Bridge collapse in Oakland CA

[Easy Bakes 253]

Tanker Fire Causes Ca. Highway Collapse

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/29/national/main2739222.shtml?source=mostpop_story

[Micah 16]

Phew... that's going to cause serious problems for LA's already horrible traffic.

[vab423 8]

Um, Micah, LA is in Southern California; Oakland is in Northern California. But you are correct in that traffic in that area is horrible.

[Deever 23]

Although the driver suffered second-degree burns, no one else got hurt (heck, no one died). That's some good news at least.

[Micah 16]

Riiiight. I knew that! (not really). Anyway, wherever this is, it will cause major traffic problems. It's amazing that it got so hot that it completely melted the bridge.

[josefmayor 8]

Lol we had something like this in Tampa Bay, only in the St. Pete area on 275/375 where a tanker exploded and caused damage to part of the 275/375 interchange, although our tanker driver wasn't so lucky... he didn't make it.

And this was the weekend the St. Pete Grand Prix was!!!

[bwatterud 7]

@Micah-Well, you got it right that the traffic was already horrible there.

[el_grande02 0]

I live up in that area and all traffic coming out of San Francisco via the Oakland Bay Bridge is gridlock. All that traffic is forced either north or south onto city streets in order to reenter the freeway later on. It is much worse than LA traffic.

[Interchange 0]

I am so glad I don't have to make that commute, at least only two of the ramps were destroyed though, I guess it could have been worse, and this isn't the first time they've had to reroute with 980, they did the same thing after the loma prieta earthquake destroyed the cypress freeway, at least this time the bay bridge isn't completely closed along with it.

[ricb 19]

BART will be busy.

[Triborough Bridge 0]

At least the Gov. is letting people ride P.T. for free for mondeay's commute.

[DFire870 2]

Wow, traffic is definitely going to be bad.

This reminds me about the incident that occurred a few years ago just north of Waco in Texas. Two semis, one carrying fuel and the other carrying lumber, somehow collided on I-35 and wrapped around the center support for a road overpass over the freeway. It exploded and while no one died, rescuers were concerned that the integrity of the bridge was compromised, so they closed both sides of I-35 and rerouted the traffic onto feeder roads and some other side roads. The traffic got so bad that it was backed up all the way past the split and almost to the DFW area. I was in Dallas at the time for a journalism convention in high school, and we had to take a bunch of back roads to avoid the traffic. Instead of taking 3 hours to go from Dallas to Austin, it took us about 5 hours.

[Interchange 0]

Or last year when it snowed in the marin hills and 32 cars piled up on US 101, since they all swerved in the 5 or 6 inches of snow that were there, and ran into each other, closing the freeway, and making all the cars go down the 2 total lanes of bridgeway Blvd, and through downtown sausilito until they were able to reopen it.

[vab423 8]

Well 8600 gallons of gas is going to generate a lot of heat (2750 degrees F, according to the local news).  But most public transportation is free today.

[Barbarossa 51]

This sucks, plain and simple. Looks like I won't be going to SF for a few weeks. The detours are just exercises in masochism.

I'm just glad no one was killed, and that it happened when it did. If this had been a rush hour event, then it would have been a bad deal.

Barbarossa

[Constantina 5]

I'm speechless. In comparison, Sims can't survive that kind of disaster.

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: Micah It's amazing that it got so hot that it completely melted the bridge.quote>

Not really. Any explosion resulting from an tanker truck crash is hot enough to melt steel. This isn't the first time something like this happened. There was a similar case a few year ago on I-95 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where the fire from a crashed tanker truck softened the steel of the bridge the crash took place on. And while it didn't make the bridge collapse (since the heat from exploison and fire prefers to spread up, not down), the bridge was sagging after the fire was put out and they had to demolish and replace it. They were able to do so within 10 days, though. Traffic for the opposite direction was open within a week.

The damage here is more severe, though, in that we have two collapsed overpasses, and the upper one has two sections of it collapsed. So it will take a bit longer to fix...

[Rymac91 15]

I was looking at google maps and noticed it can show traffic conditions...anyone know if it's accurate? I was looking at the interchange and noticed that one ramp is no longer showed and the other ramp is getting congested...

[paperboy15 4]

Originally posted by: Micah Riiiight. I knew that! (not really). Anyway, wherever this is, it will cause major traffic problems. It's amazing that it got so hot that it completely melted the bridge.quote>

 

Oakland is just east of San Francisco. Well, prolly more like just east of San Mateo, but whatever. You get the idea.

[Barbarossa 51]

Schm0: You have spent WAY too much time in the Global Warming thread. While I agree with your posts, in general, this is not the right venue for these types of statements. Focus more on poor design by the idiots who built the overpass... re: of the method of transport, this should not have happened.

For some reason, and I won't go into the details, mainly because I am lazy, this is just another example of city-business dynamics leading to the potential death of many people. What if this had happened at Rush Hour? Who are the twits the city of SF, or the city of Oakland, are hiring to do this work? IMO, these third party vendors need to fire all of their architects and engineers.

Barbarossa

[Micah 16]

Originally posted by: Duke87

Originally posted by: Micah It's amazing that it got so hot that it completely melted the bridge.quote>

Not really. Any explosion resulting from an tanker truck crash is hot enough to melt steel. This isn't the first time something like this happened. There was a similar case a few year ago on I-95 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where the fire from a crashed tanker truck softened the steel of the bridge the crash took place on. And while it didn't make the bridge collapse (since the heat from exploison and fire prefers to spread up, not down), the bridge was sagging after the fire was put out and they had to demolish and replace it. They were able to do so within 10 days, though. Traffic for the opposite direction was open within a week.

The damage here is more severe, though, in that we have two collapsed overpasses, and the upper one has two sections of it collapsed. So it will take a bit longer to fix...quote>

 

I suppose I said that because a very similar event happened in the Katy area (a suburb west of Houston) on a ramp; however, the bridge didn't collapse. To me, it seems like it has more to do with the person(s) who constructed the bridge.

[schm0 27]

Accidents like this are bound to happen from time to time, but the exact location of the fire seems to be extremely devastating to the infrastructure of the city. It's a sad day in Oakland if you're a commuter. I deleted my original post, and it might have been off-topic, but it would be nice to see flammables be treated with a little more preparedness. They should have like an emergency fire-copter to put that stuff out as soon as possible in a major city like that.

[skyliner22 16]

I live in San Francisco and although it is a major problem, its not the traffic isnt as bad as people think. People have become used to this situation it calmed down but still traffic is pretty bad. Also it wasnt on a bridge, it was part of an intersection where one freeway goes over the other and the melted part landed on the one below. It is said that 880, the freeway below could open in a few days as it was not that badly damaged but 580 east wont be open for months. Its just a good thing that it didnt happen on 80 or we could see all hell break loose!

[Easy Bakes 253]

It might not be hot enough to melt steel girder supports but it is definalty

hot enough to cause it to bend/warp/twist  them ruining a lot of its usefullness.

Not to mention damage to the concrete road surface and its much smaller rebars.

either way it will have to be rebuilt. they had someting similar occur

in Dallas a few years ago and the had to close and rebuild an entire overpass

due to the  heat damage.

[paperboy15 4]

Originally posted by: skyliner22Also it wasnt on a bridge, it was part of an intersection where one freeway goes over the other and the melted part landed on the one below.quote>

I understand what you're saying, but technically it's still a bridge.