Florida International University ("FIU") needed a foot bridge to cross a canal and busy street. An FIU committee selected a design without redundant structural support because they were wanting a dramatic landmark (the bridge looked like it was a cable stayed design, but it wasn't -- the faux cables were almost entirely aesthetic). The original specs had called for structural redundancy so that the failure of one structural member would not cause a collapse -- the committee ignored this requirement in favor of visual appeal.
The engineering firm selected for the bridge (FIGG) made an error in calculation for a critical member at the end of the span. The engineering firm providing peer review of the design (Louis Berger) has refused to turn over to OSHA, certain documentation regarding what it was supposed to evaluate and what it actually did. When the bridge section which had been built on the side of the road was moved into place, experienced workers became extremely worried about cracks that started appearing and made their worries known to those up the chain. A FIGG engineer examined the cracks but determined they "did not present a safety concern even though its engineers did not know what caused them — and despite clear evidence that they were growing daily." Apparently, the guidelines are that cracks deeper than a half inch are to be taken seriously and these were much deeper and growing daily -- one photo shows a crack 4" deep.
The final bridge would have two sections -- the long section over the roadway and a short section over the canal. The canal section was to be built in place and tied into the long section. Had the canal section been built first, the risk of collapse for the section over the roadway would have been reduced because it would have shored up the longer road section.
The bridge collapsed killing six and permanently disabling another.
Article regarding the OSHA report: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article231428938.html
Article regarding independent engineering review with some good explanations which I, as a non-engineer, found informative: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article212571434.html
Time Lapse Video of Bridge Collapse (released by FIU): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrBOF2jugFM
Original Soylent item: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/03/19/1746219
Link to the OSHA report itself: https://www.osha.gov/doc/engineering/pdf/2019_r_03.pdf
Related Stories
An "instant" pedestrian bridge at Florida International University in Miami collapsed on March 15, killing a number of motorists. A 174-foot, 950-ton span of the bridge was installed on Saturday, March 10 over a busy portion of Tamiami Trail called Southwest Eighth Street. The incomplete bridge suddenly collapsed on Thursday:
The bridge gave way suddenly while the traffic light for motorists on Tamiami Trail was red, so that the concrete span fell on top of a row of stopped vehicles. A woman stopped at the light who was heading westbound said the structure fell without warning. The woman, who asked that her name not be used, said it was immediately clear to her that several people were dead.
[...] The bridge crashed across six lanes of heavily traveled Tamiami Trail, crushing a still undetermined number of cars and killing a still unclear number of people. Police on the scene said at least six people could be dead.
From an earlier article:
The rapid span installation was the result of months of preparation. The bridge's main 174-foot span was assembled by the side of the Trail while support towers were built at either end. The 950-ton span was then picked up, moved and lowered into place by special gantry cranes at the intersection of Southwest 109th Avenue in an operation that lasted several hours Saturday morning.
[...] The innovative installation method significantly reduced risks to workers, pedestrians and motorists and minimized traffic disruptions, FIU said. The architecturally distinctive, cable-supported bridge is the product of a collaboration between MCM Construction and FIGG Bridge Design, the firm responsible for the iconic Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay.
[more...]
(Score: 1, Redundant) by RS3 on Thursday June 13 2019, @02:50AM (11 children)
Was this a brand new type of bridge design?
Don't they model this stuff in CAD before building it?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @03:09AM (6 children)
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday June 13 2019, @03:26AM (4 children)
Great summary, thank you. I'm just stunned that there were not more inspectors involved- 3rd, 4th-party, etc. I know several civil engineers. I'll ask their take on the whole thing. I'd love to know the stress margins used. Again, I would think a CAD model would have shown how weak the thing was. Of course, sometimes materials aren't up to spec.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @03:57AM (2 children)
Think what you want about CAD, if it isn't used by someone with basic engineering training _and_ engineering common sense, it is just as easy to get wrong answers as right answers. It's a tool, you have to know how to use it.
Besides, what you probably mean is called CAE, computer aided engineering, with stress analysis, probably using finite element technology. This is also far from fool proof, many, many ways to build an incorrect FE model. CAD is computer aided drafting, replacing what was formerly done with pencils & ink on large pieces of paper/vellum--and there are still some advantages to working on a large drawing, much larger than ordinary computer screens.
From the written descriptions, I think my elementary stress analysis course (taken from an architecture department) would have been good enough to determine that this structure was inadequate -- by hand or spreadsheet approximate calculations. With my limited background, I would never attempt to design something that could fail and hurt people, but the basic principles are not that hard to understand. Yet, it appears that the design was signed off without anyone having done a simple sanity-check type of calculation.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday June 13 2019, @04:28AM
I agree with everything you wrote.
Yes, I know the term CAE but I haven't heard it used in a long time. Many CAD and CAE tools get lumped together, or the CAD tool calls up a CAE tool, and the lines are blurred, and most in my world (EE) just call it CAD. Actually the big ones like Altium are being called EDA- Electronic Design Automation, but even some free ones called CAD are getting very powerful, like KICAD.
My gut feel is that the bridge is a very bad design. I wonder how many of the tension cables could loosen or break before the bridge would collapse under its own weight.
(Score: 1, Troll) by schad on Thursday June 13 2019, @12:18PM
Amateurs screw up and cost you money. It takes a professional to screw up at such a scale that people die.
(Score: 2) by fraxinus-tree on Thursday June 13 2019, @09:49AM
I read TFReport. The design was peer-reviwed and considered bad, but workable. The lack of redundancy was mentioned in the review. The intermediate stages of construction were not peer-reviewed (they had to be).
The bridge could be built, but not the way they tried - the pass was clearly not stable without the suspension and they had to put the cables before removing the support under the span (and close the road for much longer).
(Score: 1) by Coward, Anonymous on Thursday June 13 2019, @03:26PM
But the design was formally reviewed by a different engineering company. If there was a basic design flaw, the reviewers should also be held responsible.
Overall, this fiasco would make me stay away from FIU as an engineering student or professor, and avoid hiring FIU graduates as an employer. It might be an attractive place for failure analysts.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @07:06AM
The idea was a hybrid of a truss and cable stay. The truss was done in concrete and was expected to handle most of the load, including being self-supporting during installation. The cable stay portion was needed to handle resonance caused by the motion of humans and wind. At the time of the failure the cable stays were not in place, but it wasn't particularly windy and there were only 3 humans on the bridge. The materials have been tested; they were as specified.
Modern engineering doesn't leave much of a safety margin and often uses inappropriate materials. Since the time of ancient Rome, we've known that concrete sucks for tension and shear forces. Romans used nice solid arches, and later people used steel trusses. Nobody sane uses concrete trusses. Well, somebody thought a thin concrete truss would be pretty and cheap, so they tried it. That was a mistake that should be obvious if you aren't blinded by a determination to make it for cost and aesthetic reasons.
Maybe do concrete suspension cables next, eh?
A big problem comes at the joints that make up the truss. They are fixed joints, like the sutures of the human skull. They really are joints, with the concrete poured separately. Here you're asking thin pieces of concrete to resist bending and shearing, and you have a joint right at that stress point. That is nuts. Of course it will crack.
For the transverse direction, nothing was done to deal with that. In the other directions, they hoped to solve the problems with post-tensioned metal bars. On the day of the failure, these bars were tightened to excess in a futile attempt to stop the rapidly growing cracks. In some places the bars snapped. In some places the concrete got crushed, with blow-out events that involve chunks blasting out sideways due to the pressure.
CAD was used of course, including structural analysis. The designer modeled it with two different kinds of software. An independent reviewer again modeled it, with a third distinct piece of software, and raised some concerns that were mostly dismissed.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Thursday June 13 2019, @01:14PM
The article about the engineers who did an independent analysis explains that these things are always modeled in a computer program but that it is important to do some manual sanity checks in case the inputs are in error. It was a garbage in, garbage out situation.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Rupert Pupnick on Thursday June 13 2019, @01:25PM (1 child)
As has already been pointed out, CAD systems only work well when you set up the model correctly, know how to interpret the results, and then compare them to the physical system they are modeling. When you have early evidence that the CAD result isn't matching the physical result (cracks in the concrete??) you stop what you're doing, schedule and aesthetics be damned (especially in the case of something having an impact on public safety), and find out what the hell is going on. Errors in calculations are supposed by caught in design reviews and tests. You can only have a failure of this magnitude when management is deliberately bypassing these crucial phases of the development process.
As we used to say in my line of work, "You can't bullshit the circuit."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @05:47PM
"As we used to say in my line of work, "You can't bullshit the circuit.""
that's a good one. thanks
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Thursday June 13 2019, @03:07AM (9 children)
That doesn't go over well.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @03:11AM (2 children)
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @03:44AM (1 child)
That company hasen't been the same since their partner Newton discovered gravity and moved on to greener pastures.
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 14 2019, @02:28AM
Poor Newton was never the same after that apple hit the soft spot on the top of his head.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Thursday June 13 2019, @05:30AM (5 children)
Yeah, how do they get away with that?
Ah well, just another avoidable tragedy caused by corruption... SNAFU
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 14 2019, @02:53PM (4 children)
Perfectly legitimate question modded down.
Huh, I guess nobody cares, and they don't want to think about it. To have even brought up in public seems to anger them. Indeed the corruption is personal.
Eh, such is life..
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 15 2019, @02:58AM (3 children)
This website has the potential to be influential at the very least, and could even be game-changing depending on who comes here and what information is exchanged. But the mod system breaks it. One idiot downmods an otherwise interesting, stimulating idea and it drops off the radar. At the very least it dies. Mod system here is stupid. Time for a change.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 15 2019, @05:23AM (1 child)
No, the mod system is okay. What it needs is a requirement that negative moderation be accompanied by a good accurate explanation from that moderator as to why, so we don't get this drive-by bullshit.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday June 15 2019, @06:59PM
Yes!! But it's still against the guidelines to downmod someone just because you disagree. Frankly I don't see a need for the "disagree" mod. Either state your contrary view, or move on.
I think the mod system could benefit from some focused discussion, not just comments here and there.
But overall this site is great!
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday June 15 2019, @07:33AM
In most cases. the moderation system sorts itself out over the longer term. And comment can go up and down but, at the end of the discussion, the majority of comments carry the appropriate moderations. Of course, ACs begin at level 0 so have a larger hill to climb, but this is the price of anonymity.
There are a few cases where this is most certainly NOT the case. Some in our community like going back to stories that are several weeks or more old, and moderating comments that argue against their particular point of view. I suppose this is a form of trying to rewrite history. They hope, presumably, that if people visit the topic in the future it will look as though those who are carrying out late moderations had more support for their views than they did on the day.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @04:02AM
I watched the youtube video. All I can say is that the structurally sound bridge that was rejected for "visual appeal" must have looked like a dog's breakfast and a shit sandwich all in one.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @06:47AM (1 child)
The tl;dr seems to be that FIGG basically failed at every level, starting with a botched design, failing to get the required external design reviews, and finally failing to notice that collapse was imminent when inspecting the bridge hours before its failure.
Then a bunch of other players failed to exercise their independent professional judgement regarding the bridge which clearly was having issues and tragedy results.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @10:53AM
Agreed. And they seem to know it. I'm particularly put off by these comments (emphasis mine):
Oops. busted.
This is a bad-faith argument suitable for a lawyer, not an engineer.
Yep, sure. Believable.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by pkrasimirov on Thursday June 13 2019, @08:05AM (1 child)
I cannot remember from where was this quote, and it is surely not the exact one:
(Score: 5, Insightful) by SunTzuWarmaster on Thursday June 13 2019, @12:43PM
As judges - the people judge your actions.
In history - the descendants will judge your actions.
In engineering - your actions are judged by the physics of the universe.
The universe doesn't have a side, cannot be swayed with argument, and cannot be ignored.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by janrinok on Thursday June 13 2019, @08:18AM (3 children)
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 15 2019, @03:05AM (2 children)
Quite true, and thank you for illuminating the fact.
At the same time there have been many great and thought-provoking contributions which have been unfairly down-modded, AC and logged-in user alike. Mod system needs rethinking and revision.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday June 15 2019, @07:23AM (1 child)
Moderation is carried out by the community. And you are absolutely correct - too many people are unfairly moderating views with which they simply disagree. Disagreement does not mean that a post is a troll or flamebait. However, this requires educating some members of our community and, at the same time, there are yet others who are simply here to abuse the site.
The only way I can think of at present was if each moderation was viewed by a member of the team and assessed accordingly. That has 2 major drawbacks. This site is manned entirely by volunteers and there is absolutely no way that we will find sufficient volunteers who will do the job, fairly, 24/7/365 and who can be trusted to have access to the site workings. Secondly, who would 'guard the guards', or do we have to have another tier of watchers to supervise them?
The current system will work if those in the community who have mod points use them to correct unfair moderations. That was part of my reasoning behind acknowledging the positive contribution made by some ACs in our community as well, of course, as a way of thanking them.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Saturday June 15 2019, @03:01PM
Hi and thank you for your thoughts and wisdom. I had posted the AC comment when at a client's computer. I don't generally carry my passwords, and rarely post AC.
Yes, I too upmod AC comments, and wish some of those ACs would sign up for an account.
Firstly, this site is truly awesome, and you founders / admins are doing a stellar job. None of us could possibly thank you enough. Hopefully the success of the site, certainly the ability to converse, exchanging insight and experiences and suggestions, makes it worth it.
Unfortunately I'm mentally swamped with some huge issues/problems and haven't given mod system much thought. My first reaction is that I admire the optimism of the present mod system, but since IMHO it is being misused, a rethinking might be warranted. Maybe a discussion of just this topic?
I haven't studied psychology, but I'm fairly observant and I know enough to be dangerous. There's a whole study category of "mob mentality", the collective lowering of IQ, of ethics and moral values, etc., in mobs. So a downmodded comment causes others to think "maybe that comment is troll or evil and I need to learn from others' opinions". And many more analyses. In fact, being too sure of oneself and unwilling or unable to consider others' opinions is a symptom of grandiosity, which can be a component of a potentially very dangerous person.
Another mod system problem is that someone might read at a threshold of 1, or higher, and never even see the brilliant AC comment that nobody bothers to upmod.
I try to correct unfair downmods. I've issued few downmods ever, certainly not because I disagree with someone's views. To a reasonable extent I even value many "troll" comments if they stimulate thinking, open alternate points of view, etc. One of my best friends is very cynical. It's stunning how fast he could tell you how quickly something could go wrong and why.
One of my first thoughts is that one user's vote should not drop a comment a whole point. There are many ways to modify this, but some kind of voting percentage maybe?
Maybe a system where users' votes carry different weights, based on their own voting, and karma?
Or a hierarchy of moderators?
I'm just "thinking out loud". There are myriad possibilities and maybe someday I'll be able to provide more thought out ideas. For now it's Good Enough, and thank you all.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Thursday June 13 2019, @10:08AM (4 children)
Great example of US engineering!
Trollish comment - but the point is for all of those soylentils who insult Chinese/Elbonian engineering; US has bad examples too.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by schad on Thursday June 13 2019, @12:31PM (2 children)
The problem in both cases seems to be the same, namely that the bridge was mandated by a bunch of non-engineers to look a certain way, cost a certain amount, and be built in a certain amount of time. I think that anyone who actually builds things -- bridges, computer software, or Lego kits -- can see immediately where the problem is and that it's got nothing to do with being Chinese or American or anything else.
If we really want to try to extrapolate some kind of greater pattern from this, the one to find is that this sort of thing is far more common in societies that don't value technical skill very highly. And I'm not talking about financial compensation, or at least not entirely; it's more about how engineers and other technically-skilled people are viewed. How many companies in the US are run by engineers any more? Almost none. They're all run by people with backgrounds in sales, marketing, or finance, and those three fields, to a very great extent, are about finding clever ways to turn the lies that you want to believe into the truths that everyone believes: a mentality that is fundamentally incompatible with all forms of engineering.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 14 2019, @12:30PM (1 child)
Welcome to the real world where not everyone is a highly experienced engineer (and even when they are, they still make these kinds of mistakes) and everything isn't made of unobtainium. This is standard for engineering everywhere.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday June 15 2019, @07:03PM
Agreed.
I can also take the view that in a better world, nobody would take on this type of project. Anyone thinking about it would look at $, limitations of available materials, and just not bid.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 14 2019, @12:41PM
And? Everyone has such examples. The real question is what do they do when that happens? The Chinese buy their baby formula from overseas when they have such problems.
In other words, the developed world acts to prevent the problem from reoccurring, while China, presently, punishes a few token people and then it's back to business as usual. I believe, as China nears developed world status, that will change, but it hasn't yet.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @10:08AM (1 child)
https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/73nar3/picture208745869/alternates/FREE_1140/fiu%20bridge%20ntsb%20investigators.jpg [miamiherald.com]
not that i have seen a lot of broken building material, but this looks more like crushed rock, than brorken conrete...
/zug
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday June 15 2019, @07:17PM
I don't know why you were downmodded. I'd love to know who's doing that.
I'm not a civil engineer nor concrete expert, but I've done some, and studied some. You may know, and certainly notice in the pictures in your linked article, that there's "rebar" - reinforcing steel bars - embedded in the concrete. Those greatly strengthen the structure, but they also unfortunately create weak spots where the concrete will fail when something catastrophic happens. So the net result is that crushed rock look. It also shows fairly good consistency in the concrete's consistency. If there was a particularly weak spot, it would crumble even more, and leave larger unbroken sections. The picture is of the highest stress area of the bridge, which is why that section is so crumbled, and other sections look surprisingly intact.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @11:15AM (7 children)
Florida Man thought he could build complex long term structure by cutting every possible corner.
End result demonstrates Late State Capitalism to a T.
How many of the engineers involved had their wealthy parents help get them into college and afford Tiger Exams for their tests?
How many accountants told engineers that physics did not matter as much as money?
How many people will lose their jobs? Rhetorical question, this is late stage capitalism so next headline will be:
Florida Man receives promotion after his bridge design fails catostrophically
(Score: 2, Insightful) by epitaxial on Thursday June 13 2019, @12:23PM
Stop with that leftist bullshit. This was gross negligence and aesthetic design over proper engineering.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @03:29PM (3 children)
Regardless of the financial influences, this needs to be on the responsible engineer who signed off.
Will his wealthy parents keep him out of prison?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @05:56PM
Most engineers do not come from wealthy families.
Wealthy families send their children to business school.
The poor bastard who gets hung for this is probably still paying off his student loans.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @05:59PM (1 child)
No one will keep him out of prison, as a patsy that is his job.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @09:59PM
He's not a patsy, he has legal responsibility. He could have withheld his approval.
If the structural failure was foreseeable, his ass needs to be hung.
(Score: 2) by J_Darnley on Thursday June 13 2019, @06:53PM
I think this time it was Florida Woman not Florida Man.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @08:10PM
Agreed, but unfortunately not every country is a Communist utopia like Venezuela.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Z-A,z-a,01234 on Thursday June 13 2019, @12:31PM (1 child)
I cannot stop but see a parallel to the mind boggling stupidity at Boeing:
bad design & implementation + self certification == dead people
(Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Thursday June 13 2019, @01:32PM
Also, in the case of Boeing, bad specification that didn't properly provide safety, and failure to document and train end users.
So much dysfunction.
Any heads roll over there yet? Why is the CEO yet to be fired?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by SunTzuWarmaster on Thursday June 13 2019, @01:11PM
https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/4k36fx/picture212961624/alternates/FREE_1140/FIU%20bridge%20diagram%20(Dave%20Beck).jpg [miamiherald.com]
While that bridge is beautiful, I have to admit that it gives me nightmares about my statics homework. 21 Independent trusses of differing size and differing loads with a non-centered central load, "cables" that don't bear loads (and are instead, top-loads), a braced central pylon, ugh. That is the kind of homework my teacher would assign as punishment.
That said - take a look at the #11 truss - the one on the left. They use an oblique truss! I want you to think for a second - have you EVER seen a bridge with an oblique truss in the design? EVER? Load bearing? The bridge design called for exactly ONE oblique load-bearing truss... That is the one that collapsed. I'm not saying that it cannot be done, but boy-howdy-you'd-better-triple-check-that-math!
Further - the whole thing is constructed out of heavy-as-shit concrete?! This makes it 8x heavier than the bridge on the other side of campus... https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/real-estate-news/pp95ff/picture150249632/alternates/FREE_1140/05BIZMONDIXIE_CPJ [miamiherald.com]
Obviously it is easy to throw stones after it falls, but this pedestrian bridge turned into a seriously difficult project very quickly.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @01:50PM (6 children)
This is why nuclear energy is the worst possible idea. Everytime Chernobyl or Fukushima is mentionned, nuclear apologists climb on their soapboxes and shout "Yeah but that was because blah blah blah, and technology today is completely different and blah blah blah, and we learned from those events blah blah blah"
They just don't get it. They don't get that technology, knowledge, experience, etc are all irrelevant.
The problem is, and always will be, incompetence, negligence, stupidity, corruption, and greed. It doesn't matter that, on paper, we can build the safest, most reliable, failure-proof reactors that ever existed. They will never be made that way.
Everything made by people will fail catastrophically at some point, because of the above reasons. The only solution is to choose technologies that have very little consequences when they eventually fail.
Windmill fails catastrophically. Worst case scenario: A couple of cows get beheaded. Maybe.
Nuclear power plant fails catastrophically. Worst case scenario: Dozens die immediatly, hundreds more die a horrible death in the following weeks/months/years, thousands of people are driven from their homes, entire communities are destroyed/dispersed, and thousands of square miles become inhabitable for centuries.
I know what my choice would be.
Technology is irrelevant. Nothing is human-stupidity proof. NOTHING.
(Score: 4, Informative) by EEMac on Thursday June 13 2019, @03:06PM (1 child)
Like open-heart surgery, skyscrapers, or airplanes? Sometimes the benefit is worth the risk.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @07:05PM
Benefit to whom ? Risk to whom ? In the case of nuclear power plants, are those taking the risk the same people potentially benefiting ?
Every single person who undergoes open heart surgery, enters a skyscraper or takes the plane does so knowingly and willingly. If something goes horribly wrong, their lives will be the only lives affected.
You know what ? I'll be in favor of nuclear energy when every single person living in the exclusion zone, and every single person living in the areas around nuclear waste disposal sites lives there or moves there by choice.
But who cares what I think, right ? This post is probably also going to be modded "troll" anyway by some nuclear-worshiping worthless cowardly little shitfuck.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Coward, Anonymous on Thursday June 13 2019, @03:45PM
I can't argue about how wrong people can be, but the tsunami that caused the Fukushima meltdown killed over 15000 people. The nuclear meltdown caused at most a few cases of cancer, killed some robots, and created a big cleanup job.
In fact, good engineering can beat human errors. That's why, despite the recent problems with Boeing, air travel at crazy speeds and heights in some of the most complicated machines humans ever built is among the safest modes of transportation.
(Score: 3, Informative) by RS3 on Thursday June 13 2019, @05:22PM
I don't think you're troll, but you're being a bit too absolute. It has been proven that technology can be designed and constructed to be extremely beneficial and reliable.
I see the problem as being political. No, not Ds and Rs, but corporate structure politics. The very wrong people are usually in charge of making critical decisions. I don't want to be the guy who stops the giant project, but I sure want to be the guy who people listen to when I see a problem and bring it to their attention, and then when colleagues agree about the problem, sorry, but project might have to be put on hold.
My problem has been that I don't understand the other side- the side that wants to ignore problems and push ahead with projects. I remember the Challenger disaster- big launch review meeting, the engineers said "do not launch- it will blow up" and the managers overruled. Right there is where I have the problem. Managers overruled the engineers? Give the engineers the final say, and honor and respect them for caring to do the best possible job. I think the Europeans are far ahead of USA in this regard.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday June 13 2019, @05:26PM
A few hundred human lives are irrelevant.
Go Thorium!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday June 13 2019, @06:31PM
I'd still take a localized catastrophe like Chernobyl over a global catastrophe like oven-earth. We have the ability to stay away from Chernobyl. Earth....not so much.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jrbrtsn on Thursday June 13 2019, @03:59PM (5 children)
When the workers saw big cracks appear and grow, that should have been the end of that design right then and there. There was plenty of advanced warning that this design is unsafe, and those in charge chose to ignore all of it. I'm sorry, but some people need to go to prison for this.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Thursday June 13 2019, @05:08PM (4 children)
I'm pretty sure some people will go to prison. Shame that these investigations take so so long.
I agree. Not sure if the design is unsafe- not my specialty. IE, it's possible that the design was okay, but that the materials, or some small details like the specified 1/4" roughened surfaces, or other specs. were not followed in the actual construction; field design changes (like St. Louis Hyatt Regency disaster https://interestingengineering.com/understanding-hyatt-regency-walkway-collapse [interestingengineering.com]) No question it's not a rugged robust design, and requires very high-tech materials and precision assembly.
I'm often the one who catches mistakes or flaws in design or construction. I alert co-workers and bosses, but usually get rebuffed. More than once I've been advised to document, paper trail, etc. I guess I wish that everyone would want better designs (of anything) and anyone who catches a flaw would be rewarded, at least by other people caring and acting- design reviews, testing, etc. Unfortunately, as many comments here point out, greed and short-term profit are the priority and rule, and the very wrong people are in charge.
(Score: 3, Funny) by bob_super on Thursday June 13 2019, @05:35PM (1 child)
If I was anywhere in the responsibility chain, and I saw the giant crack linked in TFS, I would make damn sure to not be on/under/near the bridge, and tell my boss that he would have to personally overrule me in writing if he wanted to continue the work without a thorough review by the designers.
Calling the city to send an inspector asap would be step 2, if the answer was that a crack like that is no big deal, in a fucking concrete bridge.
I've been on many many construction sites. I have never seen a crack that big (yes, even in plumbers' pants) that wasn't flagged as an "Oh Shit! Wait.".
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 14 2019, @02:33AM
No no, those cracks are necessary- concrete has to out-gas to fully cure and toughen up.
(Score: 3, Informative) by hemocyanin on Thursday June 13 2019, @07:39PM
It is also the problem of placing aesthetics over function. It would be nice if people responsible for such things would read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance to help them understand that function has an esthetic of its own -- that "functional" is a form of beauty.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 14 2019, @03:26PM
This report is pretty clear that the bridge was constructed properly as specified, but that specification was rubbish.