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After the 1980 disaster of the Skyway bridge down here, I'd kind of assumed that everyone would add the underwater protections that were added to the new bridge to prevent a ship from hitting the pylon and collapsing the bridge.
You know what they say about assumptions...
The Francis Scott Key bridge clearly lacked the dolphins and barriers the Skyway has.
The new bridge will almost certainly have them, hindsight being damnedly clear.
I was wondering about that myself. But I attribute it to the 'Southerners are just stupid and only ideas that come from Up here in the North are good' attitude of so many... notherners.
ReplyDeleteNew bridge? My are you an optimist. Seeing as there are no longer many U.S. bridge companies left that can handle that size project and that the beams and trusses all have to come from China I figure it will be 10 years before this even comes close to fruition. Add to that the sheer incompetence of government involvement/graft and you have a pretty good handle on things. Think "California bullet train"
ReplyDeleteHere we are 2 days from the event. Do you see the barge mounted cranes and underwater demolition crews starting to cut and remove sections? Nope, none yet. Do you see the USN being instructed to move heavy lift equipment to the scene from the naval yards in Norfolk? Nope. The center span over the ship channel MUST be removed quickly for the port of Baltimore to survive, heck Maryland won't survive without the income that port generates.
I lived in that area for 2 years and have sailed the Chesapeake quite a bit. Billions of dollars flow through there, or did until now. Pass the popcorn, this is going to be a clown show par excellence.