Whatever happened to Infrastructure week? Bridge collapse, mass injuries..

[HipChick]

oh yeah, Trump happened....

Link to tweet

[PoliticAverse]

1. "It was just opened this weekend." n/t

[Igel]

11. Our aging infrastructure.

We must have a program to demolish and rebuild each bridge at least twice a week. It opened over the weekend, by Tuesday was in need of repair and should have been closed for replacement on Wednesday.

[malaise]

14. This is a new bridge installed on Saturday

The question is whose friends got that contract?

[LisaM]

26. Manafort's.

https://www.bisnow.com/south-florida/news/construction-development/manafort-mcm-miami-munilla-construction-management-78613

[malaise]

27. Holy Shit!

Damn!!

[LisaM]

30. Yup.

Surprise, surprise, surprise.

[jmowreader]

21. It couldn't have "just opened this weekend" because it wasn't done

I looked at the site they were building it on. It is at the intersection of SW 8th St and a road that changes names - SW 109th Ave north of 8th and E Campus Circle south of it. Immediately north of 8th St is the Tamiani Canal. The bridge was supposed to take students across both the highway and the canal; in the CNN video you can see the construction site for the landing north of the canal. I would imagine the bridge was going to turn east once it got across the canal and allow students to walk right into the huge dorm FIU has over there. Maybe they also wanted to extend it to the parking garage to the south.

The bridge extension over the Tamiani Canal is just getting started; the land is prepared but the bridge's end support hasn't been erected yet.

Here's what I see. I used Google Maps' distance measuring function to find the bridge is 150 feet long. There is no supporting column in the middle. At 3:29 in this video you can see a good view of the construction of this bridge; there's no beams running below the pedestrian deck. What they appear to have done is constructed a 150-foot-long concrete-flanged I-beam with little bitty square-section steel tubing as the web...and it didn't work. There's only so much rebar can do. It just collapsed under its own weight...and unfortunately, it did it in the middle of the day when lots of cars to smash flat were on the road. They're reporting numerous fatalities.

There's a skybridge across WA-99 by Sea-Tac that is 50 feet longer, and it's a very successful project...it's also built as a box, not an I-beam, and the square-section tubing in it is huge compared to the stuff the Florida people used. You could land airplanes on it and not bother it.

[Awsi Dooger]

22. The pedestrian walkway wasn't scheduled to open until 2019

I just heard that on the local news.

I've seen that bridge being built recently. This is stunning. I don't live particularly close but I like shopping at Aldi and the best cleanest local Aldi is on SW 8th St. and roughly 123rd Avenue. That is maybe one mile west of where this bridge collapsed. I use 8th St. to get there and I was planning to head there either tonight or tomorrow.

Local Miami ABC just ran a live interview with an FIU student who said his 28 year old student friend was apparently walking underneath the bridge when it collapsed. He fears his friend is dead. Channel 10 is now running video clips of cars pancaked under the bridge. It reminds me of a mini version of the Nimitz (?) bridge collapse in the Bay Area from the 1989 earthquake.

The FIU campus on its north side is alongside very busy 8th St. That prompted the need for this pedestrian bridge, since many students live on the other side of 8th St from campus. Likewise the University of Miami campus is alongside very busy South Dixie Highway (US 1) on the south side of campus. Pedestrian bridges were built for the same reason there.

[PoliticAverse]

24. Yes looking closely at your video it is obvious it wasn't fully completed and not yet "opened"

Last edited Thu Mar 15, 2018, 05:04 PM - Edit history (1)

as the rest of the walkway wasn't there yet.

It does look like a large implementation of an I beam, so either the design calculations as to strength were wrong or
some error in the implementation/construction was made. I agree with you that the steel tubing looks "little bitty"
for such a long concrete span.

[Awsi Dooger]

25. I heard on the radio they were doing a stress test when it collapsed

Workers doing the test were on top of the bridge

Unfortunately this is going to turn out to be another speaking contest between Nelson and Scott, leading to the senate race in November.

[malaise]

28. Yep

Lots of talk about that on Local 10

[NewJeffCT]

2. Wow, that is horrific

My sympathies to the friends and families of the victims.

However, while I would LOVE for a Democratic president to propose Infrastructure Decade instead of Trump's Infrastructure Week of privatization, is a pedestrian bridge on a college campus something that would be the subject of any sort of infrastructure package?

[HipChick]

3. I am not sure, not enough details provided yet....let's face it..

Trump Infrastructure is a joke, more smoke and mirrors and will never happen..

[BoneyardDem]

4. rather than aging, it sounds like a structural/material failure.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

5. Yeah, from the report it sounded like it just opened.

Shady contracting?

[Fla Dem]

6. Several killed after pedestrian bridge at Florida International University collapses--video & Report

A pedestrian bridge stretching across a street on the Florida International University campus in Miami collapsed Thursday afternoon, killing multiple people, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.

Aerial footage showed first responders tending to victims on the scene, searching for people in the rubble and loading others on stretchers into ambulances.

Five to six vehicles were crushed in the collapse, the highway patrol said.

A pedestrian bridge stretching across a street on the Florida International University campus in Miami collapsed Thursday afternoon, killing multiple people, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.

Aerial footage showed first responders tending to victims on the scene, searching for people in the rubble and loading others on stretchers into ambulances.

Five to six vehicles were crushed in the collapse, the highway patrol said.

More:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/pedestrian-bridge-florida-international-university-collapses/story?id=53774444

Florida International University Bridge Collapses, Cars Underneath
March 15, 2018 at 2:36 pm

The bridge, located at 109th Ave and 8th Street, collapsed on a number of cars.

Florida Highway Patrol confirms several people are dead due to the collapse. They also said several cars have been crushed.

At least one person was taken as a trauma alert to the hospital, according to Miami-Dade Fire Rescue.

The 950-ton bridge went up on Saturday. It was then lowered into its final position, just west of 109th Avenue that day.

The main span was built next to Southwest 8th Street.

The bridge was constructed using an innovative approach to bridge construction – a technique meant to reduce potential risks to workers, commuters and pedestrians and prevented traffic tie-ups in the area.

As for traffic in the area, 8th Street is shutdown in both directions. Traffic is being re-routed through 117th Ave and 7th Street.


Video
http://miami.cbslocal.com/2018/03/15/bridge-collapses-florida-international-university/

[IluvPitties]

7. Let's hope for the lowest number of casualties possible.

[braddy]

8. news quote "The bridge was constructed using an innovative approach to bridge construction"

[0rganism]

9. Infrastructure Week: was it only a dream?

now replaced with Injury Week, be sure to show your sympathetic patriotism with thoughts and prayers and flag pins

[StarryNite]

10. Oh, no!

[malaise]

12. I know the area well

Just give thanks folks are on Spring Break

Let's find out if/how the Contractor((s) short-changed FIU and the taxpayers.

[babylonsister]

15. Does make me wonder if corners were cut.

Terrible.

[malaise]

16. Yep

Just spoke with my sis - none of them were in the area.
People are asking the same questions - violation of building code is a real #1.

[struggle4progress]

13. Coming up. Trump plans visit; will bring paper towels and lead "Lock her up" chant

[hatrack]

17. "Sometimes, bridges fall down. A lot of people don't know that, but they do."

And then he can talk about his big election victory, and evil Obama.

[onethatcares]

18. not to worry

construction workers will now be given weapons to defend against such thing.

Remember the big dig in Boston where they didn't use enough epoxy to hold things to the ceilings.

I wonder who got the bonus on that one.

[Freddie]

19. Just called my son

His girlfriend goes to FAU, not FIU. But how incredibly horrible.

[ProudLib72]

20. It's "inferstructure"

You see a structure and you infer that, since it is still standing, it will continue to stand. You don't need to "waste" money on fixing it when that money would be put to better use going into your own pocket (or the pockets of your bazillionare buddies).

[hunter]

23. More in-depth link here, including photos of bridge installation before collapse:

http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/fiu-pedestrian-bridge-collapses-in-miami-10176573

[malaise]

29. Check post #26

Holy Shit!

[Eliot Rosewater]

31. Is it too soon to ask republicans why they dont want to invest in infrastructure?