Back in the 90's i lived in Virginia. In the span of a couple of years there were two accidents where a loaded gas tanker crashed beneath an overpass. i remember these pretty well because i drove over and under these every day, including that day.
Let me again point that out.
i drove both those sections even after they'd had a full tanker of gasoline burn beneath them. The Virginia Department of Highways inspected the bridge joins and determined that while there was significant heating from the incident (gosh really?) there was no significant structural damage. The sections were cleaned and repainted a few months later and i believe one beam had a re-enforcement plate welded onto it a year later.
These were major roads, by the way. One was half of a six lane overpass, the other was part of a fly-over ramp from Malfunction Junction in Springfield (the latter was eventually removed as part of a general fix-up of that nightmare, but that's beside the point.) i'll even note that these were not recently retrofitted to prevent for major earthquake damage.
So why the hell did that ramp in Oakland fail?
Some structural engineer or contracting company gots some 'splainin' to do …
Still, the reason i'm not really willing to give a complete break is because support pillar in question is way too small.
Well, that's one of the things that confused me about this one. Back east, bridges and overpasses were pretty much concrete with steel underpinnings (Usually just enough steel to hold up the concrete.) They also had pretty sizable foundation points, something I don't see a lot of out here. I'm sure there's a valid explanation for that, but I get the feeling it involves dollar signs.
Were the other bridges entirely reinforced concrete? This 1950s roadway has unprotected steel girders underneath as the support. A modern concrete structure probably would've faired better.
Hmm… The ones I remember also were unprotected girders beneath (big honking girders, but girders none the less) but you do raise a good point about the reinforcements. It may well be that the rebar inside had degraded enough to cause the failure. For some strange reason I though these spans had been replaced after the quake.
Guess I should refresh next time before restating the obvious …
It's amazing that the driver wasn't hurt more seriously — no, I'm not surprised he got out of the rig with only 2nd degree burns. What surprises me is that he walked 10 blocks in Oakland in the middle of the night and wasn't jumped by hoodlums ;)
I can't wait til we make the jump hydrogen-fueled cars, and deadly explosions never happen again ever.
Not me, I want a really safe vehicle. That's why I'm having one be built out of pure sodium. Oh sure, carwashes and rainstorms might be more entertaining…
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Bah, typical East Bay Commuter issues.
One wonders if "survives a tanker truck's worth of gas burning" is on the spec. Sure, on an overpass, who really cares? Take an alternate route. I'm a little more concerned about, say the lower deck of the Bay Bridge.
Well, ok, not that concerned, because we could really do without all of the traffic that crosses it.
Anyway, if it were actually in the spec I suspect all such open-steel overpasses would be coated with the spray-on insulation they use in commercial steel fabrications.