Italian Bureaucrats Convicted Over Infrastructure Collapse

The Morandi Bridge, which was located in Genoa, Italy, collapsed in 2018, resulting in the deaths of 43 people. Former Italian motorway boss among 32 convicted over Genoa bridge tragedy

The former head of Italian motorway operator ‌Autostrade per l'Italia was sentenced to 12 years in prison on Thursday for his role in a disaster that killed 43 people when a bridge collapsed near the city of Genoa in 2018.

Giovanni Castellucci was among 32 people convicted over the collapse of the Morandi bridge which sent vehicles plunging onto warehouses and a riverbed beneath the flyover during a summer storm.

At least some of the convictions are under appeal.

There isn't a lot of info, but the two sides of the debate seem to be that the collapse was either caused by the initial design, or the lack of maintenance. From my point of view, both can be true at the same time.

Here is a post from the 357 Magnum Archive: Everything Needs Maintenance – The Morandi Bridge Collapse. That post includes a link to a video of the explosive demolition of the remaining bridge structure, in preparation for new construction, and some info on the design of the new bridge.

This post contains more information on the replacement bridge. 357 Magnum Archive: Genova San Giorgio Viaduct Replaces Collapsed Bridge In Genoa, Italy

Some infrastructure collapse is clearly the result of negligence. The Fern Hollow Bridge in Pittsburgh, which collapsed on 28 January 2022, had received numerous warnings in the form of reports, photos, etc. before it collapsed. The bureaucrats and politicians ignored all the warnings, because maintaining infrastructure isn't sexy. It doesn't lend itself to ceremonies, and news stories. But it does keep people safe, and allow modern life to continue.

Some infrastructure can collapse as the result of a fire, such as the I-85 Bridge Collapse in Atlanta, or other external cause.

Maintenance you can plan for. Random acts of the universe, you cannot.

I'm not sure if these convictions in Italy represent Justice, or just the desire of the public to hold someone accountable, even if they aren't really the right person. I would like to see an incentive to make maintaining this stuff more likely, or we will continue to see bridges collapse, and dams collapse, and more types of infrastructure failure.

NTSB Preliminary Findings on the MV Dali Incident of March 2024

On 26 March 2024 the MV Dali lost power as it was leaving the Port of Baltimore. It lost both propulsion and steering. It allided with a pier of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, causing a large portion of the bridge to collapse, and killing 6 highway workers on the bridge.

"Collision" involves 2 vessels in motion. "Allision" involves a vessel underway and an stationary object. While some dictionaries list allision and allide as "obsolete," they are still used in admiralty law, and in cases like this.

Aside from a grammar lesson/vocabulary review, we have the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) report on that incident from March of last year. Loose Wire on Containership Dali Leads to Blackouts and Contact with Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge. Contact with extreme prejudice. Or something.

At Tuesday’s public meeting at NTSB headquarters, investigators said the loose wire in the ship’s electrical system caused a breaker to unexpectedly open -- beginning a sequence of events that led to two vessel blackouts and a loss of both propulsion and steering near the 2.37-mile-long Key Bridge on March 26, 2024. Investigators found that wire-label banding prevented the wire from being fully inserted into a terminal block spring-clamp gate, causing an inadequate connection.

The MV Dali is just shy of 300 meters long, and can carry 116,000 tons (or so) of cargo. It was traveling about 7 or 8 knots when it "contacted" the bridge.

Efforts to protect the bridge should probably have been taken, give the size of vessels on the ocean today.

Contributing to the collapse of the Key Bridge and the loss of life was the lack of countermeasures to reduce the bridge’s vulnerability to collapse due to impact by ocean-going vessels, which have only grown larger since the Key Bridge’s opening in 1977. When the Japan-flagged containership Blue Nagoya contacted the Key Bridge after losing propulsion in 1980, the 390-foot-long vessel caused only minor damage. The Dali, however, is 10 times the size of the Blue Nagoya.

There is a nice graphic at the link above showing the size difference in the 2 vessels between 1980 and 2024. And as big as MV Dali is, there are several classes of vessels that are much larger than that. Some carry more than twice as much cargo.

If you page down to the bottom of the page linked above, you will find a link to the full, 19-page report. OK, so it is not the "full report." 19 pages is not enough for that, it is a bit more than the Executive Summary, however.

A synopsis of actions taken Tuesday, including the probable cause, findings and recommendations, can be found on ntsb.gov. The complete investigation report will be released in the coming weeks.

The NTSB also has a page on their website dedicated to this incident. It has links to all of the documents from March of last year, and some links to YouTube videos, including aeral photographs of the bridge and ship post allision.

This is the What's Going on With Shipping? video NTSB Reports on the Cause of the MV Dali Hitting and Collapsing the Bridge in Baltimore. It is about a 30 minute video, and may or may not be of interest to people. It covers the meeting in which the report was presented. This was 30 minutes discussing what took place in about 4 minutes. I find Sal Mercagliano's videos fascinating. YMMV.

A Story of a Bridge That Didn't Collapse

Infrastructure is still interesting. Well, it is interesting to me anyway.

The Washington Bridge in Rhode Island crosses Seekonk River from Providence to East Providence. It carries Interstate-195. Due to the problems uncovered in an inspection, the westbound span of the bridge was closed on December 11, 2023. (That is not a typo; the bridge has been closed more than a year.) There is a "rush" effort to demolish the impacted portions and get a contract to replace the bridge.

As Grady points out in the first video, this is basically a win. Sure, it would have been nice to replace the bridge without it being under emergency conditions, but the bridge did not fall down. No one was injured or killed. Usually when I write about bridges, it is because something has failed catastrophically.

This first video is from Practical Engineering. This Bridge’s Bizarre Design Nearly Caused It To Collapse. This video goes into the design of the bridge (it was a 1950s bridge built to coexist with a historic bridge.) How the design decisions made inspections difficult, and what eventually happened. It is a 20 minute video.

This is a video from YouTube channel Casey Jones - Professional Engineer titled Broken for Years! - Washington Bridge in Rhode Island. Casey Jones has some issues with the folks in charge of bridge safety in Rhode Island. This is a video that covers some statements by RIDOT, as well as analysis of vibration and movement patterns in the bridge. Is RIDOT lying to people? You judge. It is a 19 minute video.

What It Takes to Rebuild Infrastructure

People don't like to maintain infrastructure. Build a bridge, or whatever, and politicians will line up to have a dedication and say, "See what good things I am doing for the community!"

But every bridge, dam, or road, ever built needs to be maintained, and will eventually need to be replaced. That is too often ignored, until there is a disaster. And funds are almost never put aside for that replacement, even when they do fund the maintenance.

On 19 May 2020, shortly before dark the Edenville Dam in Michigan failed. Shortly after that, the dam downstream from Edenville, the Sanford Dam also failed. In the aftermath of the disaster two other dams were determined to be in serious need of repair. Actually, the need for repairs was well known even before the disaster. Suits and counter suits had started before the dams collapsed. The owner of the dams wanted to drain the lakes due to the risk. The state didn't want them to do so because of the impact on the environment. After the disaster more legal action was taken.

This video from Jordan Mowbray was posted on the 6th of April. Sanford Dam Progress! - High Water Flowing Through Dam! - Earthen Embankment - Drone -Dam Collapse. It shows the current state of the dam rebuild, and the associated park that was built. It is a 14 minute video, but I found most of the interesting bit was in the first half.

If you look at Jordan Mowbray's channel you will see that there is no progress on the rebuild of the Edenville dam. That is because about halfway through the reconstruction, a lawsuit was filed. That was resolved in March. Judge throws out Michigan home owners' lawsuits against Four Lakes Task Force. As soon as that ruling was handed down, The Four Lakes Task Force, the organization that has become responsible for the dams and the reconstruction effort, filed (or refiled) all of their paperwork with the state, and got approvals from all the regulators to restart construction of the dam.

There are some interesting videos at the YT channel above about what was done prior to the lawsuit, but I will only reference one. This video shows how the earthen embankment was reinforced with a Cement/Bentonite Cutoff wall. GIANT TRENCHER! Edenville Dam Earthen Embankment Soil Cement Bentonite Cutoff - Drone - Dam Collapse. It is a 5 minute video. Bentonite, in its various forms, is used in different waterproofing applications, such as sealing the outside of below-grade walls.

Math Is Racist Again (According to The Left)

Or maybe that is "still racist." This is from someone planing how we should teach math in schools. Or not, as the case may be. Math Is Racist? Curriculum Writer Says It Upholds White Supremacy - Liberty Affair

Michael Lolkus— who holds a Ph.D. from Purdue University — made a number of concerning claims in his recent paper, which he published in the last issue of the Journal of Urban Mathematics Education, the same journal I was assigned to read when I studied at Barnard College.

In his essay, Lolkus begins by arguing that “educational spaces, particularly those centered on mathematics, uphold and promote whiteness,” and that efforts to fix this are still marred by “white liberal ideas” of what mathematics should be.

Mathematics doesn't care what "you think it should be." You are free to say that 2+2=5, or that there are no right answers, if you're an artist or a dreamer or a politician, but if you don't get the math right when you are building bridges, they will fall down.

Here's an example from 2018, from the National Transportation Safety Board on the collapse of the Florida International University pedestrian bridge in Miama. Pedestrian Bridge Collapse Over SW 8th Street, Miami, Florida

We determined that the probable cause of the Florida International University (FIU) pedestrian bridge collapse was the load and capacity calculation errors made by FIGG Bridge Engineers, Inc., (FIGG) in its design of the main span truss member 11/12 nodal region and connection to the bridge deck. Contributing to the collapse was the inadequate peer review performed by Louis Berger, which failed to detect the calculation errors in the bridge design. [my emphasis. Z-Deb]

Six people were killed and ten were injured when the FIU bridge collapsed, and it collapsed because the math was wrong. And yes, the engineering firm in question was hired because they were "diverse." FIGG was removed from several projects, and at least one bridge under construction had to be redesigned for similar issues.

The law of gravity, and the rules of engineering for bridges (like Müller-Breslau) don't care about who you're attracted to, your pronouns, or anything else about YOU. Get the math right, or you will kill people. There are plenty of examples.

• Dashcam Video of the FIU Bridge Collapse in Miami.
• The I-35W Bridge Collapse in 2007 in Minneapolis.

  13 people died, 145 were injured. This was a combination of design issues, construction issues, and a maintenance crew parking a load 4 times the designed load on the bridge before resurfacing the roadway. (Staging the equipment and the material on LAND would have been "inconvenient.") There was probably also an opportunity to fix one of the problems from the construction issue, but that would mean spending money on a bridge that "looked fine" and had stood for 50 years.

• The Collapse of the Silver Bridge – December 15th, 1967. A bridge between Ohio and West Virginia.

  This was caused, in part, because the conditions changed, and no one revisited the load calculations under those new conditions. 46 people died. There were also some issues with the design, and probably with maintenance.

That doesn't include the bridges that have killed people because politicians don't want to spend money on maintenance, even in the face of impending collapse. There are even more examples that fall into that category.

We Do a Fair Job With Infrastructure When We Don't Ignore It

The problem is, we ignore it. Building a bridge or a dam is often a big deal. Politicians talk about how great this project will make things. But maintenance is not so exciting, and we tend to ignore the fact that every bit of infrastructure we build will eventually need to be rebuilt, replaced, or demolished. We could, if we were smart, start saving for that expense the day the bridge/dam/whatever is completed. Politicians are not that smart, and so funds for completely foreseeable expenses are never available. Almost never.

On 19 May 2020, shortly before dark the Edenville Dam in Michigan failed. Shortly after that, the dam downstream from Edenville, the Sanford Dam failed. In the aftermath of the disaster two other dams were determined to be in serious need of repair. Actually, the need for repairs was well known even before the disaster. Suits and counter suits had started before the dams collapsed. The owner of the dams wanted to drain the lakes due to the risk. The state didn't want them to do so because of the impact on the environment. After the disaster more legal action was taken.

The Secord Dam, one of the 4 dams in the system that experienced 2 failures that day, was also in need of serious repair. After the Edenville disaster, the money was suddenly available for repairs to the dams in question. You can find the info on that dam repair at The Secord Dam page of the Four Lakes Taskforce site.

Or you could just watch the video below.

Of course that isn't the end of the story, since a new lawsuit has been filed forcing construction on the dams to be suspended. (Construction in the video will be suspended in October if something doesn't change, leaving 4 dams NOT COMPLETELY up to par. Great. Construction suspended on 4 mid-Michigan dams

The suspension is due to an ongoing legal battle that stopped work on the Edenville Dam back in June.

Now, work on the Smallwood Dam will be suspended in September. Work on the Secord Dam will be suspended in October, and work on the Sanford Dam will be suspended in January.

Homeowners in the area are objecting to the size of the assessments. Several properties, which are not buildable and have a market value of $5000, have each received an assessment of $33,000.

This is Jordan Mowbray's Secord Dam EMERGENCY SPILLWAY complete! Water Re-Directed - Drone - Dam Collapse #construction #dam

At least the engineers seem to have gotten things right.

Neglect of Maintenance and a Bridge Collapse

On 28 January 2022 at 6:37 a.m. the Fern Hollow Bridge in Pittsburgh collapsed. No one died, but several people were severely injured. It isn't fair to say that it collapsed without warning, because many years of bridge inspection reports described what was wrong, how it was getting worse, and what should have been done to fix it. Nothing was done.

Neglect? Maybe that should be criminal negligence. Though I doubt anyone who decided that "we have more important stuff to spend money on this year," like parades, and virtue signalling, will be held accountable in this life.

From 2005 onward, recommendations from inspection reports to repair parts of the bridge, didn't fall off the list, they just kept being repeated by each new inspection, year after year. Pittsburgh just didn't fix it.

17 years is a long time to ignore failing infrastructure. Every inspection report starting in 2007 specified the critical structural members of the bridge that were being corroded, and need to be repaired. The reports also called out drainage problems - clogged drain gates. These were also ignored, which accelerated the problems.

This is a good report on the collapse from Practical Engineering. This Bridge Should Have Been Closed Years Before It Collapsed.

Maintaining infrastructure is thankless work. Don’t get me wrong, it can be a really rewarding career. Inspections involve a lot of time out in the field seeing cool structures up close. And repair projects are often interesting challenges for contractors. But they’re not rewarding in the same way that designing and building new stuff can be. No one holds a press conference and cuts a big ribbon at the end of a bridge inspection or structural retrofit. Building a new structure is not just an achievement in its own right; it’s a commitment to take good care of it for its entire design life, and then to rehabilitate, or replace, or even close it when it’s no longer safe for the public.

This is the Practical Engineering video This Bridge Should Have Been Closed Years Before It Collapsed

The NTSB report on the collapse can be found at the following link. Collapse of the Fern Hollow Bridge.

The report includes 3 videos. The 2nd video in the list, is partly an animation of the collapse of the bridge as recreated by the engineering forensics team. If you're interested in such things, it is only 8 minutes. It includes photos of the rusted portions of the bridge from prior years inspection reports.

Rust Never Sleeps is also the name of an album.

A Bridge Collapse from 1980 with Similarities to Today

Unless you are living under a rock, you probably know that the Francis Scott Key Bridge over the Patapasco River in Baltimore was struck by a cargo vessel and collapsed. It didn't take long for people who know nothing of ship operations, or civil engineering to trot out a series of conspiracy theories, which have little relation to reality. #BridgeCollapse.

The only thing really published at this point is that the vessel in question was the 948 foot container ship Dali, which was leaving the port of Baltimore when it lost power, and collided with one of the bridge pylons. This caused the entire span to collapse. From the photos it is clear that the vessel was loaded.

Fighting against the tide of conspiracy theories at this point is moot. As someone on Twitter/X noted, everyone is suddenly an expert in civil engineering and large vessel operations. Instead of wading into that swamp, I thought I would shamelessly steal a post from myself, about a similar bridge collapse from 44 years ago.

On Friday 9 May 1980, at 7:33 in the morning, the vessel MV Summit Venture, in fog and rain, struck one of the supports of the southbound lanes (the west span) of the Sunshine Skyway, causing about 1200 feet of the bridge to fall 150 feet into the water. 35 people died. Cars, trucks and a Greyhound bus fell into the water that day. Most died of blunt-force trauma. Some drowned. One man survived when his truck landed on the deck of the Summit Venture before falling into the water.

The principle difference between the collapse today, and the one from 44 years ago, is that the Sunshine Skyway was a double span, so that when the west span collapsed, the east span was still standing, and could carry half the traffic. There is also the fact that the MV Summit Venture, which struck the bridge in Florida, was not carrying cargo, but was "light," with only ballast, while the Dali appears to be fully loaded.

This video documents the official recording of the MAYDAY call between MV Summit Venture and the US Coast Guard base in St Petersburg. A few other ships are heard as well. Photos are of the aftermath.

This story is from 2020, in which the Tampa Bay Times marked the 40th anniversary of that collapse. The Skyway bridge collapsed 40 years ago. Here’s how we’re remembering the tragedy. That is a collection of links to things about the collapse. Interviews with people who worked search and rescue, information about the trial of the pilot, and a few other links.

Saturday marks 40 years since the 19,734-ton Summit Venture freighter slammed into the old Skyway bridge. Six cars, a truck and a Greyhound bus plummeted 150 feet into the choppy waters of Tampa Bay below. Thirty-five died.

In the case of The Sunshine Skyway, a two-lane bridge opened in 1954. A second structure, similar to the first opened in 1959 making the crossing 4 lanes, connecting the south end of Pinellas County with the north end of Manatee County.

The Key Bridge (as it is known in Baltimore) was built between 1972 and 1977, opening to traffic on March 23rd of that year.

In Florida a new bridge was built to replace both of the old spans. You can find some info on that new bridge at this link. The video shows what I consider to be a work of art.

The Anniversary of A Disaster: Morandi Bridge Collapse

14 August 2018 at about 11:30 AM Genoa, Italy time, the Morandi Bridge collapsed, killing 43 people. What follows has been shamelessly stolen from myself, with some edits, from around the time the replacement bridge was completed.

Everything Needs Maintenance. What caused the Genoa bridge collapse – and the end of an Italian national myth? The image is of the bridge, before the collapse. (Click the image, for a larger view, and background info. Image by Davide Papalini)

Construction was from 1963 through 1967. It collapsed on August 14th, 2018.

43 people died. 600 people were made homeless.

The day in question was a stormy, summer day.

By 11.30am, the rain was so heavy that visibility had fallen dramatically. Videos captured by security cameras show vehicles slowing down as they crossed Morandi Bridge, which grew progressively more enveloped in a grey mist.

A few minutes later, a 200-metre section of the bridge collapsed, including one of its three supporting towers.

Click the link at the top of this post for an image of the bridge after the collapse.

Reinforced concrete deck, and prestressed concrete wrapping the cables of what otherwise looked like a typical suspension bridge. (Think Brooklyn Bridge.) But maintenance of the bridge wasn’t a high priority thing.

A documentary found problems in the 1990s. Riccardo Morandi, the designer, created a list of things to-do to prolong the life of the bridge. Nothing was done.

Aside from the lack of maintenance, there was an increase in the load on the bridge, which is probably a message for engineers, that things should be overbuilt, because you don’t know what the future will bring.

Little, however, was done, and by 1992 the trademark concrete cables were heavily corroded. The company that managed the bridge, Autostrade per l’Italia – then owned by the state – decided to add extra new cables around the corroded ones, rather than replace them. It also neglected to retrofit the remaining two sets.

That led to the collapse on the stormy August morning.

About a year later, the remains of the bridge were demolished. See Genoa’s Morandi Bridge demolished in dramatic explosion. (Explosive demolition is always a fascinating video!)

So why did the bridge collapse?

Instead, it was probably simple neglect that felled the bridge. In April 2018, Autostrade – now a private company – finally decided there was no more time to waste, and issued a tender offer to retrofit the bridge. The repairs were supposed to start last autumn.

“They waited 25 years and then the bridge collapsed. This is how things go in Italy – you start something and you never finish it,” says Saggio.

A replacement bridge was designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano. It was finished in 2 years by construction crews working 24/7. They only stopped for Christmas and bad weather. (The bridge deck is about 45 meters above the ground.) Here is a link to a short video on the construction of the new bridge. I know it is basically an advert for the construction company involved, but my favorite video of the construction is no longer on YT, and most of the videos are in Italian.

Nature Doesn't Care about Woke. Get the Design Right, Or Else

We'll get to the Woke in a minute. Missing Titanic Sub Once Faced Massive Lawsuit Over Depths It Could Safely Travel To | The New Republic

One of the people working for OceanGate, the operator of the lost Titanic-tourist submarine, had concerns over safety. He was fired, and sued for "disclosing confidential information." He counter-sued claiming he was terminated for being a whistleblower.

The tourist submersible that went missing while exploring the Titanic wreck was previously the target of safety complaints from an employee of OceanGate, the parent company that owns the sub and runs tourist expeditions of the wreck. That employee complained specifically that the sub was not capable of descending to such extreme depths before he was fired.

As for the Woke: Did Wokeness Doom the Titanic Tourists?

OceanGate wasn't interested in hiring the best, most experienced people. That isn't Woke. They wanted youth and inspiration. They may have gotten youth, I'm not sure if anyone is inspired at this point.

“When I started the business, one of the things you’ll find, there are other sub operators out there, but they typically have gentlemen who are ex-military submariners, and you’ll see a whole bunch of 50-year-old white guys,” Rush told Teledyne Marine in the interview. “I wanted our team to be younger, to be inspirational, and I’m not going to inspire a 16-year-old to go pursue marine technology. But, a 25-year-old, you know, who’s a sub pilot or a platform operator or one of our techs can be inspirational.”

As Pixy Misa (or Mixy Pisa) has noted, the universe doesn't care about how many diversity boxes you have checked.

When you build a bridge, it doesn't matter if you respect people's pronouns and their lived experience. It doesn't matter if you hate "fascists" and cheer "progress" and drink only sustainable organic fair-trade soy lattes.

You get the fucking math right or it falls down.

That applies to a lot of things: Bridges. Airplanes. Submarines.

Hat tip on the 2 articles goes to The Other McCain: As a Commentary on Our Decadent Elite, the Missing Luxury Sub Is Near Perfect

As a metaphor for the failures of our decadent elite, this story is almost perfect.

After thought: This story reminds me of the I-35 bridge collapse in Minneapolis in 2007. This sub had worked "several times" since 2019, so there was no reason - in their minds - to think it wouldn't work again. The I-35 bridge had stood for 50 years before it collapsed. There was no reason to think it would collapse on that day, or any day. Though a better example may have been the faults found with the I-40 bridge in Memphis, because in that case the faults were found and corrected before the bridge collapsed. In the case of the sub, the faults, whatever they were, were not detected, but in the I-35 case there were other problems than just normal, daily wear and tear.

Third Time's the Charm - Bridge Collapse Edition

I think they might want to find a better construction firm. A bridge under construction in India's Bihar state has collapsed -- for the second time | CNN

A four-lane concrete bridge being built across the River Ganges in the east Indian state of Bihar has collapsed for the second time in just over a year, once again raising questions about the quality of its construction. [SNIP]

The Sultanganj Bridge has collapsed twice since construction began in 2017, the first time in April last year before Sunday’s catastrophic failure. It’s not clear why the bridge collapsed last year or if those problems had been rectified.

The bridge was designed by a Canadian firm who issued a "statement" that says nothing.

The construction company has been strangely silent. (Unexpectedly?)

The video of the collapse at the CNN link above is beset with commercials. See the video at reddit: r/CatastrophicFailure - an under construction bridge collapsed in Bihar, 04 June 2023.

Being Woke Is NOT a Substitute for Expertise

The Other McCain, as usual, has a great summary of a complicated issue. Yellen’s Banking House of Cards

Far be it from me to claim to be an expert in financial institutions. My knowledge of banking is no greater than the average SVB board member, which is to say I know nearly nothing about the subject. But judging from headlines in recent days, I have the distinct impression that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is basically shuffling around piles of money from one troubled bank to another in a desperate attempt to stave off a complete collapse of the international financial system.

From the FDIC bailing out ChiCom depositors with Silicon Valley Bank, to the situation with Credit Suisse, you will find a lot of details on the banking crisis explained clearly.

There are several links in post above, but the one I found most interesting was from The Daily Mail, detailing the quip made in the quote above, about SVB board members not knowing squat about banking. REVEALED: Only ONE member of failed SVB's board had a career in investment banking - and the rest were Obama, Clinton mega-donors who 'grieved' when Trump won including one who went to Shinto shrine 'to pray.

The board is now being investigated for its failure to act ahead of the bank's collapse, as some argue it was too focused on being woke.

Gee, ya think? I'm shocked - Shocked, I tell you! - to discover that such a diverse board could fail at anything, let alone, a high-technical, specialized endeavor like investment banking. (Question: Does any of them know what the Net Present Value of a stream of payments is? I'm not asking them to calculate it, just define it.)

Being Woke is not a substitute for expertise or talent. The Florida International University pedestrian bridge proved that a few years ago. Disney's destruction of everything they touch is proving that now. (look at the stock price.) I'm afraid that more and more of the economy is going to prove that in the near future.

Bridge Collapse in Pittsburgh

The Fern Hollow Bridge in Pittsburgh collapsed on 28 January 2022 at roughly 6:40 a.m. eastern standard time. It happened just prior to Joe Biden showing up in Pittsburgh to talk about infrastructure. Go figure.

The details: 10 injured in Pittsburgh bridge collapse just before Biden’s visit on infrastructure.

Ten people were hurt in the collapse, with rescuers forming a human chain to get to them.

At least four people were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries following the collapse of the Fern Hollow Bridge just before 7 a.m., the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. The bridge, part of Forbes Ave., traverses Fern Hollow Creek in Frick Park. The collapse also led to a large gas leak.

The area around the bridge had to be evacuated. It took the gas company about 30 minutes to shut off gas to the line that ruptured.

There are no shortages of articles on the collapse. The initial reports. The fact that since it happened so early, there were no fatalities. The lawsuits. Yes, those are already in the works. Pete Buttigieg making pronouncements. Biden promising to fix 'every bridge.' Et cetera, ad nauseam.

One story did catch my eye... The impact of the Fern Hollow Bridge collapse goes far beyond the disruption to a heavily traveled route.

The bridge was a respite. I took a mental health day after the Tree of Life shooting and walked through Frick Park, shadowed under the wings of the bridge just blocks away from the shooting. Although the bridge provided solace, I looked up to see its beams bending precariously.

Here is a hint: If you see a bridge, and you notice deformation, report it to someone. Keep reporting it until they take you seriously. Take a couple of photos with your phone so they cannot blow you off as being alarmist. Bridges often DEFORM before the fail. "Beams bending precariously" constitute a WARNING SIGN. At the very least, the bridge could have been closed, and no one would have been injured.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has released something that they call a "preliminary report." It basically says "A bridge collapsed; we are looking into it." Though it takes 2 pages of government-speak to say that. They do provide some interesting video footage.

This is the video of NTSB B-Roll: Pittsburgh, PA Bridge Collapse (1/30/2022). There are some good views of the aftermath.

Why Do People Think They Can Ignore Weight Limits on Bridges?

It isn't the first bridge to collapse because of overwieght trucks, and it won't be the last. 4 dead in collapse of highway flyover in central China

So an 11-year-old highway bridge collapsed in China last week, killing 4 people.

The accident occurred at about 3:30 p.m. Saturday in the city of Ezhou, with about 500 meters (1,640 feet) of the bridge built over an expressway collapsing onto the roadway below, according to transport and police authorities.

Early indications are that a truck weighing nearly 200 tons was on the bridge when it failed.

Preliminary investigations revealed that a truck weighing a total of 198 tons had broken into two pieces while falling off the structure. The newspaper Beijing News said the truck was four times over the allowable weight limit on the flyover.

Trucks in this country are usually limited to about 80,000 pounds. That truck in China weighed in at 396,000 pounds. Which is amazing. (Though I guess the weight limit in China is more like 100,000 pounds.)

I'll bet that it is not the first time a truck weighing significantly more than the limit has gone over that bridge. "Nothing failed the first time, so we can obviously ignore the limits. We can just keep piling on the load, right?" I will also bet that no one responsible for the decision to wildly overload trucks were one of the 4 people who died. They probably don't even know the people who died. Because there is very little Justice in the universe.

And it isn't just in China where people ignore the weight limits. Here is a case in France, and a case in Missouri.

Real Benefit from the IoT

Usually I see IoT stories that are about hackers and mayhem. This reinforces the idea that there could be some benefit. Bridge In Distress Sends Warning Using IoT Sensors

There’s not much that can shake up Kjetil Sletten, a senior engineer who manages bridge maintenance for the Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NPRA). But when Sletten received an automated notification in April 2021 that movement sensors on a bridge in central Norway had gone off the scales, his instincts told him he needed to have a look with his own eyes.

It was an 80-year-old bridge, and one of the bridge had become separated from its support. (You can see movement in the video at the link above.) One end of the bridge was moving up and down with passing vehicles.

Sletten coolly blocked traffic in the northbound lane with his vehicle and called a road crew to manage traffic.

Which given that he didn't have an "official vehicle" was probably a bit of an issue, though maybe not the problem I would have envisioned in some places in America.

An interim repair was constructed to handle the traffic temporarily, and long-term replacement is under construction.

That 80-year-old bridge was part of a test of the IoT technology by the Norwegian transport agency.

“I don’t want to think about what might have happened if we didn’t have this instrumentation on the bridge,” said Trond Michael Andersen, director of Technology, division for Operation and Maintenance, NPRA.

In the video at the link above, it is noted that emergencies cost more than fixing things in a more proactive manner. Lack of time for planning, lack of time for a bidding process, and general stress all increase the cost.

The article mentions both the emergency closure of the Hernando De Soto Bridge in Memphis, and the collapse of the Morandi Bridge in Genoa, Italy.

Power In New Orleans and Environs Will Be Out for Weeks

And in New Orleans, a heat advisory is expected for Today. Not to mention the humidity. Entergy, Cleco officials warn recovery of power grid ‘will be a marathon’

There are lines down from trees everywhere in the region. Many roads remain closed because of that. (Two major insterstate highways are closed: I-10 to Baton Rouge, and I-55 north to the Mississippi State Line.) The roof from a warehouse took out some power lines in a business district. (I can't find that video today.)

But the devastating problem is the loss of a transmission tower, and the submerging of the high-voltage lines in the Mississippi River.

The collapse of a transmission tower in Avondale also was highly problematic, causing the tower’s conductor and wires to submerge into the Mississippi River.

The company warned customers that, “based on historical restoration times,” customers in the direct path of a storm as intense as Hurricane Ida could experience outages for more than three weeks. While 90 percent of customers will be restored sooner, customers in the hardest-hit areas should plan for the possibility of experiencing extended power outages.”

That took out the eight high-voltage lines that provide power to Orleans, Jefferson, St. Bernard and Terrebonne parishes. About 895,000 Entergy customers are without power. Plus whatever number of Cleco customers are without power. That data was not provided.

[UPDATE: ‘We’re going to get through this together’: About 1.1 million homes, businesses without power after Ida. I leave the math to you. (It is good practice!)]

It also isn't clear to me if those 8 lines were on that tower, or if some, in other locations, tripped, when the high-voltage lines hit the water.

Three weeks without air-conditioning, hot water, refrigeration, internet, etc. In August in New Orleans. I think I would be looking into visiting family somewhere out of the devastation.

From Channel 4 WWL I found an interesting video on the collapse of that transmission tower in New Orleans. An island without power: Why a massive Entergy transmission tower crumbled and all 8 sources of outside power were lost

Hurricane Ida’s intense winds turned one of the main transmission towers into a heap of twisted and rusted metal at the edge of Bridge City.

It was a 400 foot tower that carried power lines across the Mississippi River in a 3800 foot span. It won't be replaced overnight, though it may be possible to get power in from a different route.

I have listened to quite a few newscasts from the New Orleans area, and of course power is the main thing on most people's minds. But the reporters/talking heads seem shocked to discover that the power companies can't just wave a magic wand and fix it all. Politicians are of course in CYA mode and promising to "find out how this happened." Well, a major hurricane hit your area, and you generate (almost) no power inside New Orleans.

New Orleans Is Completely Without Power

And they will be for some time. How long will power be out in metro New Orleans? Entergy says it will assess damage Monday.

Apparently a transimssion tower fell due to the hurricane, taking out power to most of the area. Generators tripped, taking out the rest. This doesn't even consider all the lines down from trees across every neighborhood in the area.

It will likely take days to determine the extent of damage to Entergy's power grid in metro New Orleans and far longer to restore electrical transmission to the region, company executives said early Monday morning.

Four parishes in southeast Louisiana - and parts of two more - had their main source of power cut when eight Entergy transmission lines failed in Hurricane Ida's intense winds, including a tower that fell into the Mississippi River.

It was surprisingly difficult to find a picture of the tower. The following article contains a before-and-after view, mainly showing the tower is missing from the after view. Major electrical tower collapse leaves New Orleans completely without power. From 8:35 PM last night.

An official in Jefferson Parish says a transmission tower that provides power for New Orleans and the east bank of the parish has collapsed into the river near Bridge City. According to the parish’s Emergency Management Director, cables strung across the Mississippi River are now in the water, but darkness is hampering visibility.

According to a statement from Homeland Security last night, the only power is from generators.

Now I'm sure that people in and around New Orleans have a better appreciation for how long a disaster can last. Most people don't. Emergency power generators usually have about 3 days of fuel, to power such things as hospitals, or whatever is deemed critical. Perhaps they have a bit more.

The I-40 Bridge (The Hernando de Soto Bridge) Between Arkansas and Tennessee

On May 11th, a crack was found in a critical member of the I-40 bridge that connects Memphis, Tennessee with West Memphis, Arkansas. It was immediately closed to traffic, causing major problems for the region.

The video is pretty good at explaining why this is a critical issue, and

Arkansas Department of Transportation (ARDOT) released a drone video from 2 years ago showing the initial stage of the crack forming. (The section of the video is at 8 minutes and 57 seconds in.)

My initial post on this incident is at the following link. A Bridge That Didn't Collapse. It has a couple of the images released when the crack in the bridge was initally discovered.

This is the video for "What Really Happened at the Hernando de Soto Bridge?" from Practical Engineering.

A Bridge That Didn't Collapse

Not yet anyway. Almost a miracle that they found the problem before it did fall down. Repairs to I-40 bridge in Memphis could take months

The six-lane bridge into Memphis was shut down Tuesday afternoon after inspectors found a “significant fracture” in one of two 900-foot horizontal steel beams that are crucial for the bridge’s integrity, said Lorie Tudor, director of the Arkansas Department of Transportation.

Hat tip the Small Dead Animals and Now Is The Time At SDA When We Juxtapose!

Biden Administration: “Teachers Unions are infrastructure.”
Infrastructure…

This is not a minor problem. Not only is there a crack, but the bridge seems to have begun to deform. Which is a problem unto itself.

If you live in Memphis, or know a truck driver who regularly drives over that bridge, do you want the math programs to assume "there is no correct answer." Just take a guess as to whether or not the bridge will fall down. Diversity is more important. At least according to the left. Personally I want engineers to get things right.

On a related note, river traffic has resumed. Mississippi River traffic resumes after I-40 bridge closure for fractured beam, which was a bigger problem than the bridge closure. (There are alternate routes for cars and trucks.)

More Bridges Will Fall Down Thanks to Woke Math

Just last week I had a story about how the inability to do math caused a bridge to collapse; Six people died, and 10 more were injured. Today we have a story about how there shouldn't be a "right answer." Adding wokeness: Oregon promotes teacher program to subtract ‘racism in mathematics’

Part of the toolkit includes a list of ways “white supremacy culture” allegedly “infiltrates math classrooms.” Those include “the focus is on getting the ‘right’ answer,” students being “required to ‘show their work,'” and other alleged manifestations.

Except for some problems you encounter in college, there is only one right answer. If you get the wrong answer in the real world, bridges will collapse, buildings will collapse, planes will fall out of the sky, and people will die.

But we will have a Woke society. At least those people who don't die in horrible accidents.

The story last week was The FIU Pedestrian Bridge Collapse: Math Is Hard Edition.