Stupide question? Did the bridge really need to collapse? (Page 14): Please tell me the absolute minimum size, rigidity and capacity you are thinking is sufficient to safely catch...

dustie Loc: Nose to the grindstone

SteveR wrote:

You tell me, dustie, but from all you've told me about how massive that ship was, it should have kept going like Godzilla through New York (or was it L.A.?).

Please tell me the absolute minimum size, rigidity and capacity you are thinking is sufficient to safely catch, hold contain a mass like that, or larger, at any worst possible combination of speed, mass, direction of impact, height, width, farthest overhang of vessel.....and the absolute minimum size, weight, thrust, draft, strength of a tug boat to safely catch, hold, contain, overcome momentum, change course of one of those vessels by one little boat contact amidship....
.....in order to be absolutely sure there is no damage to land-based infrastructure and no spilled/damaged cargo and wrecked ships sitting in harbors/ports, so there will be no need for asking why there was not a big enough, stout enough, tall enough, overbuilt enough everything, so anything like this can be absolutely safely prevented from ever re-occuring.

Oh, and all the stop, catch, hold containment apparatus must be manmade, right? Don't count on help from the bottom of the waterway, correct? You seem bothered mere manmade stuff wasn't erected to eliminate this possibility.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

The bridge didn't need or want to collapse but once the support was removed this thing called gravity came into play.

You can test it yourself. Walk to an edge and then step off and see if gravity works. Make that the edge of a small drop of something with a soft landing - I'll let you use the edge of my pool as long as I get to videotape it. Just for evidence and proof of course. I wouldn't dream of posting the video on UHH or You Tube. Honest!

dustie Loc: Nose to the grindstone

robertjerl wrote:

The bridge didn't need or want to collapse but once the support was removed this thing called gravity came into play.

You can test it yourself. Walk to an edge and then step off and see if gravity works. Make that the edge of a small drop of something with a soft landing - I'll let you use the edge of my pool as long as I get to videotape it. Just for evidence and proof of course. I wouldn't dream of posting the video on UHH or You Tube. Honest!

This is not a frustrated former schoolteacher test?
There aren't piranha schools or crocodile gangs in that pool?

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

dustie wrote:

This is not a frustrated former schoolteacher test?
There aren't piranha schools or crocodile gangs in that pool?

No*, just some drowning bugs, once a bird fell in with a broken neck when it bounced off the house and once a tree rat running from a hawk went in and drowned. I do get Black Phoebes doing skimming dives to "rescue" those drowning bugs.

I called the pet store, they are out of piranha, crocs, gators and fresh water sharks. They did have some 6" Koi.

dwmoar Loc: Oregon, Willamette Valley

kufengler wrote:

This will most likely be done when a new bridge is built.

I just wonder why the tug boats didn't guide the ship until past the bridge?

Because it would slow them down and cost them extra money to be guided out. The will do everything and anything in the name of saving a buck, and this is the results. Guiding them in and out would have in the long run, saved money and lives.

SteveR Loc: Michigan

dwmoar wrote:

Because it would slow them down and cost them extra money to be guided out. The will do everything and anything in the name of saving a buck, and this is the results. Guiding them in and out would have in the long run, saved money and lives.

They were only moving at 8 knots. How would tugs have slowed them down?

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

dwmoar wrote:

Because it would slow them down and cost them extra money to be guided out. The will do everything and anything in the name of saving a buck, and this is the results. Guiding them in and out would have in the long run, saved money and lives.

Not just money for the ship. The port itself wants to move ships in and out as fast as they can. It would take longer and create backups with ships coming and going.

scallihan Loc: Tigard, OR

We live with possibly being in a motor vehicle accident, or airplane accident, freeway overpass collapses due to truck strikes, train derailments, earthquakes, hurricane . . . Bridges collapsing, though devastating, don't happen that often.