Hey everyone,
a bridge over I-70 near Golden collapsed yesterday killing three. it appears that the steel member just installed failed, not the connections.
here is a link to the full story, 9news story
second story
I also took a picture on my camera...i'll post it later
0
Bridge Failure In Co
Started by coskibum, May 16 2004 07:30 AM
10 replies to this topic
#1
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Posted 16 May 2004 - 07:45 AM
We had a big accident with a brige here in NJ too. Our accident was easier to find the cause of. Some person drove a 15 ton truck over a bridge made to support 1 ton. Not pretty. It was right near my house.
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President
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Posted 17 May 2004 - 04:37 AM
You were there, Brad? What kind of a scene was that? The people on the news who kept saying 'that could have been me, and I'm never driving under this overpass again' ought to be slapped. It wasn't them, and they should feel sorry for the family of the people who died. As for never driving under the overpass again- you may as well just stay home and crawl into be for the rest of your life. You can't predict when accidents are going to happen- that's why they're called 'accidents', right?
It will be interesting to see what caused the failure, be it poor installation or freak bolt breakage.
It will be interesting to see what caused the failure, be it poor installation or freak bolt breakage.
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Posted 17 May 2004 - 06:06 PM
no, thank god i wasn't...i was driving back from southern colorado and saw the aftermath at like 11:15 at night.
anyway here is the pic:
anyway here is the pic:
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#6
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Posted 18 May 2004 - 02:05 PM
Yikes, that looks bad, but I think the bridge collapsing near us was most impressive. It was an old steel one with supports above, when it collapsed the truck was on the bridge so it trapped the truck inside, the steel collapsed crushing the truck in a cage. Then the whole mess fell 20 feet into the creek below.
"><a href=Link to Colorado Chairlift Book Website
Elevation 9,600 Feet
"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure." -- Bill Clinton,
President
Elevation 9,600 Feet
"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure." -- Bill Clinton,
President
#7
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Posted 18 May 2004 - 02:45 PM
More than an hour before an Evergreen family was crushed to death Saturday morning on Interstate 70 by a 40-ton steel girder, authorities were warned that the girder appeared "structurally unsafe."
A motorist on a cellphone called 911 about 8:50 a.m. and told the Colorado State Patrol that the girder "looks like it's structurally unsafe over the freeway."
"It may not be a big deal, but I've done bridge construction in the past, and it doesn't look right," the unidentified caller said.
Though the caller was explicit that an I-beam girder was out of place, the dispatcher mistakenly believed the caller was concerned about a sign hanging over the roadway. That inaccurate information was relayed to the Colorado Department of Transportation, which sent out a maintenance crew looking for a dislodged road sign rather than a 100-foot-long girder perched at an odd angle on the C-470 overpass above Interstate 70.
By 9:29 a.m. the CDOT crew radioed that it had found a damaged sign in the median and left the scene.
Approximately 30 minutes later, the girder collapsed, killing William J. "Billy" Post, 34, his 36-year-old wife, Anita, and their 2-year-old girl, Koby Ann.
"The information passed on to CDOT proved not to be accurate," Colorado State Patrol Maj. Jim Wolfinbarger said Monday. "It's a very regrettable circumstance."
Wolfinbarger would not identify the dispatcher but said she had been employed for five years and has been placed on paid administrative leave during the investigation into the deaths.
While Monday's revelations suggest that the deaths of the Post family might have been prevented, experts remain perplexed by what caused the girder to collapse in the first place.
They are examining everything from structural failures to human error and even sabotage to try to explain why the steel girder twisted out of position and crashed onto the highway.
Others in state government are looking at how a clear message of warning went unheeded.
A review of the 911 tape shows that the initial call-taker either did not hear or did not understand the caller's detailed reference to the I-beam girder that looked unsafe and apparently believed he was referring to an unsafe sign hanging from the C-470 overpass.
The caller said: "The bridge at C-470 and I-70, it looks like they hung a new I-beam girder in the last couple of days. Well, it's rolled and it looks like it's structurally unsafe over the freeway."
The dispatcher responded: "So is the sign actually hanging down?"
The caller: "Well, it's rolled to, toward the existing bridge a good 2 or 3 feet."
Wolfinbarger described the mix-up as a "miscommunication" between the dispatcher and the caller.
The State Patrol then contacted a CDOT maintenance crew about "a sign on C-470 that's over I-70."
"The guy says that it's hanging, looks like it's not very safe. Can you guys check on that and see if he knows what he's talking about or if it's just the way it looked to him?"
Perhaps adding to the confusion, the CDOT crew did, in fact, find a sign in the median of the highway nearby.
"It's not a hazard," a crew member declared, according to a recording of their radio communication. He didn't notice the beam was out of place.
CDOT chief engineer Craig Siracusa described the crew as one without engineering experience, trained to fill potholes and provide basic maintenance.
Siracusa would not speculate on whether the crew should have noticed anything amiss with the girder.
"We're cooperating fully with the investigating team," Siracusa said. CDOT is also conducting an internal investigation, he said.
The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office logged about 100 calls after the girder collapse from people who said - after the fact - they noticed something awry with the girder, said sheriff's spokeswoman Jacki Tallman.
That figure does not include calls that may have been directed to other jurisdictions.
Tallman said the male motorist who made the 8:51 a.m. Saturday call has been interviewed by the sheriff's office, but his name will not be released until further interviews are conducted by National Transportation Safety Board investigators who are spearheading the investigation that includes five agencies.
One team of investigators is examining all the after-the-fact calls, for example, said NTSB investigator-in-charge Kenneth Suydam.
Also part of the investigation is a photograph of the girder taken by a motorist on Thursday, two days after it was installed next to the C-470 bridge and two days before its collapse, CDOT spokeswoman Stacey Stegman said.
One engineer interviewed by The Denver Post said the picture may show early signs that the unbraced bottom portion of the girder was beginning to bow - moving out of a straight vertical position.
In the picture, supporting steel stiffeners that are welded vertically to the girder appear to be angled slightly in the portion of the beam that collapsed over the eastbound lanes of I-70.
That could indicate that the bottom of the girder had moved slightly out of vertical position well before the accident. CDOT officials have said the girder collapse was caused by its "flipping out" at the bottom into an unstable horizontal position.
"They're going to be reviewing these as part of the investigation," Stegman said, who forwarded the pictures to CDOT bridge engineer Mark Leonard.
Stegman also reiterated that CDOT was not the entity that determined how to brace the girder to the C-470 bridge.
"The contractors make those determinations, based on the type of girder," she said.
Many have questioned whether the bracing system used to attach the girder to the C-470 road deck was adequate. The bracing consisted of five angle irons that attached the top portion of the girder to the highway road deck at equidistant locations along the 100-foot length of the girder.
But there was no bracing used for the bottom portion of the girder, according to CDOT.
"We expect anything we set on the project to be stable for any period of time," Stegman said. "If there was any reason to believe there was a safety problem on the bridge, the highway would not be open."The eastbound lanes of I-70 will be closed between Genesee and West Sixth Avenue today at 9 p.m. until 2 a.m. Wednesday so crews can remove the 500-ton crane in the median at the scene of the accident.
On Monday, the vice president of Ridge Erection Co., the subcontractor that installed the girder for CDOT's prime contractor, said, "We are deeply saddened by the tragic accident."
"I want to extend our sympathy to the families and friends of the folks who lost their lives," said Vernon Dugger in a statement. "We are committed to do everything in our power to ensure the discovery of the cause of this accident."
A review of records from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration show the erection company was assessed penalties by OSHA for worker fatalities in 1993 and 1996.
The 1993 incident involved a project at Buckley Air Force Base in which a construction crew was dismantling a radar dome. Ridge was one of the contractors on the project, in which a worker fell from a platform suspended from a crane. Ridge paid a $12,200 penalty for its part in the accident, according to OSHA records.
In 1996, a Ridge worker was killed in an accident in Golden and the company paid a $5,300 penalty in the case, said John Healy, area director for the Englewood office of OSHA.
OSHA records show two additional inspections of the company in 1997, but no fines or penalties had to be paid.
"It's encouraging there have not been inspections of them since 1997," Healy said.
Gov. Bill Owens has been following the investigation and is particularly disturbed by the opportunity missed by the initial 911 call, spokesman Dan Hopkins said.
"Clearly, the governor has been distressed about all aspects of this tragedy, and this just compounds it more," Hopkins said.
pulled from the denver post web site
A motorist on a cellphone called 911 about 8:50 a.m. and told the Colorado State Patrol that the girder "looks like it's structurally unsafe over the freeway."
"It may not be a big deal, but I've done bridge construction in the past, and it doesn't look right," the unidentified caller said.
Though the caller was explicit that an I-beam girder was out of place, the dispatcher mistakenly believed the caller was concerned about a sign hanging over the roadway. That inaccurate information was relayed to the Colorado Department of Transportation, which sent out a maintenance crew looking for a dislodged road sign rather than a 100-foot-long girder perched at an odd angle on the C-470 overpass above Interstate 70.
By 9:29 a.m. the CDOT crew radioed that it had found a damaged sign in the median and left the scene.
Approximately 30 minutes later, the girder collapsed, killing William J. "Billy" Post, 34, his 36-year-old wife, Anita, and their 2-year-old girl, Koby Ann.
"The information passed on to CDOT proved not to be accurate," Colorado State Patrol Maj. Jim Wolfinbarger said Monday. "It's a very regrettable circumstance."
Wolfinbarger would not identify the dispatcher but said she had been employed for five years and has been placed on paid administrative leave during the investigation into the deaths.
While Monday's revelations suggest that the deaths of the Post family might have been prevented, experts remain perplexed by what caused the girder to collapse in the first place.
They are examining everything from structural failures to human error and even sabotage to try to explain why the steel girder twisted out of position and crashed onto the highway.
Others in state government are looking at how a clear message of warning went unheeded.
A review of the 911 tape shows that the initial call-taker either did not hear or did not understand the caller's detailed reference to the I-beam girder that looked unsafe and apparently believed he was referring to an unsafe sign hanging from the C-470 overpass.
The caller said: "The bridge at C-470 and I-70, it looks like they hung a new I-beam girder in the last couple of days. Well, it's rolled and it looks like it's structurally unsafe over the freeway."
The dispatcher responded: "So is the sign actually hanging down?"
The caller: "Well, it's rolled to, toward the existing bridge a good 2 or 3 feet."
Wolfinbarger described the mix-up as a "miscommunication" between the dispatcher and the caller.
The State Patrol then contacted a CDOT maintenance crew about "a sign on C-470 that's over I-70."
"The guy says that it's hanging, looks like it's not very safe. Can you guys check on that and see if he knows what he's talking about or if it's just the way it looked to him?"
Perhaps adding to the confusion, the CDOT crew did, in fact, find a sign in the median of the highway nearby.
"It's not a hazard," a crew member declared, according to a recording of their radio communication. He didn't notice the beam was out of place.
CDOT chief engineer Craig Siracusa described the crew as one without engineering experience, trained to fill potholes and provide basic maintenance.
Siracusa would not speculate on whether the crew should have noticed anything amiss with the girder.
"We're cooperating fully with the investigating team," Siracusa said. CDOT is also conducting an internal investigation, he said.
The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office logged about 100 calls after the girder collapse from people who said - after the fact - they noticed something awry with the girder, said sheriff's spokeswoman Jacki Tallman.
That figure does not include calls that may have been directed to other jurisdictions.
Tallman said the male motorist who made the 8:51 a.m. Saturday call has been interviewed by the sheriff's office, but his name will not be released until further interviews are conducted by National Transportation Safety Board investigators who are spearheading the investigation that includes five agencies.
One team of investigators is examining all the after-the-fact calls, for example, said NTSB investigator-in-charge Kenneth Suydam.
Also part of the investigation is a photograph of the girder taken by a motorist on Thursday, two days after it was installed next to the C-470 bridge and two days before its collapse, CDOT spokeswoman Stacey Stegman said.
One engineer interviewed by The Denver Post said the picture may show early signs that the unbraced bottom portion of the girder was beginning to bow - moving out of a straight vertical position.
In the picture, supporting steel stiffeners that are welded vertically to the girder appear to be angled slightly in the portion of the beam that collapsed over the eastbound lanes of I-70.
That could indicate that the bottom of the girder had moved slightly out of vertical position well before the accident. CDOT officials have said the girder collapse was caused by its "flipping out" at the bottom into an unstable horizontal position.
"They're going to be reviewing these as part of the investigation," Stegman said, who forwarded the pictures to CDOT bridge engineer Mark Leonard.
Stegman also reiterated that CDOT was not the entity that determined how to brace the girder to the C-470 bridge.
"The contractors make those determinations, based on the type of girder," she said.
Many have questioned whether the bracing system used to attach the girder to the C-470 road deck was adequate. The bracing consisted of five angle irons that attached the top portion of the girder to the highway road deck at equidistant locations along the 100-foot length of the girder.
But there was no bracing used for the bottom portion of the girder, according to CDOT.
"We expect anything we set on the project to be stable for any period of time," Stegman said. "If there was any reason to believe there was a safety problem on the bridge, the highway would not be open."The eastbound lanes of I-70 will be closed between Genesee and West Sixth Avenue today at 9 p.m. until 2 a.m. Wednesday so crews can remove the 500-ton crane in the median at the scene of the accident.
On Monday, the vice president of Ridge Erection Co., the subcontractor that installed the girder for CDOT's prime contractor, said, "We are deeply saddened by the tragic accident."
"I want to extend our sympathy to the families and friends of the folks who lost their lives," said Vernon Dugger in a statement. "We are committed to do everything in our power to ensure the discovery of the cause of this accident."
A review of records from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration show the erection company was assessed penalties by OSHA for worker fatalities in 1993 and 1996.
The 1993 incident involved a project at Buckley Air Force Base in which a construction crew was dismantling a radar dome. Ridge was one of the contractors on the project, in which a worker fell from a platform suspended from a crane. Ridge paid a $12,200 penalty for its part in the accident, according to OSHA records.
In 1996, a Ridge worker was killed in an accident in Golden and the company paid a $5,300 penalty in the case, said John Healy, area director for the Englewood office of OSHA.
OSHA records show two additional inspections of the company in 1997, but no fines or penalties had to be paid.
"It's encouraging there have not been inspections of them since 1997," Healy said.
Gov. Bill Owens has been following the investigation and is particularly disturbed by the opportunity missed by the initial 911 call, spokesman Dan Hopkins said.
"Clearly, the governor has been distressed about all aspects of this tragedy, and this just compounds it more," Hopkins said.
pulled from the denver post web site
Jeff
#9
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Posted 19 May 2004 - 07:52 AM
I think people should be more carful when bulding htese things. Both the constructers and the drivers.
"><a href=Link to Colorado Chairlift Book Website
Elevation 9,600 Feet
"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure." -- Bill Clinton,
President
Elevation 9,600 Feet
"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure." -- Bill Clinton,
President
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Posted 19 May 2004 - 05:32 PM
This is a link to an engineering forum. There are about 10 insightful replies to this accident.
http://www.eng-tips....d/507/qid/9475
http://www.eng-tips....d/507/qid/9475
www.ropetech.org
#11
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Posted 24 May 2004 - 07:55 AM
This article is from Engineering News â€" Record.
A weekly magazine that has been in business since the printing press was invented.
Again you will see references to cross bracing with comments to amount, style and connection detail of that bracing. One would suspect that if it were not a key item in the collapse the bracing issue would not have been mentioned.
Notice in the image you can use the inspectors for a comparison in scale - beam is quite narrow in relationship to its length.
Click "Team Looking" for full article.
http://enr.construct...com/Default.asp
A weekly magazine that has been in business since the printing press was invented.
Again you will see references to cross bracing with comments to amount, style and connection detail of that bracing. One would suspect that if it were not a key item in the collapse the bracing issue would not have been mentioned.
Notice in the image you can use the inspectors for a comparison in scale - beam is quite narrow in relationship to its length.
Click "Team Looking" for full article.
http://enr.construct...com/Default.asp
www.ropetech.org
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