1pooh4u Posted March 26 Share Posted March 26 Mass casualty event after being hit by a ship. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/us/live-news/baltimore-bridge-collapse-03-26-24-intl-hnk/index.html 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1pooh4u Posted March 26 Author Share Posted March 26 You can’t tell in the video but they keep showing the collapse on tv and you see the headlights of cars going into the water. Fuckin scary 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
André Toulon Posted March 26 Share Posted March 26 See, this is why I'm terrified every time I cross the Pontchtrain....24 fucking miles over water with people coming and leaving the party capitol...it's unnerving. But I can't imagine actually seeing it... I usually seek out morbid shit like this but I'll be avoiding seeing cars falling into the water....chills. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SwimOdin Posted March 26 Share Posted March 26 This is doing wonders for my already unhealthy fear of bridges. 5 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1pooh4u Posted March 26 Author Share Posted March 26 41 minutes ago, André Toulon said: See, this is why I'm terrified every time I cross the Pontchtrain....24 fucking miles over water with people coming and leaving the party capitol...it's unnerving. But I can't imagine actually seeing it... I usually seek out morbid shit like this but I'll be avoiding seeing cars falling into the water....chills. A 24 mile bridge? Damn as a kid my parents drove to New Orleans and I remember crossing a long ass bridge tunnel bridge but Idt it was that one. Maybe it was. Had rest stops and everything. Watching the cars go into the water added a whole other level of anxiety 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1pooh4u Posted March 26 Author Share Posted March 26 29 minutes ago, SwimOdin said: This is doing wonders for my already unhealthy fear of bridges. I know someone that refuses to drive over bridges which is crazy cuz we live on an island 😬 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1pooh4u Posted March 26 Author Share Posted March 26 The container ship hit a column, witnesses say it felt like an earthquake 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
discolé monade Posted March 26 Share Posted March 26 absolutely horrific. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jman Posted March 26 Share Posted March 26 Looks like the ship had power failures resulting in the collision. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
viperxmns Posted March 26 Share Posted March 26 I guess it couldve been even worse 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1pooh4u Posted March 26 Author Share Posted March 26 Yeah this could have been a lot worse had they not been able to close the bridge. The vehicles that went into the water were construction vehicles working on the bridge. Any deaths are tragic but luckily it wasn’t worse the ship that ran into the bridge was involved in another accident at a port back in 2016 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoobdog Posted March 26 Share Posted March 26 I'm no engineer, but the way that bridge collapsed suggests there was at least one underlying design flaw. Also, someone is going to need to question the road crew's foreman, if he survived, on why he didn't evacuate his crew when the road was shut down. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasqueradeOverture Posted March 26 Share Posted March 26 My question is why the city didn't ever build fenders around the bridge's support beams? I feel like that's Harbor Engineering 101 (and a quick fix that should've been installed in the 80's after this happened). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
André Toulon Posted March 26 Share Posted March 26 6 hours ago, 1pooh4u said: the ship that ran into the bridge was involved in another accident at a port back in 2016 Well, someone's head is gonna roll for that...and probably not the guy that said "shit is cool, put it in the water" I feel like if y'all came through north Louisiana, you avoided the causeway and probably crossed one of the many other bridges, but if y'all drove the east coast and did head west until you got to like GA or something, or came through MS...yeah, you probably were on the 24 miler. Oh, and it's Louisiana, so the water level rises constantly and sometimes levels with the bridge (which they shut it down during times like that) 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Icarus27k Posted March 26 Share Posted March 26 A terrible accident because a ship pilot lost control of his ship, or whatever crazed conspiracy theory the Internet is coming up with? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raptorpat Posted March 27 Share Posted March 27 what 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostrek Posted March 27 Share Posted March 27 Right here it is the actual video of the track on the map and the actual footage and this is pretty interesting but honestly I don't think it's anything malicious 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Icarus27k Posted March 27 Share Posted March 27 1 hour ago, Raptorpat said: what I see you haven't seen social media today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raptorpat Posted March 27 Share Posted March 27 no all i saw was it lost power 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[classic swim] Posted March 27 Share Posted March 27 Better go on social media and read all those comments! 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoobdog Posted March 27 Share Posted March 27 3 hours ago, [classic swim] said: Better go on social media and read all those comments! I’m convinced. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Top Gun Posted March 27 Share Posted March 27 19 hours ago, scoobdog said: I'm no engineer, but the way that bridge collapsed suggests there was at least one underlying design flaw. Also, someone is going to need to question the road crew's foreman, if he survived, on why he didn't evacuate his crew when the road was shut down. No, that's how you'd expect just about any bridge to act in that situation. By their nature, support pillars are designed to handle much larger longitudinal loads (up/down) than transverse loads (side to side). The entire bridge's load is balanced and channeled through those pillars, so when one fails, that balance is disrupted, and you see what happens. The end of the video was telling, since without the weight of the central span to counterbalance it, the remaining portion of the bridge was pulled down sideways by its own weight. (Granted I'm no civil engineer or anything, but I have a decent handle on the basic physics.) As for the road crew, from what I understand there were all of two minutes between the mayday call and the impact. It was just enough time to close traffic, but probably not even enough to make the right calls to the crew on the bridge. Even if they had received the message, I don't think they would have had nearly enough time to get to safety. 18 hours ago, MasqueradeOverture said: My question is why the city didn't ever build fenders around the bridge's support beams? I feel like that's Harbor Engineering 101 (and a quick fix that should've been installed in the 80's after this happened). The momentum of a fully-loaded cargo ship like that moving at any sort of speed is absurdly massive, and by the basic concept of impulse, you need an equally titanic force (or a smaller force over a very long time) to bring it to a stop. Either way I don't think there's a fender design on the planet that would have made any real difference. There was just too much ship to stop. Maybe if you put the equivalent of an entire second bridge's worth of material around the pillars, but that's not remotely practical. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
discolé monade Posted March 27 Share Posted March 27 17 minutes ago, Top Gun said: There was just too much ship to stop. and that's how transport is these days. TOO heavy, and yet, ships only lose about 1400 crates annually. weird. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jman Posted March 27 Share Posted March 27 58 minutes ago, discolé monade said: and that's how transport is these days. TOO heavy, and yet, ships only lose about 1400 crates annually. weird. Six Sigma and other process improvement systems are designed to squeeze the most efficiency out of materials while minimizing risk. There is a science to this. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Master-Debater131 Posted March 27 Share Posted March 27 Its incredible to think only 6 people died. That's still horrible, but if this would have happened just a few hours later during rush hour this would be a vastly different story. I heard last night that they were investigating to see if bad fuel is partly to blame. Wouldnt shock me at all. Can cut a lot of costs if you use bad fuel. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1pooh4u Posted March 27 Author Share Posted March 27 17 hours ago, André Toulon said: Well, someone's head is gonna roll for that...and probably not the guy that said "shit is cool, put it in the water" I feel like if y'all came through north Louisiana, you avoided the causeway and probably crossed one of the many other bridges, but if y'all drove the east coast and did head west until you got to like GA or something, or came through MS...yeah, you probably were on the 24 miler. Oh, and it's Louisiana, so the water level rises constantly and sometimes levels with the bridge (which they shut it down during times like that) We did stop in GA and TN my Mom (msrip) was a huge Elvis fan. I’ll never forget the yellow Volkswagen rabbit without power steering my parents drove on that trip. I’m not altogether convinced that National Lampoons Vacation wasn’t based off that shit. In Alabama we stopped in a diner they had the Brooklyn bridge on the wall. The waitress was so blown away that we saw that bridge all the time. This was the 80s. Shit was different. I guess life still had some mystery back then. Didn’t know what grits were before that trip. The mysteries of life. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1pooh4u Posted March 27 Author Share Posted March 27 16 hours ago, Icarus27k said: A terrible accident because a ship pilot lost control of his ship, or whatever crazed conspiracy theory the Internet is coming up with? What does this even mean? 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1pooh4u Posted March 27 Author Share Posted March 27 I still don’t get how a ship can hit a single support beam and take down an entire bridge. I get that it’s a moving object that’s extremely heavy but damn I thought engineers thought of situations like that when they build things Idk maybe this speaks to the crumbling infrastructure in this country. Train derailments highway collapse and now this bridge what is it gonna take to fix it? The total destruction of an American town? The poisoning of Palestine OH wasn’t warning enough, I guess 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1pooh4u Posted March 27 Author Share Posted March 27 14 hours ago, ghostrek said: Right here it is the actual video of the track on the map and the actual footage and this is pretty interesting but honestly I don't think it's anything malicious Idt it was an intentional act doesn’t mean it wasn’t preventable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoobdog Posted March 27 Share Posted March 27 4 hours ago, Top Gun said: No, that's how you'd expect just about any bridge to act in that situation. By their nature, support pillars are designed to handle much larger longitudinal loads (up/down) than transverse loads (side to side). The entire bridge's load is balanced and channeled through those pillars, so when one fails, that balance is disrupted, and you see what happens. The end of the video was telling, since without the weight of the central span to counterbalance it, the remaining portion of the bridge was pulled down sideways by its own weight. (Granted I'm no civil engineer or anything, but I have a decent handle on the basic physics.) Well, that's kind of my point. I'm not an engineer, but I spend my day looking at structural drawings and explaining to my clients why it costs the equivalent of a Lamborghini to install a panelized roof system. Steel truss support systems were antiquated by decades by the time the Key Bridge was first installed because failures similar to this one were becoming more frequent in turn-of-the-twentieth century truss bridges (from age, not from ship strikes). Unlike (for example) a suspension bridge, a steel truss structure disperses the roadbed load down through the support pedestals instead of up to an overhead structural member attached to towers. When one of those pedestal supports is damaged, all of the potential energy from the structure travels down into the missing support, pulling the structure apart. In this particular case, the design flaw is specifically in how the sections of bridge was connected to each other: there are no breakaway components that allow one portion of the bridge to fully collapse while allowing those supported by the unaffected support remain standing. You can see it's a design flaw because, in looking at bridge before the collapse, there are no obvious break points anywhere across that entire span and the two support pedestals are not sufficient to hold all the weight of the section above each by themselves. You'll likely never see a new steel truss bridge of this size ever built again, but you can still see smaller truss structures being built for railroad crossings and pedestrian bridges. All of those structures have smaller spans / more midspans and the pedestals are in-line with the horizontal spans as opposed to be suspended above by steel wings. As such, if one pedestal is damaged, the sections it supports will pull away from adajacent pedestals leaving portions of the bridge standing. This isn't to suggest that the bridge was built shoddily or that the design was glaringly negligent given the knowledge at the time (i.e. not up to code). Like you said, the bridge acted exactly like any model would have predicted given the displacement of one of its supports. It was just a cheap design for the era and a catastrophic failure was part of the calculated risk of building a bypass artery (it's 3 digit interstate). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoobdog Posted March 27 Share Posted March 27 1 hour ago, 1pooh4u said: I still don’t get how a ship can hit a single support beam and take down an entire bridge. I get that it’s a moving object that’s extremely heavy but damn I thought engineers thought of situations like that when they build things They do. Any pier strike is going to lead to the bridge becoming unfixable, but engineers can build bridges that can resist total collapse... for the right price. First off the best bridge for the application is a suspension bridge: it can handle the distance (the Golden Gate Bridge is longer), and it ha supports that are massive and easier to defend against should there be a ship strike. In my neck of the woods, we have a suspension bridge that's fifteen years older than the Key Bridge that spans the entrance to the Port of Los Angeles and is tall enough to not only handle cargo ships but cruise liners. Because it's a suspension bridge, both towers are on land and away from the channel. It was also $211 million in 2024 value for a 1,500 foot bridge (while the Key Bridge was $580 million in 2024 value for an 8,500 foot bridge). Building a steel truss bridge with safety features that will prevent total collapse will add to that cost and and also make the bridge less navigable since it would involve more support piers and limit the bridge clearance. Those two factors would weigh on any decision and lead city and state leaders who control the purse to choose to take the risk of mass casualties against making a critical roadway connection unaffordable. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
discolé monade Posted March 27 Share Posted March 27 4 hours ago, Jman said: Six Sigma and other process improvement systems are designed to squeeze the most efficiency out of materials while minimizing risk. There is a science to this. oh, absolutely. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
discolé monade Posted March 27 Share Posted March 27 2 hours ago, 1pooh4u said: I still don’t get how a ship can hit a single support beam and take down an entire bridge. I get that it’s a moving object that’s extremely heavy but damn I thought engineers thought of situations like that when they build things Idk maybe this speaks to the crumbling infrastructure in this country. Train derailments highway collapse and now this bridge what is it gonna take to fix it? The total destruction of an American town? The poisoning of Palestine OH wasn’t warning enough, I guess hmmm...if ONLY there was SOMETHING that that government could implement. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonSinger Posted March 27 Share Posted March 27 5 hours ago, 1pooh4u said: I still don’t get how a ship can hit a single support beam and take down an entire bridge. I get that it’s a moving object that’s extremely heavy but damn I thought engineers thought of situations like that when they build things Idk maybe this speaks to the crumbling infrastructure in this country. Train derailments highway collapse and now this bridge what is it gonna take to fix it? The total destruction of an American town? The poisoning of Palestine OH wasn’t warning enough, I guess I saw a comment that said the only thing slowing down or stopping that thing is land, and I believe them. In Savannah, I saw a cargo ship like that and it stopped me in my tracks just taking it all in. They go on forever and once my brain started trying to calculate how much weight was in all those shipping containers stacked up... it like short-circuited. I do think there should be more attention aimed at the companies who own big cargo ships like that because some of them are known to cut corners, and if that's proven to be the case with the bridge crash, that endangers our infrastructure. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1pooh4u Posted March 28 Author Share Posted March 28 4 hours ago, DragonSinger said: I saw a comment that said the only thing slowing down or stopping that thing is land, and I believe them. In Savannah, I saw a cargo ship like that and it stopped me in my tracks just taking it all in. They go on forever and once my brain started trying to calculate how much weight was in all those shipping containers stacked up... it like short-circuited. I do think there should be more attention aimed at the companies who own big cargo ships like that because some of them are known to cut corners, and if that's proven to be the case with the bridge crash, that endangers our infrastructure. Still it’s hard to conceive that regardless of the weight, we build things that can be taken out if one support is taken out. If there is no way to prevent this maybe we need more regulation? We don’t allow vehicles of just any weight on our roads. Maybe we shouldn’t in our waterways as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rpgamer Posted March 28 Share Posted March 28 1 hour ago, 1pooh4u said: Still it’s hard to conceive that regardless of the weight, we build things that can be taken out if one support is taken out. If there is no way to prevent this maybe we need more regulation? We don’t allow vehicles of just any weight on our roads. Maybe we shouldn’t in our waterways as well. Nobody wants to hear it, nobody wants to say it, but..... The economic cost of putting such restrictions on cargo shipping (probably) far outweighs the cost of the occasional disaster. Capitalism, baby! 3 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonSinger Posted March 28 Share Posted March 28 10 hours ago, 1pooh4u said: Still it’s hard to conceive that regardless of the weight, we build things that can be taken out if one support is taken out. If there is no way to prevent this maybe we need more regulation? We don’t allow vehicles of just any weight on our roads. Maybe we shouldn’t in our waterways as well. @rpgamer is right that people are gonna care more about losing money if this is done, but also the ease of shipping is too much of a drug for folks to let go of. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1pooh4u Posted March 28 Author Share Posted March 28 8 hours ago, rpgamer said: Nobody wants to hear it, nobody wants to say it, but..... The economic cost of putting such restrictions on cargo shipping (probably) far outweighs the cost of the occasional disaster. Capitalism, baby! I was just now thinking about how much that would probably cost. Like w cruise ships, when it’s time to leave port, it’s time. Too bad for anyone not on the ship when it’s time to go. The reason is 100% $$. They get charged by the ports or whatever (idk how exactly that works) for being late I really dislike capitalism it ruins everything. No one can be bothered to gaf how unsafe ships weighing about the weight of 100000 humpback whales are for our infrastructure and ocean life 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1pooh4u Posted March 28 Author Share Posted March 28 2 minutes ago, DragonSinger said: @rpgamer is right that people are gonna care more about losing money if this is done, but also the ease of shipping is too much of a drug for folks to let go of. Well, we better get used to shit like this happening more often then, and next time we might not be as lucky as we were this time 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raptorpat Posted March 28 Share Posted March 28 55 minutes ago, 1pooh4u said: weighing about the weight of 100000 humpback whales Forget pounds or grams, we need to use units of weight based on humpback whales for everything. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1pooh4u Posted March 28 Author Share Posted March 28 1 hour ago, Raptorpat said: Forget pounds or grams, we need to use units of weight based on humpback whales for everything. male humpback 80,000 lbs cargo ship max weight 300,000 tons(?) I think we’re gonna need some more humpbacks 1 1 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1pooh4u Posted March 28 Author Share Posted March 28 I cannot do the math. ever since Duo Math became a part of Duolingo, I forgot about the math part. Someone else way smarter can do it 😆 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasqueradeOverture Posted March 28 Share Posted March 28 Can the GW withstand a Shai-Hulud collision? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1pooh4u Posted March 28 Author Share Posted March 28 2 minutes ago, MasqueradeOverture said: Can the GW withstand a Shai-Hulud collision? The band or the Dune people? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1pooh4u Posted March 28 Author Share Posted March 28 (edited) Probably no to both. I have been on that bridge on both upper and lower levels and the experience is always less than great, but more than finishing dead. Edited March 28 by 1pooh4u 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rpgamer Posted March 28 Share Posted March 28 Worth noting, this particular ship is roughly twice as large as anything that existed when the bridge was built. Bear in mind, this ship is considered mid-size. Bah, can't re-find the article I'd seen comparing it to train loads. Seem to recall it saying it's carrying roughly the equivalent of a freight train 20-something miles long. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasqueradeOverture Posted March 28 Share Posted March 28 31 minutes ago, rpgamer said: Worth noting, this particular ship is roughly twice as large as anything that existed when the bridge was built. Bear in mind, this ship is considered mid-size. Bah, can't re-find the article I'd seen comparing it to train loads. Seem to recall it saying it's carrying roughly the equivalent of a freight train 20-something miles long. ISIS has the opportunity to do the funniest thing possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
katt_goddess Posted March 28 Share Posted March 28 1 hour ago, rpgamer said: Worth noting, this particular ship is roughly twice as large as anything that existed when the bridge was built. Bear in mind, this ship is considered mid-size. Bah, can't re-find the article I'd seen comparing it to train loads. Seem to recall it saying it's carrying roughly the equivalent of a freight train 20-something miles long. Yeah but how many humpback whales is it? 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1pooh4u Posted March 29 Author Share Posted March 29 1 hour ago, katt_goddess said: Yeah but how many humpback whales is it? Let’s see the Eiffel Tower is 984 feet and a female humpback can be as long as a school bus at 45 feet I cannot do the math a humpback can eat up to a ton of krill a day. a fully loaded cargo ship at 300 tons can feed a fuck of a lot of humpies 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1pooh4u Posted March 29 Author Share Posted March 29 I shoulda been a teacher I tell ya. Probably math. Could you even imagine? 😆🫠 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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