Bridge collapses in Atlanta

wareyin said:
And of course, every local channel (ABC, CBS, NBC, don't know about FOX) had to have 5 hours of "breaking news", wherein they speculated over and over about what had burned, how long repairs may take, etc. Plus the reminders every 5 minutes that there had been a fire, a section of I-85 had crashed, nobody was hurt, firefighters had been under the section that collapsed "literally seconds" before it fell, and maybe Atlanta Public Schools would close. Spoiler alert, they didn't, but Dekalb did.

Really, with what was happening and what we knew about it, 15 minutes would have been enough time to tell us. Heck, put a little scroll across the bottom of the screen if you have to, but you don't need five hours of continuous coverage.
Click to expand...

One of the worst aspects of TV/Radio news. They fill the air with vapid speculation everytime there's a disaster of any sort then slowly over the next few weeks reveal some of the truth. Meanwhile all anyone remembers is the BS from the first day or so of coverage.
 
LTC8K6 said:
So was the DOT storing a lot of flammables under a bridge?
Click to expand...

It looked like mostly a bunch of spools of some kind of huge cable, and maybe a couple barrels of something. It sounds like the spools weren't expected to be particularly flammable (as in, if you lit a piece of it on fire, it would go out on its own) but something else was on fire for a while first that got them hot enough that they caught a bad case of the being on fire.
 
marplots said:
I think we've already established that fire can't melt steel.
Click to expand...

That is odd as many years ago in one of the troofer's threads it was established with civil war photos that fire was certainly capable of melting the rails sufficiently to make them useless and dangerous to try to use.......As I recall, the fire was created by burning the wooden ties. In large piles, not lying on the ground.
 
fuelair said:
Well, that news sucks for loads of people (says me who has been through the hell that is Atlanta rush hours (which do not actually rush at all) traffic a good number of times. And with no real bypass ability!!!!!
Click to expand...

rephrasing: I have used the bypass depending on traffic speeds and time of day - but, with a long bit of work on 85 coming up the traffic will be worse and it was not great even on 285 - although it was good for getting to Perimeter Mall in the old days. This represents Nashville to Ft. Lauderdale or the reverse before we moved to Florida.
 
fuelair said:
That is odd as many years ago in one of the troofer's threads it was established with civil war photos that fire was certainly capable of melting the rails sufficiently to make them useless and dangerous to try to use.......As I recall, the fire was created by burning the wooden ties. In large piles, not lying on the ground.
Click to expand...

Sherman's Necktie's.
 
fuelair said:
That is odd as many years ago in one of the troofer's threads it was established with civil war photos that fire was certainly capable of melting the rails sufficiently to make them useless and dangerous to try to use.......As I recall, the fire was created by burning the wooden ties. In large piles, not lying on the ground.
Click to expand...

But that's when slavery was legal. Although this bridge was in the Atlanta area, I assumed it was built long after slavery was abolished. So let's not confuse things by dredging up ancient grievances.
 
CNN says three people have been arrested in connection to the fire. Two men and a woman.
 
ASCE has said that it would require billions of dollars of investment to make safe many structures in the US. The problem seems to come from investment coming in waves, this then means than there is a lot of infrastructure that is now aging and in poor condition.

http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/
 
marplots said:
But that's when slavery was legal. Although this bridge was in the Atlanta area, I assumed it was built long after slavery was abolished. So let's not confuse things by dredging up ancient grievances.
Click to expand...
No relationship to that though - this was used to show the troofers that a fire of normal strength could indeed melt steel supports to the point where sufficient mass could bring them down due to near melting!!!!
 
Authorities say that the three are homeless and the fire was started intentionally. Beneath the highway was a storage lot.
 
Lithrael said:
It looked like mostly a bunch of spools of some kind of huge cable, and maybe a couple barrels of something. It sounds like the spools weren't expected to be particularly flammable (as in, if you lit a piece of it on fire, it would go out on its own) but something else was on fire for a while first that got them hot enough that they caught a bad case of the being on fire.
Click to expand...


There were reports that "that large amounts of PVC pipe were stored under the bridge".

"Large amounts" isn't all that specific, but I've seen tractor-trailer loads of PVC pipe stockpiled for big projects plenty of times. It saves money to buy what you know you are going to need as early as possible, while you've got the price locked in. If there is available real estate to store it then it is the smart thing to do.

It wouldn't be all that easy to get them started burning, but once they were it would be a mother ********** to put them out.

Pools of burning plastic. Lots of very toxic fumes.

Nasty, nasty fire.
 
Mikemcc said:
ASCE has said that it would require billions of dollars of investment to make safe many structures in the US. The problem seems to come from investment coming in waves, this then means than there is a lot of infrastructure that is now aging and in poor condition.

http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/
Click to expand...
I've played sim city too. If you don't maintain the infrastructure the whole thing goes to ****.

Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom