I attended the I35W Bridge open house Monday night.  I needed a CAT5 cable from http://nanosys1.com anyway.  I got there at 6:30 PM, the last half hour.  Maybe fifteen people left there from the public.   A lot of cookies left so I think the earlier attendance was “moderate” at best.  The info wasn’t much more than I had found online but I picked up a few details.  The proposed transit/light rail option are the two inside lanes so if used it would be an expressway to the Northern burbs, not a U of MN potential stop.

An email I sent to someone about the NTSC findings.

Earlier this week the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) found a design
flaw in the collapsed I-35W bridge.  “Gusset plates” are the “hubs” that the
girders are attached to.  To give a basic example, think of the roof area of a
big old full sized four door car.  That’s the approximate size of these gusset
plates, think towards the large side of this.  The NTSB said they should have
been at least one inch thick but were half-inch thick in areas where the bridge
started to fall. 
 
 On the local TV news they compared one-inch thick to a VHS tape (actually
15/16th”) and half inch to an 8MM “compact” video tape.  Close but the standard
plastic case on an audio cassette is also close to 1/2″.  Either one is huge by
the scale of everyday life.  For example, that steel plates they put over open
digs in streets are usually half inch and they can support heavy truck wheels. 
 
 Bridges like this literally use millions of pounds of steel so the gusset
plates are a minor portion of the steel weight.  Typically they are way over
engineered and overbuilt.  The NTSB said that having them undersized came as a
surprise because this was rare. 
 
 One thing I noticed a few days after the collapse was an old inspection report
that said that gusset plates had corroded down to half an inch.  Here in
Minnesota corrosion and rust are a part of life.  They tend to get a “beachhead”
and work from there so a corroded/rusted surface is very uneven. This is not
something a bridge inspector in a sling would be expected to notice. 
 
 One local TV “expert” claimed that the bridge would have collapsed with the
same load even if it was new due to the thin gusset plates.  I tend to disagree
with this.  Forty years tended to further weaken the already thin gusset
plates.  I stick by my prediction of the sticking bearings/hinges.  If the
bridge cannot expand and contract with temperature something has to take the
stress.  This something is likely the gusset plates.  Had they been built
properly or overbuilt they could have endured this stress better.  Steel is like
a prizefighter who can easily handle regular punches but is weakened by the
stronger punches.  The thicker steel is like the prizefighter being in far
better condition.
 
 Technologically, it is relatively easy to put a bridge design through a
computer design model and compare it to the original calculations.  That was
recommended of all bridges but especially of this design, which is only one
percent of US bridges.  This was a time when there was a strong pressure to
build bridges cheap.  The easy parts of the Interstate Highway system were
finished.  I recall the portion of 35W from the Twin Cities to Duluth was dubbed
“the road to nowhere” because of so many uncompleted portions.  Also, there was
a confidence, perhaps an overconfidence that thing could be built “smarter”. 
Aviation and “rocket science” had made great advances here because weight was so
critical but it was done with a lot of trial and error, with an emphasis on
“error”. 
 
 There are a lot of examples of “engineering disasters” but my favorite to use
as a comparison is the Citicorp building in new York City.  On the skyline it
has the “lean to” roof.  Structurally, it had an undetected design flaw that
would cause it to likely topple and fall from the winds that accompany the level
of hurricane that hits NYC every fifteen years.  An architectural student
“playing” with the design” uncovered the design flaw and thought he had made a
mistake somewhere.  It was checked and the design flaw was verified.  A stealth
“fix” was done using a lot of “gusset plates”.  They decided to over engineer
the Citycorp building during the fix to reassure.

Several points to make.  First off, there is a website set up by the victims of the bridge collapse.  I am somewhat cynical of these for several reasons.  First off they are typically designed with the help of the “ambulance chaser” lawyers and you can see the manipulative Public Relations.  I don’t remember the name of it now but maybe a decade ago there was that 7474 Jumbo jet bound for Europe that exploded in the air just after takeoff.  There were many highly stylized and obviously posed pictures of the deceased “symbolically” honoring the deceased.  That tends to be called “waiving the bloody shirt”.  A quick browse of this site http://www.35wbridge.com/ looks more subdued and tasteful.

Next off, I’ve heard of no mention of the state money being the “loan” with a lien on future settlements with a market interest rate.  This would seem reasonable to me.  It could be a loan with market interest rates (based on the probability of an eventual settlement with the liability against the settlement, not the person.  This could be bid out. 

To give a personal example I made a “round trip” on the I-35W bridge three to four times per week (I live near Hiawatha and Lake Street.) so I averaged approximately one one-way trip on the bridge per day.  Just a “guesstimate” but I’d say my chance of suffering property damage and/or injury were around 100,000 to 1 based on the daily traffic on the bridge.  This is just a guesstimate based on traffic on the bridge. 

Let’s say, for starters, I was on there and “totaled” my vehicle.  I have a 2005 that they had 11K miles and a 1993 4 x 4 that had 155K miles.  At leat in the short run the loss of the 1993 would have cost me more because it didn’t have comprehensive insurance.  That said, I almost exclusively use the 2005 because it has AC and gets far better mileage than the 1993 4 x 4. 

At any rate, I have good insurance and a backup vehicle so I would probably not apply for  “hardship grant”.  Also, I have savings and That’s fine with me but would someone who got a “hardship grant” end up getting “free money”?  As I said, if it is a lien on future settlements that’s fine with me.

On August 01, 2007 I was within four months of early retirement, which I opted for.  Had I become injured and disabled I could have used accumulated leave time until planned early retirement at “rule of 90″ which gives a superior pension (age plus years of service equals 90).  I had disability insurance but it was moot because it required that I use accumulated leave time first and the disability would have been a bit less than the “rule of 90″ payment.  The advantage of disability might be $25 a month, not worth messing around.  As for medical insurance, I have good “bridge” insurance for early retirement so this would be tapped had I been injured in the bridge collapse. 

The point here is that these victims funds without a repayment from settlements tend to favor disfuction.  It’s rather like a disaster hits.  You have insurance. your neighbor doesn’t.  You don’t have “needs” because you have insurance but your neighbor without insurance does.  This doesn’t not encourage the purchase of insurance in the future. 

When I was younger I was “living on the edge” at times so I do not begrudge the grants to people who have genuine financial needs.  I’ve been there.  That is why I would say the lien is on the settlement grant, not the person with market competitive interest rates.  I would also have it taken off the top of the settlement before the lawyers get their cut of the settlement for “proving” that the bridge fell and that the victims were on the bridge at the time.  This seem “duhh!” not something rating a one-third cut of the lawsuits given to the lawyers. 

For the people actually facing hardship I would say getting money after the collapse would be worth it.  Note again under my idea, the lien would be against the eventual settlement, not the person.  Thus if there is not enough settlement to pay off this lien.

Also, the roads are a “battlefield” where we travel at pretty much our own risk most of the time.  Admittedly, those crossing the bridge when it collapsed did nothing wrong but neither does the person hit by an uninsured dryer running a red light.  As for the science of bridge inspection this bridge had stood more than forty years surviving many Minnesota weather events.  Usually bridges and other structures fail during the construction or the early stress tests.  This is like a car with 80K that fails.

The I35W bridge had a fairly high deficiency rating compared to a number of other bridges.  To give two examples the Stillwater lift bridge and the Lafayette bridge are rated far worse than the I35W bridge was.  The “defensive” thing would be close them, the state would not be liable for traffic delays this would cause but they would be liable if these bridges fall down.  Do the math!