<bgsound src="http://www.cool-midi.com/midi/j/julie_cruise-falling.mid">;

Thursday, August 02, 2007

 

Could it happen here?

These pictures were taken this morning of bridges in the Thayer area.

Sorry about the poor quality of these pictures. My camera is cheap and I never claimed to be a crack photographer.

These first two were taken at the Warm Fork Park, looking up at the bridge that spans over it.

In this one, look through the second sideways triangle of the cross beams, next to the big center beam. You can see a couple of patches where the concrete is missing.




In this one, look at how the concrete around second and third drainage holes (the rectangles) from the left is falling away from the bottom up.


The last four were taken on the Highway 19 bridge between Front Street and Wyandotte, over the railroad tracks.

Again, the pictures are not great -- I had to stand on a rickety pedestrian walkway on the side of the bridge with some boards that felt a little too springy for this acrophobic. So when I felt a panic attack coming on, I tucked my tail between my legs and headed back to the car. The last place I want to have a panic attack is on a rickety walkway on the side of a bridge I'm estimating some thirty feet over the railroad tracks.

Here you see the concrete completely gone around the two drainage holes in the middle.

Here, at the seam, you see one end of the concrete worn away. What you might not be able to see clearly are the ends of a couple of pieces of rebar sticking out.


Here is the "near" side of the same seam. If you look through the chain-link you can see the concrete worn away on this side too.

You have to look closely on this one, but on the other side of the chain link, you can see that the concrete has fallen away from the bottom up almost all the way through to the roadway.



Granted, it's unlikely a bridge collapse here would be on the same scale as the one in Minneapolis. But it's not that unusual to find ten cars at a time on that first bridge.

Labels:


Comments:
What!!! no more reports on the Thayer city meetings?????
 
hi i live 120 miles north of the bridge that collaped in the twin citys . there was alot that brought that bridge down ,the biggest was ego and ignorance . the bridge was made to loosly handle 35,000 cars a year not 140,000 aday , the design wasnt made as strong as other bridges of that design in other states , and duh you salt steel for 40 years and it will rust into . but up here they dont want to say it was there fault, that they cut 2 8x16 ft chunks of surface out , and have 100,000 lbs of gravel and 5 mixer trucks , with rush hour trafic, with a bridge with a bad inspection , but it wasnt there fault . as for your bridges fallin maybe the vidock by buddys station i can maybe see that one but not really, and there isnt any bridges in that county of that design .
 
Anonymous said:
"What!!! no more reports on the Thayer city meetings????? "

Well, there are a few reasons for that.

1. The council so far isn't trying to raise our taxes.

2. Things are going so smoothly that not much controversy is happening at the meetings.

3. It's summer; I'm kind of busy.

4. With the election over, it's hard to get fired up about the city council's actions, considering that not a lot of people seem all that interested.

But there's always the alternative. Come to the meetings yourself! :)

I assure you, I'm keeping an eye on things and if anything postworthy comes up, I'll post it.
 
you do know that the music is a pain in the ass when you refreash the pages right ?????????
 
Post a Comment



<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?