorty6049]

well, its possible but from what i heard there may have been some cracking or something in the structure that was noted the last couple years during the routine inspection but as far as i could tell , they seemed to be saying that it wasnt enough to cause problems ( apparently it was??) i'm kind of amazed how widespread this news is though, i turned on the tv today and Matt Lauer was in minneapolis on the news, i saw it on the yahoo home page as well as cnn.com, this is also causing big traffic issues because that highway is really important for a lot of people getting to and from work.

 

[LaFoto]

Well, it is all over our German news, too!
And they say the number of victims has risen up to 9... oh dear!

 

[Alex_B]

well, I would guess it is corrosion as well.

Corrosion of innovative materials and new steels is part of my job, and many rhings are not really fully understood yet. but still people hardly ever check for corrosion before things happened.

 

[Tangerini]

Whatever the reason, it is very scary and sad. My heart goes out to those affected.

 

[shorty6049]

wow, german news as well, thats even more surprising, but i guess its a pretty big deal when a bridge full of cars just drops into a river for no apparent reason

 

[Alex_B]

wow, german news as well, thats even more surprising, but i guess its a pretty big deal when a bridge full of cars just drops into a river for no apparent reason

well, last night there were even reports on German TV which shed some light on how often German motorway bridges are monitored and maintained.
I wonder if they had all that footage in the drawer already or if they produced it just in one day ...