Imagine that Georgia DOT will likely be calling upon Ga Tech’s structural engineers to aid with their on-staff folks to deal with the collapse of I-85 just north of downtown this evening during a massive fire in the road below. It will be a nightmare for a while to come, with the highway closed in both directions there. http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/30/us/atlanta-i-85-fire/
Of all times to have to be attending a 3 day conference (commuting each day) off I-85 starting tomorrow. Might need to start driving now…
Fortunately word is everyone is safe. Pretty incredible scene.
I just read about. Surprising to me that they don’t know what caused it. One photo did seem to show a lot of steel drums stored under the road, though. Vandalism?
Atlanta already has horrendous traffic, my company’s HQ is in Atlanta, and because the city has very little mass transit, people have to drive. Something like this happened in NJ on Route 80 near where I live, where a tanker truck leaked gasoline and then it exploded, which wiped out the bridge over a small river that basically made 80 west impassable. They were able to get a temporary bridge up within a week or so and ended up being able to replace it within a couple of months, but when that was out every alternate route was bumper to bumper. Going to be rough down there for a long time, that is for sure, I doubt they will be able to replace it that quickly.
Yes. Just terrible when these accidents happen. It is going to be mess for a while.
When CA did such a thing and had to shut down a highway (Trafficammageddon) they were able to plan for it. I think they did it over a weekend. This is unplanned so it is going to take a while.
Honestly it’s all just a matter of time before we see this happening all the time. There is a very high, scary bridge by me that is getting inspected now monthly. Monthly means, holy crap this thing is falling down. It’s held together by what looks like giant clips and bands. It’s 100+ feet down to the water so really not survivable by any stretch if anyone goes over it. And the water below is 100+ feet deep, I go there by boat so I know. I can’t tell you how many nightmares I’ve had about it. I’m just glad my kids don’t drive over it anymore to get to school.
Before we start casting stones about crumbling infrastructure, take a look at some of the footage of the actual fire that brought the bridge down. You could see billowing black smoke for over 15 miles. This bridge didn’t topple because it was old and poorly maintained; it toppled because it melted. And concrete will melt; heck, I’m not a chemist, but I am pretty sure that nearly anything will melt.
Haven’t heard an update as to the “cause”, but they said under the highway there was a staging area for a bunch of. Cable upgrade equipment and the cable was encased in material that is like PVC piping. That is a petroleum based product and very flammable.
They staggered opening of city and state services this morning and cancelled one county school (spring break was starting anyway this weekend) but heading by home tonight from the conference I am attending may be a nightmare as people hit the roads simultaneously. I will be on surface streets but these will be ones necessary for cars being diverted from the closed highway. I am supposed to meet friends for dinner in an area that will put me in a traffic mess. Will see how that goes. The best line I heard today was that this was the biggest collapse for Atlanta since the Super Bowl.
What gave way was likely the steel, when it is heated it warps and gives way, it doesn’t like heat at all. Given the intensity of the flame it would likely cause the steel to twist and rip out of the supports that hold up the roadway and collapse.
huh?
Could have been an accident, could have been arson, but everybody on the internet know there was equipment stored under the overpass because half of the twitterverse posted pictures of it. Not sure what crumbling infrastructure has to do with this situation. And no lives were lost in the collapse.
I don’t think this was crumbling infrastructure, no steel bridge is going to stand up to that kind of heat, I don’t care if it was built a month ago or 30 years ago. It reminds me of the people critical of the WTC collapsing the way it did, the jet fuel burning produced temperatures of over 3000 degrees F, no building would stay up faced with that.
I think romany’s point is that we KNOW the nation’s infrastructure is in dire need of upgrade, expansion and reinforcement. It was, I think, the only issue both parties agreed on during the last election.
@jym626 -I feel for you with going to that conference. Looking at the suggested routes by Georgia DOT looks like the upper half of Atlanta is going to be a continual traffic jam until the bridge is repaired.
Yesterday as I was grocery shopping here in CA, I get a text from my DD who is a third year at Georgia Tech saying “Mom-If you see the news about a bridge in Atlanta, I am away from it.” It turns out my DD (who has her car with her for the first time at college), had driven over that bridge 90 minutes earlier because she was attending a corporate dinner for GT students in Buckhead. I immediately called her and she further said to me “.Mom don’t look at any of the pictures until I get back to campus because it is going to scare you.” My DD was on one side of Atlanta and her college was on the other with the freeway closed so a lot of surface streets later she made it back to campus-thank goodness for GPS. To make matters worse during the middle of our conversation, an alert goes out that “there is an active shooter at Tech Square” where a ton of students have gathered for the Sting Break festivities. Turns out it was not an active shooter but the police did have someone in custody for an incident at the Georgia Tech Hotel (where I usually stay). Upon my return home, I then watch the GT Men’s Basketball team get “slaughtered” by TCU in the NIT Championship.
Understandably, I had a stiff drink last night.
My DD said that at her table while the dinner was going on, all the ME’s pulled out their phones, begain analyzing photos of the bridge, worked out why it happened and what could be done to repair it and spent the rest of the dinner doing calculations and sketches on napkins. Guess that is what happens when you eat with a bunch of engineers…
To be fair regarding the safety of the WTC, there’s been some reconsideration as to how to design escape routes, so that they stand up even if the rest of the building collapses. Sprinklers are now located in the core areas of buildings. And steel frames are designed so there’s less likely to be a progressive collapse. And they have elevators that can be used even in case of a fire. New high rises are safer.
It’s been a few years since I read the report from the 9/11 commission, but one thing that stuck with me is that virtually everyone in WTC that had any chance to escape did, with the obvious exception of the first responders. After the bombing in the parking garage in 93(?), the tenants took the evacuation drills pretty seriously, and learned all the alternate escape routes. They helped each other. Only those who were hit or had multiple escape routes blocked were unable to get out. It really was a triumph of safety planning, in the middle of an absolute atrocity.
Sounds like Atlanta got traffic blocked before the collapse, and the fire fighters got out from under the bridge before it collapsed.
About 7pm EDT yesterday, someone at GDOT who knows what was stored under that bridge started looking at where else similar items are stored under bridges, and started putting in place safety plans to prevent a recurrence, and those plans are going through the evaluation and approval cycle now. Has anyone told me this? No, but I’ve been a part of a few accident investigations. Fight the fire, reroute the traffic, rebuild the bridge, make sure it doesn’t happen again. Lots of people won’t see much of their families for a while.