Re: OT-Idiotic Quote of the Century

John A. Weeks III wrote:
In article <6aq9ucF39qgltU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Lone Haranguer <linusz@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Just think. The entire failure could have been avoided if the experts had only consulted with Mr. Weeks.

There was no need to consult with me. The experts identified the
problem and wrote it up in the June 2006 report. That report is
on-line if you care to read it. The Lt Governor repeated the
Governor's demand that there be no new requests for money from
any state agency, the Governor was holding the line.



>>>>>> "The safety recommendations are based on the findings of an
>>>>>> interim report from the FHWA Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center that some gusset plates, components of the
>>>>>> steel trusses, were undersized (not thick enough). This deficiency was confirmed to be a flaw in the design and not
>>>>>> construction-related based on review of the original drawings from the 1960s and inspection of the wreckage. Whether this was a calculation error or a drafting error will perhaps never be known as only portions of the original design calculations were located. But the point is
>>>>>> that it was never caught by any reviewers."

So the bridge (and others of the same design) were structurally flawed
and the bridge collapsing was not because of a Republican governor.

> The collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge may have originated with the failure of gusset plates that were sized a half-inch too thin in the original 1960s design, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said Tuesday.

> In a Washington news conference, NTSB Chairman Mark Rosenker also said there were no indications that Minnesota's upkeep of the bridge
> played any role in its collapse

> At the time it collapsed on Aug. 1, the I-35W bridge was holding some
> 300 tons of additional construction equipment involved in a repaving
> project.

> "It is important to understand that bridge inspections would not have
> identified the error in the design of the gusset plates," Rosenker said.
>
> But MnDOT's history of inspection and study of the I-35W bridge before it collapsed was not without attention to gusset plates.
>
> MnDOT's own bridge inspectors had been tracking corrosion in some of
> the gusset plates, particularly in one node known as L-11, one of
> the critical areas that is now known to have failed.
>
> State inspectors found that a half-inch gusset plate there had lost nearly half its thickness in some spots because of corrosion, but no
> repairs were ordered, according to inspection reports.

(Get that? No repairs were ordered.)

> According to handwritten notes from a September 2005 consultants' meeting, a URS official wrote that "gusset plate buckling -- if this occurs, it is not catastrophic."

(I guess if John Weeks knew differently, he failed to tell anyone.)

> The I-35W bridge opened in 1967. In 1977 and 1998, MnDOT added weight
> to the deck by installing a center median barrier, building larger
> outside walls and increasing the thickness of the bridge's concrete
> deck by 2 inches.
>
> "These changes added significantly to the weight on the structure,"
> Rosenker said. "They were bringing the margins of error down to where
> they didn't exist anymore."

Damn. Maybe the lawyers representing the victim's families should sue Mr. Weeks for failure to report a known safety hazard.
LZ

I have to recuse myself from being an expert witness because
I am involved in an endevour related to the disaster that has a
profit motive.

So you're involved with jury tampering here? Naughty-naughty.
LZ

-john-

.

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