That the late afternoon sun has melted steel;
[Melissa Hortman of the Minnesota House of Representatives] speculated that 90-plus-degree heat Wednesday and the above-normal temperatures of the past two summers may have been a contributing factor.
“Did the heat put extra strain on the steel?” Hortman said. “You wonder if this bridge was built to withstand the massive heat we have had this summer.”
Wait! There’s more from a “Senior Fellow at the virtual Clinton think tank the Center for American Progress“.
My brother also wonders if the low level of the Mississippi played a role. He writes that most of “Minnesota is currently under Moderate to Severe Drought conditions. The water level has been lower but the less-than-optimal conditions” could have been a stressor.
And here’s a sobering question. With our bridges now failing under the dual assaults of sunlight and too much air beneath them – how will they perform when faced with the global warming rivers of lava?
h/t Newsbusters
But But airplane fuel at high temperature cannot melt the steel of WTC
I am confused. The Truthers tell us that 9/11 was an inside job, since a fire can’t melt steel. Now, another set of Truthers think that a slightly elevated temperature weakens steel enough to collapse. Feel disoriented, faint, weak. Must be the heat. Thump!
It is astounding that elected people can really be that stupid……and publicly so! Amazing.
Further proof that anyone running for public office should be required to score above room temperature for an IQ
Stephan is right I saw actual simulations that prove without a doubt high temp cannot melt steel.
You too can do these complex simulations with just a few simple tools and a can of lighter fluid.
Maybe someone should get out the balsa wood and toothpicks and provide us with another of those wonderfully educational simulations.
wow – just wow.
Stupidity should be painful.
I’m completely speechless.
We need to stop bubble wrapping everything so these mental midgets can be “naturally selected” out of the gene pool.
Looking at the articles I don’t really see anything that is not in the realm of possibility regarding the failure. In regards to the temperature, I would have said this is a likely cause since extremely high temperatures will cause expansion problems. Combine that with some rust accumulated over the last year and you could have failure.
I find the low water level less likely, but I can also see how it could cause a lack of pressure on the foundations that again may cause a slight shift and an increase in the stress.
However in regards to global warming – as always, you can’t point to a single event and say “yup, that was caused by global warming”. And in this case I would be especially suspicious since there are too many other factors involved.
help,help the sky is falling no no its burning!!!
Well with nothing else to get your attention, no famine, no war, no depression, alles gut, pre-programed humanity has to have something to focos their fear upon, now its human made global warming, 30 yrs. ago global freezing (and by the way if hotter doesn’t work freezing will do.)
Well with nothing else to get your attention, no famine, no war, no depression, alles gut, pre-programed humanity has to have something to focos their fear upon, now its human made global warming, 30 yrs. ago global freezing (and by the way if hotter doesn’t work freezing will do.)
no famine, no war, no depression??
what planet do you live on?
Oh well there ya go…sun melts structural steel…well that’s a given…itis a wonder anyone goes near these death traps that rely on buttery sub structure they’re so fragile.(deadly dose of sarcasm intended)
….put me down as a sceptic…I still don’t buy the official story on 9/11 and still feel it was the most under-investigated disaster in US history…for such a seminal event to produce a report so full of speculation, conjecture, plausable deniability, and just plain unknown conclusion is UNACCEPTABLE!!!
IT’S NOT ABOUT PISSANT PARTISAN POLITICS ITS ABOUT ACCOUTABILITY!
I’m with Reid on this! Quit interfering with Darwinian rules of species survival.
Of course it usually is the same kind of tools as Hortman and the folks from the CAP crew are also inclined to promote all the nurse nanny BS we are forced to endure! Perhaps that is their survival mechanism…..
Why of course, John – because before the turn of the century, summer temperature spikes into mid-80’s were unheard of by bridge engineers.
This is what happens when schools stop teaching math and science. We all eventually go back to the tried a true way of life in caves and mud huts. But then, isn’t that what suits the enviro nuts?
Should be good and above all … safe!!. Billions of caves and mud-huts with people cooking anything they can kill (peta be dammed) over wood fires and pissing on the ground everywhere.
Ya … that must be our destiny and that will bring world peace and equality and fairness and stable weather patterns and put an end to all problems that are the fault of those pesky capitalists.
But most of all, David Suzuki will not lose any of his waterfront homes due to rising sea levels because of that pesky capitalism which we all know for certain is behind global climate change.
The more I think about the war being waged by our elites on the rest of us, the more I think it’s all about the vast amount of ocean front real estate that many of them own and are convinced may actually be underwater unless we all pay up.
Sorry I just woke up and the coffee hasn’t taken effect yet.
no famine, no war, no depression??
what planet do you live on?
Posted by: jeff davidson at August 8, 2007 11:17 AM
What continent do you live on?
There should be something, like the V 8 konk on the forehead, for people who have something to say without really knowing what they are talking about. But then I might have a permanent bruise on my forehead.
Hey Micro-brain …. Yeah you JD!
Try and get a grip on the BIG picture once in your life!
Kate: No, I am pretty sure that 90+ temperatures were well known. But failures are rarely due to only one factor. Consider the following as a possible scenario: every year there is a little bit more corrosion and the fatigue cracks have propagated just that much more. That may not be a not a problem for most of the time but add the stress from some heat expansion and failure is possible. However without more information we are all just guessing.
At any rate I find that more plausible than melting steel 😉
I sand blasted and painted steel bridges and water towers through high school and post secondary summer breaks.
I have next to zero hearing left to show for it and two degrees.
The rust created from a pidgeon nest left in the same spot for about 5 years is unbelievable, it can erode a one inch thick steel rivet plate by about half it’s thickness in extreme circumstances.
Box beam bridges like this one are difficult to blast properly, because you can not properly point a stream of sand and air directly at rust spots up inside the beam.
Some inspectors are afraid of heights and will not go out on scaffold rigging to properly inspect crucial junctions for paint thickness or blast quality .
I’ve never seen an inspector in a bolsons chair,(window washer) ever.
Now add double crested cormarants roosting on the beams.
My guess is it collapsed because of the rust.
Good grief. The range of expansion and contraction (from 40 below winter to 90 degree summer) would not be materially different than in the past 50 years. I would be more concerned about the corrosive effect of salting the roads in the winter. As otehrs have aptly noted, many factors contribute. Appropriate ionspection procedures should eb the focus of speculation.
Just another case of the media purposely ‘dumbing-down’ the news.
Why ? Simple. Business territory shift has taken place.
The Internet and blogs takes MSM territory.
MSM takes Tabloids territory.
Tabloids takes Parliamentary Press Gallery territory.
PPG ……. dumpster.
Now I’ve heard everything.
I’ve got several old 70’s vintage Chevy pickups in the back 40. Should I be worried about them collapsing upon themselves due to global warming?
Hmmm. Nothing but controversy. Perhaps a public debate between Rosie O’D and Melissa H would finally resolve this mystery. 🙂
Instead of idiotic politicians who have no clue about what happens why not wait until the engineer come through with their report. I doubt very much it will sound anything like this the theories proposed by this Hortman character. She should be sticking to what she knows like raising taxes and finding more pork barrel projects to fund….sheeshh
yup rosie and milisa ought to impanel a commitee to once and forall determine who is the bigger idiot.On a serious note though I see all incumbent bureaucrats and politicans trying to sieze power for life while under guise of knowing what’s best for us plebes.Remember to conserve gas,oil,jet fuel so the gores ,travoltas and fruit flies can get around.
“Hortman speculated that 90-plus-degree heat Wednesday and the above-normal temperatures of the past two summers may have been a contributing factor.
“Did the heat put extra strain on the steel?” Hortman said. “You wonder if this bridge was built to withstand the massive heat we have had this summer.””
Is there somewhere in that story that quotes her as saying that the heat melted the steel? I must have missed it somewhere. She asked about the strain on the steel.
Though heat alone is unlikely to cause a properly constructed bridge to fail, the fact is she has a valid question when one considers the age of the structure. In her own words she asks whether it could be “a contributing factor” not the only reason. She is obviously aware of the stresses placed on a large steel structure caused by the fluctuations of temperature and it’s a question that needs to be asked. Does everyone here understand reason behind engineers installing expansion joints in bridges, particularly in steel bridges?
Apparently many simply chose to take this out of context without wanting to think first.
Metal melting in the sun? This is Awesome news!!!! I can sell my MIG welder and my torch and just use a magnifying glass! SWEET!
On a more serious note Richfisher, what would be the chances of designing bridge structures with an eye to making them easier to maintain? I’m no engineer, but wouldn’t it be worth a little extra weight in the structure if it ended up harder for birds to nest on and easier to inspect, clean and paint?
thank God it wasnt the stone or the iron or the man but the sun.
the poor MSM , hire a bunch of phyc and journalism that can type, and put out stuff they know nothing about.
mecutio thou talks of nothing,
they talk of dreams
which are but the children of an idle brain.
thanks to Bill Shakespear.
And Alby wonders why we mock him. Alby, that woman wouldn’t know an expansion joint from a ham sandwich.
I recall reading (in my younger years) the story of a highly advanced civilization which had entered a state of decay. Everywhere was fabulous machines, but the survivors did not have the training to understand those machines built by their ancestors. I think it may have been an Asimov (titan!) classic. When I hear of public officials spouting nonsense, I cringe and think of this story from my childhood. I wonder if this public official has just seriously undermined the confidence of her Troofer base. Why, if the sun is melting bridges across America, that means the WTC may not have been felled by controlled demolitions!
Massive heat ?? It has never been hot in past years ??
And don’t forget — some winter night soon, there will be record breaking cold. Will the shrinking also cause failures ??
There will also be record wet weather soon —- the river will then be high. Will that also cause bridges to collapse.
But, like all fear-mongers, the man-made alarmists have covered all the bases.
Suzuki himself, on our beloved, calamity prone The weather Network, admited to morfing from ‘global warming’ to ‘climate change”.
A sure winner because the only thing that remains the same is change. Including the Earth’s climate 🙂
The person who commented about his work on the bridge rust problem is very likely bang-on. He has walked the walk — been there. Unlike the lifetime student type with United Nation/Gore/Suzuki scholarships.
Road salt could be …… HEY !!!
That’s it !!! Global warming will REDUCE bridge collapses because we will not have to salt the icy roads anymore !!!
Oh my goodness alby…your willingness to defend the mental enfeebled is honourable but wrong headed.
The cause wont be heat, heat expansion might have been the proverbial straw on the proverbial camel. The cause will be something else. As Kate has pointed out it isnt like the darn bridge wasnt designed for wild swings in temperatures, it is Minnesota, and the bridge only stood for about 40 years.
Anyone mistaking heat expansion for the cause of the failure is just plain ignorant. Hortman asked if the heat put EXTRA STRAIN ON The STEEL
HEr statement implies that the heat caused the collapse. There is no EXTRA strain. As opposed to the heat expansion potentially putting load on a strut that was weakened by rust. The difference is rust, or missing bolts or soemthing else is the problem not heat or the effects of heat which the bridge was designed for. There was nothing extroidinary about the heat or the weight that day that was outside the design limits of that bridge if it was properly maintained.
Dont feed the animals and dont defend the stupid.
Just to put some perspective into things.
Assuming the original bridge design accounted for a temperature delta from -40C to +40C (-40F to 104F) and that (if AGW were true) the temperature delta was -40C to +60C (-40F to 140F) the difference in thermal expansion in a 10m (~33 foot) beam would be 2.4mm (~1/10 in). I’m pretty sure that bridges of this era have expansion joints incorporated into their design. Meaning this expansion adds NO stress to the members. Also, I’m pretty sure that even the AGW proponents don’t claim this sort of extreme temperature increase. But what do I know. I’m only a civil engineer.
The most likely scenario is the reduction in steel cross section due to corrosion coupled with increased fatigue due to increasing axle loads and increasing traffic volumes over time since the bridge was designed and built.
Steel is an alloy – typically it melts at about 1400°C.
Who knew it could get so hot in Minnesota.
There is a simple experiment you can do to confirm this:
. get some steel
. heat it up to 1400°C in your backyard
. watch what happens!
Once again, the SDA engineering fraternity is here to help you understand the news.
“Thus disproving once and for all the theory that you need a functioning brain to be elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives.”
Reid – ONLY a civil engineer???
A lawyer was walking along a beach near Seattle.
He tripped over a decrepit looking oil lamp buried in the sand.
He picked it up and accidentally rubbed the surface. Of course, a genie appeared.
The genie informed the lawyer that, as a result, he would be granted one solitary wish.
The lawyer thought for a moment and said, “well, I’ve always wanted to go to Hawaii, but I’m afraid of flying. Cam you make me a bridge from Seattle to Hawaii?”
The genie was furious: “Do you know how far that is? Completely impossible! Ridiculous! Most outrageous wish I’ve ever heard! No way! Think of something else”.
“Umm, OK” said the lawyer “make me as smart as a civil engineer”.
The genie sighed. “hookaayy, how many lanes do want on that bridge?”
Which would the left have me believe? That in 9/11, the fire did not melt the steel, but in the bridge collapse, sunshine could?
How does steel manage to stay stiff in the tropics? Or gunbarrels straight and true in Iraq? It’s a wonder.
>>What continent do you live on?
>>Posted by: Kate at August 8, 2007 11:24 AM
‘http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/index.html’
You’ll notice the USA is near the bottom, and from what I understand Canadians are currently involved in some sort of conflict in Afghanistan. Unless, of course, the soldiers are getting killed from the hugs of Afghan children.
So, I guess as time goes on instead of “the dog ate my homework” kind of excuse, our new default for personal catastrophes both large and small can be “global warming destroyed my…….(fill the blank)”.
The silly minions that have swallowed the Flat Earth Science of GW crap whole and use it as a prism to interpret all events in their world deserve to be mocked.
The US has neglected bridge assessment and retro-fitting thanks to a lack of congressional funding, the factual upshot of this story. We’ve got tons of old bridges in bad need of repair, the obvious to anyone but a birdbrain like Melissa Hortman whose background is probably something innane like Women’s Studies.
Reid,
I am sorry, the answer isnt fanstastic or magical enough. There must be some other explanation that cannot be verified. Surely kryptonite was placed near the bridge so that superman couldnt save it or the alignment of the planets caused this or GAIA was angry and smote the bridge down as a warning to all those motorists that were offending her with CO and CO2 and other noxious fumes.
Reid, this is beyond the scope of mankind to fathom. We must all REPENT REPENT Reid.
PS good rational explaination Reid. I am sure the report will be interesting reading for those in your profession.
Buckling coupled with rust-erosion coupled with neglect coupled with extra weight on the bridge due to construction coupled with cars and trucks driving on the bridge sounds plausible to me.
The point is — did Minneapolis have 90+ degree temperatures prior to global warming and Al Gore Rhythms?
If so, then how can this tragedy be specifically attributed to global warming, and not just, er, a hot summer day?
Don’t miss LJ’s response to the original article on ClimateProgress:
LJ Says:
August 7th, 2007 at 9:57 am
Natural disasters before global warming..
Japan, 1181: famine (100,000 dead)
Holland, 1228: sea flood (100,000 dead)
Europe and Asia, 1346-52: Bubonic plague or “black
death” (one third of the European population dead plus millions in Asia
and North Africa for a total of 25 million)
Bengal, India, 1769: famine (10 million dead)
India, 1775: Tsunami (60,000 dead)
Northamerica, 1775-82: Smallpox (130,000 dead)
Caribbeans, 1780: Hurricane (22,000 dead)
Japan, 1826: Tsunami (27,000 dead)
Ireland, 1845: famine (one million dead)
India, 1864: Cyclone (70,000 dead)
India, 1875-78: Famine (10 million dead)
Bangladesh, 1876: Cyclone (200,000 dead)
China, 1876-78: Drought (9 million dead)
China, 1881: Typhoon (300,000 dead)
Indonesia, 1883: Tsunami (36,000 dead)
Huayan Kou, China, 1887: Yang-tse Kiang flooding (one
million dead)
Sanriku, Japan, 1896: Tsunami (27,000 dead)
Galveston, 1900: Hurricane (8,000 dead)
China, 1907: famine (20 million dead)
Hebei, China, 1920-21: famine (500,000 dead)
Ukraine, 1921: Famine (5 million dead)
China, 1928: Famine (3 million dead)
Florida, USA, 1928: Hurricane (1800 dead)
China, 1931: Flooding (3.7 million dead)
Ukraine and Russia, 1932: Famine (5 million dead)
China, 1936: Famine (5 million dead)
New York, USA, 1938: Rains (600 dead)
China, 1941: Famine (3 million dead)
Bengal, India, 1943: famine (3.5 million dead)
Holland, 1953: Sea flood (1,794 dead)
Iran, 1953: Rain flood (10,000 dead)
Louisiana, USA, 1957: Hurricane (400 dead)
Japan, 1958: Typhoon (5,000 dead)
China, 1958-61: Famine (38 million dead)
India, 1965: Famine (1.5 million dead)
China, 1969: Famine (20 million dead)
Bangladesh, 1970: Sea flood (200-500,000 dead)
Vietnam, 1971: Red River flood (100,000 dead)
Bangladesh, 1974: floods (28,000 dead)
Ethiopia, 1974: famine (200,000 dead)
Andhra Pradesh, India, 1977: cyclone (10,000 dead)
Caribbeans, 1979: Hurricane (2,000 dead)
Bangladesh, 1991: tsunami (138,000 dead)
All I can say is, think how much worse it would have been
with
GLOBAL Warming!!
Hahahahaha
“Stray cat explosion joins list of evils blamed on global warming”
http://thewaytheballbounces.blogspot.com/
Never mind the heat, what about that shrinkage they talked about on Seinfeld?
I’m not kidding — it was 1155 degrees on our banks thermostat yesterday about five minutes before noon today– more proof of global warming 🙂 Would someone please call big Al.
My mother always told me I wasn’t the brightest light bulb on the Christmas tree !!
Richard Ball, no fair! Some of those “famines” weren’t Gaia, they were Karl Marx in action. Eg. China, 1958-61.
Still, I suppose we could still blame those on global warming, anything for The Cause eh?
It used to be that we only worried about mutts and Brits…
Now it’s “only mad dogs, Englishmen, and steel girders go out in the noon day sun”. 😉
At least the left isn’t blaming all of the world’s disasters on the Jews any more like the Muslims still are.
SALT – NaCl – is the greatest enemy of any reinforced structure. It attacks the concrete, and when it can get to the reinforcing iron or steel, it attacks that as well.
I remember reading about 20 years ago that many bridges in New York State were in parlous condition because of salt use, and the state highway authorities were by no means confident of finding and repairing them all before one or more failed.