Thanks, @katliamom That’s exactly what I meant.
Whether THIS particular incident was caused by crumbling infrastructure or not, incidents like this are going to continue to occur and in greater frequency because we’re ignoring the problem.
Hell, around here we have whole roads collapsing because the sewers and whatnot under the streets are collapsing. But because it happens in places like Detroit and Flint, it doesn’t reach the news.
@mathmom:
You are correct, hopefully modern buildings will learn from the WTC. I was talking about the building collapsing, not the lack of escape routes, because of the lack of safe egress almost everyone above the level of the floors where the plane hit couldn’t get out, the stairwells were compromised for a number of reasons. The thing about the WTC is it took a hit from an airliner going 500+ MPH , which is tremendous kinetic energy, and didn’t fall or fall apart for that matter, it collapsed because of the fire from the jet fuel and even a modern building facing that would likely collapse or fall over more than likely, because steel doesn’t take that kind of heat.
Personally I think the building collapsing on itself was a blessing, a more conventional design when the steel gave way might have fallen over, and likely it would have collapsed to the east which would have caused thousands more depths.
It’s pretty hard to design for every possible catastrophe - I don’t blame the original engineers of the WTC. Ideally though you want to give people time to get out and for them to know that getting out is necessary. It reminds me a bit of learning about reinforcing concrete beams. You can make a really strong beam that snaps suddenly. Or you can make one that shows cracks before it snaps. The latter is safer.
It really is unlikely that a steel-framed skyscraper would fall OVER rather than in on itself. As it was, a considerable amount of the structure was thrown helter-skelter.
As for the I-85 bridge, no doubt the forensic engineers are already out there. The collapsed section appears to be a single span of precast concrete. They may be able to simply replace the span using the original design to save time. A lot will depend on whether the supports are still sound.
3 people have been arrested now
We drove across that section of i85 less than an hour before the collapse on our way to the airport for a Spring Break trip. There was no fire at that time, just the usual traffic jam. The bad news is that the collapsed section is south of the I85/GA400 intersection, which means it blocks two of the three main routes into downtown Atlanta from the north (I85, I75, GA400).
I’ll be surprised if there’s a simple fix for this. I saw photos showing the plastic stuff next to the supports. CNN says that three sections of both north and south I85 will need to be replaced. I’m sure that they’ll go as fast as possible but this type of heavy engineering always takes a significant amount of time.
I’ll have to look at google maps when we get back on 4/8 to see which way is best to get home. Either 285 or i75 to ga400. Ugh.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/arrested-atlanta-fire-underneath-interstate-bridge-46509148 so one of the 3 homeless folks put a chair in a shopping cart and set it on fire. Brilliant.
Going to/from the conference today waze directed me down 85. I chickened out this morning but followed it this afternoon. Took me o the exit that sends traffic up 400. Lots of cones and lots of cops sitting in their cars with lights flashing preventing traffic from going the wrong way. They are going to be very bored and very hot in the coming months in those posts.
Ugh - I had a driver take me home from the airport a few months ago. He started giving me all kinds of crazy theories, including how a plane couldn’t bring down the wtc, and how the government has the cure to cancer, and cured jimmy carter, but won’t let us regular folks have the medicine. It was late, and dark and I didn’t want him to pull over and kill me so I just mmm…hmmmmed…and then RAN out of the car when I pulled in front of the house.
Well, the immunotherapy that was so successful for Jimmy Carter is pretty cool!
The I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis is what I thought of immediately. In August 2007, 8 lanes dropped over 100 feet into the Mississippi River during evening rush hour. 13 people killed, 145 injured. The Bush administration stepped up with financing, and it was rebuilt within a year (with a light rail lane added).
Got into a heated discussion several years ago with an older college classmate who bought into the truther spiel…including a website which stated jet fuel couldn’t possibly get hot enough to melt steel beams.
A laughable claim not only for anyone who’s an engineer, but also anyone who took basic chemistry with lab and paid a smidgen of attention. Also, this test can be applied on a small scale by subjecting steel electric guitar strings under stress on a guitar to a cigarette lighter or equivalent source of heat.
A brother of a friend who was a guitarist was stupid enough to do that “just to see what would happen” on friend’s guitar when briefly stepped out to grab more food. Said brother was lucky to not have his eye poked out when 2 stressed guitar strings snapped onto his face.
Friend was really pissed off and dressed down the younger brother while I was shaking my head. The brother’s also banned from the room where he stores his guitar collection.
As for I-85, good thing several of the major counties inthe metro area are on spring break this coming week, so the traffic mess will only be severely terrible instead of outrageously terrible.
For the past 2 days, the cars exiting at the last possible exit going south (the next exit takes drivers onto another road heading north) was already backing up the whole exit ramp onto the highway, and a friend told me that last evening it took them 25 minutes to get off that exit (and Saturday night traffic is mild around that location). This should be an interesting few weeks, and change for several months.
I jokingly said that at least the focus on the I-85 traffic mess Friday took away form the traffic around the first exhibition game at the new stadium that night. Someone pointed out that if the game had still been at the old stadium, the impact of the I-85 fire would have been even worse!
Ha, as a structural engineer I would tell ME’s to stick to their field of expertise! 
Not even most structural engineers are bridge experts - I’m not.
And yes, if we had to design buildings to withstand impacts from jet airliners, no buildings would ever be constructed. It’s already expensive enough to design buildings for seismic loads.
^Lol, ML, I was thinking that too. ME’s don’t take structural analysis or concrete design. I actually had to do a bridge design once - hopefully still standing somewhere in Cleveland…
@sylvan8989, that’s cool! A local engineer offered to sell me his bridge design firm and I said, thanks but no thanks!
I’ve been involved in bridges by detailing precast segments. I worked on the Northern Avenue Bridge in Boston. I love doing that - it’s like putting a huge puzzle together.
cool to both of you!
They are working round the clock to fix this mess. Today there was a fatality on another major highway that blocked traffic in both directions for hours this morning, and then we had horrible thunderstorms, wind and possible tornados. Tough time for this city’s traffic.
Totally OT, but this is one of the things that puzzles me about kids who say they want to major in “engineering.” What kind is what I always wonder. It isn’t as if the field is monolithic! (I am the D of a chemical engineer. 
)
Atlanta can’t catch a break these days. Earlier today the incoming lanes on I-20 “buckled”, sending a car and motorcycle airborne. The motorcycle rider was killed. That stretch of I-20 is closed … but this road repair should be far quicker than the I-85 collapse.
BTW, when coming home from the airport after our Spring Break trip we had to detour around the I-85 collapse. It was bumper-to-bumper along the I-285 section of the detour and we got rear-ended in traffic jam. No injuries and not a huge amount of obvious damage but something got bent deep in the metal. The car will be in the shop for 18 days.
It gets better. We bought the car just before Christmas. My wife was rear-ended a week afterwards (significant visible damage and painful neck strain). Car was in the shop for 30 days. Now this. We’ll have owned the car for just over 100 days and it will have been in the shop for 48 of those days.
PS. We told the body shop to turn off the damn cloaking device on the car!