Interstate 5 bridge collapses over Skagit River!

[Kyle]

I was thinking of heading north this weekend...think I'll change my plans...crazy. Feel horrible for people that live in the area- traffic is going to suck for a long long time.

 

[Yreka]

Glad no one was hurt, could have been much worse.

 

[skyking]

WSDOT has confirmed, this was caused by that truck hitting the supports on the right lane southbound.

 

[Ichinisan]

Reading...

 

[Balt]

WSDOT has confirmed, this was caused by that truck hitting the supports on the right lane southbound.

Ugh. I know accidents happen, but maybe a bit of extra caution is called for when one is driving a huge truck across an old bridge.

 

[Charlie98]

Was just watching an episode of engineering disasters, they said the majority of bridges in the us received a grade of "D" or "F". One of the worst is the Brooklyn bridge. The base of that bridge is rusted through the rebar and in danger of collapsing within one year if not repaired. This is due to constant neglect of maintenance required.

True! We had a drop yard (for semi-trailers) that backed up to that bridge... you could see the rust and perforations in the steel... and this was in the early '90's. As an 18-wheeler we paid something like $80 to cross one of the bridges (I forget which one...) and for a simple in-and-out pickup or drop on Long Island cost almost $300 in tolls. Good to see my money went for maintenance and upkeep.

 

[BoomerD]

OOPS!

Fuck, dammit! I hate it when that happens...kind of like this:

http://news.yahoo.com/crane-accident-cuts-power-one-084744014.html

 

[Jeff7]

Scary. Makes you wonder how often bridges actually get inspected, if at all.

Psh! Spending money on infrastructure is for commies!




:\

WSDOT has confirmed, this was caused by that truck hitting the supports on the right lane southbound.

Critical hit! Ouch...that's some bad luck there.

 

[mugs]

Hopefully their won't be any casualties. I would think we would know by now if their were.

The only casualty here is the English language.

 

[Farang]

I don't understand how nobody died. This is rural I-5 so cars are doing 70-80mph. My best guess is the SUV saw the bridge star to collapse and tried to brake before getting to it, at least slowing it down for the plunge.

 

[skyking]

Pickup driver was a Navy guy and his wife, towing a travel trailer. He hit the brakes but could not stop.
That probably saved some lives as he slid and others got stopped.

 

[Kaido]

Looks like the cause may have been a truck with an oversized load striking bridge beams:

While the cause of the collapse was being investigated, witnesses reported seeing a semi-truck with an oversized load crossing the bridge and striking the beams on the north end before the bridge collapsed.

"I saw it. I was less than 50 feet away from the truck when it hit it," witness Dale Ogden told KING 5. "I had just passed it in the fast lane southbound and it had an oversized load. It was approximately 12 feet wide and over 14 feet tall. It was in the slow lane when I came by...I was behind the flag car and in front of the truck in the other lane and I saw the whip - normally tells you how high they can clear - start hitting the bridge. I looked in my rearview mirror knowing this was not going to turn out well."

"I saw the truck strike the right corner of the bridge. It almost tipped the truck over but it came back down. It tipped it up to about a 30 degree angle to the left and it came back down on its wheels and almost instantaneously behind that I saw girders falling in my rearview mirror."

Glad they all made it!

 

[PottedMeat]

Looks like the cause may have been a truck with an oversized load striking bridge beams:
Glad they all made it!

heh so are they going to use this as an excuse not to spend any money on infrastructure upgrades or is there going to be a burst of panic spending?

 

[cronos]

heh so are they going to use this as an excuse not to spend any money on infrastructure upgrades or is there going to be a burst of panic spending?

There *is* no money to 'panic spend'. Reallocation is probably going to happen, but something else will suffer because of that.

 

[ViRGE]

Glad no one was hurt, could have been much worse.

Agreed. I'm absolutely shocked no one was hurt. That's fantastic news on an otherwise miserable event.

I-5 being completely cut off, yeesh.

There *is* no money to 'panic spend'. Reallocation is probably going to happen, but something else will suffer because of that.

Well in theory the truck driver is liable if they did in fact cause the bridge to collapse. The problem is that replacing a bridge is ungodly expensive, which means their insurance company is going to use every trick in the book to keep from paying out; they'll try to claim it wasn't the truck that really caused the bridge to collapse, and then they'll claim there's an exception in their contract which means they aren't actually liable. Meanwhile the odds of the trucking firm having the funds to cover any significant part of the bridge are virtually nil.

The good news is that it's an interstate bridge, so WA state won't be on its own. The Feds will help out with this.

On a side note, this is why you don't do truss bridges on interstates anymore. Somewhere, somehow, someone finds something tall enough to hit it with.:|

 

[Kaido]

heh so are they going to use this as an excuse not to spend any money on infrastructure upgrades or is there going to be a burst of panic spending?

Will be interesting to see...I think it was just after the I-35W bridge collapse in Mississippi was when I helped a buddy move cross-country. Every single bridge we went over had inspectors on it on the trip...made for some slow-going!

 

[kalrith]

Hey, wars are expensive, we spent over a trillion on the Iraq debacle while our infrastructure goes to shit. Probably won't see that in other 1st world countries since they don't have to play "world cop" and get to spend their $$ on keeping things like roads and bridges maintained..

And if they do get money for the infrastructure, they'll spend the vast majority of it on new projects instead of maintenance and repairs:

http://seattletimes.com/html/editorials/2020844981_edittransportationgastaxxml.html

The House Transportation Committee passed a 12-year, $8.4 billion revenue package Monday...

Critics convincingly argue too much money in the House proposal is earmarked or bonded for new projects and not enough is spent to maintain the current system.

Less than $1 billion would be set aside for maintenance, operations and preservation — far short of the $3.1 billion over 10 years suggested by the Washington Roundtable, a consortium of businesses, many of which rely on roads to transport goods to port.

 

[ViRGE]

"Gov. Jay Inslee — who issued an emergency proclamation for surrounding Skagit, Snohomish and Whatcom counties — said it will cost $15 million to repair the Skagit River bridge. The federal government has already promised the state $1 million in emergency dollars to fix the bridge."

 

[highland145]

OOPS!

Fuck, dammit! I hate it when that happens...kind of like this:

http://news.yahoo.com/crane-accident-cuts-power-one-084744014.html

Why do I get the feeling there was a grin on your face when you read that?

 

[Imp]

Not one joke about how Canada is invading your country with oversized loads?

 

[highland145]

Not one joke about how Canada is invading your country with oversized loads?

That little thing?

 

[Mixolydian]

Why the fuck would we need to maintain/update our most basic infrastructure? Damn commie libruls stealin my freedom! Gimme more guns!

 

[etrigan420]

WOOHOO, WE MADE NATIONAL NEWS!!!

...wait...



I live about 2 miles from that bridge, and cross it daily going to and from work.

Traffic is gonna be a nightmare.

 

[zinfamous]

It's nice to know that we literally are approaching the point where the only thing we get for our tax dollars is a large military. Who needs roads and bridges anyways?!

well, large part of the stimulus was overhauling infrastructure, pushing through work many of these structures that were well-known to be obsolete.

Of course, you know...guess which "crowd" blew all the air about work crews essentially "wasting money" repaving and rebuilding all the raods and bridges that were "already there"....

 

[Ichinisan]

well, large part of the stimulus was overhauling infrastructure, pushing through work many of these structures that were well-known to be obsolete.

Of course, you know...guess which "crowd" blew all the air about work crews essentially "wasting money" repaving and rebuilding all the raods and bridges that were "already there"....

The waste isn't completely imaginary. In my state, I saw new, flawless roads being re-paved for no good reason. One in particular was a rural highway that had very little traffic. I got stuck in backed-up traffic and personally had to wait for hours due to the construction. It was an absolutely disgusting waste of money, time, and manpower. States wanted to get that stimulus $; federal government wanted job numbers to look better.