Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses
281–290 of 1001 posts
Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
It certainly does not seem reasonable to design a bridge pillar to withstand a direct impact from a massive cargo ship. But I guess I thought that maybe there was... typically some kind of earthen buffer around the pillar to prevent such an impact? That's probably impractical too, I guess. I guess I just didn't realize ~$1bn bridges were one fluky ship accident away from total collapse at any given time. I think mayb…
>>But I guess I thought that maybe there was... typically some kind of earthen buffer around the pillar to prevent such an impact? It does look reasonable to have such a buffer. But any preventive measure will have limits as what and how serious an impact it can deal with. In this case the ship this massive is something that is carrying ridiculous inertia, and its highly unlikely even a buffer could stop such an impa…
It wouldn't take as much of a buffer to redirect the ship at an angle away from the pillar, would it?
Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
It certainly does not seem reasonable to design a bridge pillar to withstand a direct impact from a massive cargo ship. But I guess I thought that maybe there was... typically some kind of earthen buffer around the pillar to prevent such an impact? That's probably impractical too, I guess. I guess I just didn't realize ~$1bn bridges were one fluky ship accident away from total collapse at any given time. I think mayb…
>>But I guess I thought that maybe there was... typically some kind of earthen buffer around the pillar to prevent such an impact? It does look reasonable to have such a buffer. But any preventive measure will have limits as what and how serious an impact it can deal with. In this case the ship this massive is something that is carrying ridiculous inertia, and its highly unlikely even a buffer could stop such an impa…
> But any preventive measure will have limits as what and how serious an impact it can deal with.
The recent grounding of a large container ship in Baltimore's harbor channel demonstrates that a sufficiently massive berm will stop any ship. What's needed is the will to do something about low-probability but catastrophic events (though large-ship collisions, groundings and fortuitously harmless steering failures are frequent enough that this should not have been dismissed as a low-probability event.)
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/16/business/evergreen-container-...
In this case, the nearby towers supporting transmission lines across the channel seem to be better-protected against ship collisions than the piers of the bridge.
Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bridges only last for roughly 50 years. Considering such collisions are rare enough to make the news as a memorable event you can workout for yourself that the odds are quite low over a bridges lifespan. They are designed to withstand smaller boat impacts because they occur relatively frequently, but cost vs benefit on rare events that are difficult to mitigate is quite different.
Interested in this claim, because it sounds about right, except that I can’t name a bridge constructed in the past 50 years. The bridges we can all name are pushing 100+ right?
The Crimean bridge is quite (in)famous, and it was built quite recently.
The Millau Viaduct also comes to mind when thinking of famous, iconic modern bridges.
Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses
#285Insane that the pylons wasn't protected by artificial islands.
Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you mean 50 years without maintenance? I would be shocked if major bridges weren't designed to last indefinitely.
I can think of at least 5 famous bridges that are way older than 50 years...
If it is a famous bridge, it seems possible that they’ve done some special extra maintenance, replace more wear-and-tear bits that would normally fail. Eventually you probably get the tourist attraction of Theseus.
Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses
#287Not that it matters to anyone else, but having driven across that bridge dozens of times with my kids, this is just shocking. It’s one of the main corridors in the area. Thank god it happened in the middle of the night, though that’ll be no consolation to the families of those who may have died.
I agree. I lived in PG county for years and this is a big deal
The 295 bridge collapse a decade ago was similarly shocking
U.S. infrastructure is beyond crisis level.
Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses
#288Not that it matters to anyone else, but having driven across that bridge dozens of times with my kids, this is just shocking. It’s one of the main corridors in the area. Thank god it happened in the middle of the night, though that’ll be no consolation to the families of those who may have died.
Growing up my grandmothers house was on the watet across the Bay from Baltimore. This bridge was literally in the backdrop of my childhood. Scary stuff.
Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interested in this claim, because it sounds about right, except that I can’t name a bridge constructed in the past 50 years. The bridges we can all name are pushing 100+ right?
New York City has had two major recent new bridge replacements that probably about 20M people can name: the Mario Cuomo (formerly Tappan Zee) and the Kosciuszko bridge. I’d argue the Bayonne Bridge raising kinda counts since it was almost a rebuild and more impressive in many ways since it stayed open the whole time. Meanwhile in the San Francisco Bay Area they replaced the Bay Bridge…
The Tappan Zee bridge certainly wasn't built with the intention of replacing it after 65 years. Nor, fortunately, was the George Washington bridge.
Re: Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses
#290Not that it matters to anyone else, but having driven across that bridge dozens of times with my kids, this is just shocking. It’s one of the main corridors in the area. Thank god it happened in the middle of the night, though that’ll be no consolation to the families of those who may have died.
I agree. I lived in PG county for years and this is a big deal The 295 bridge collapse a decade ago was similarly shocking U.S. infrastructure is beyond crisis level.
I'm not sure if I would expect any bridge to survive being struck by an enormous container ship.