May 1, 2007: Melted freeway
 

http://cellar.org/2007/meltedfreeway1.jpg

Via Spluch comes this sfgate.com story about a gasoline tanker's misadventure near Oakland, CA. Seems the gent was traveling a bit fast and overturned. The thing is, if you do that to a gas tanker, and the gas ignites:

http://cellar.org/2007/meltedfreeway2.jpg

It may just be hot enough to melt all the metal in the structure of an overpass.

http://cellar.org/2007/meltedfreeway3.jpg

The driver had enough sense to know he was hurt and hailed a taxi to get off the scene and to a hospital:
http://cellar.org/2007/meltedfreeway4.jpg

It's not so bad. If you had a good four-wheel drive you could still use it.

We've had this one on the news over here. I was amazed when I first saw the story. I thought someone had blown it up till I turned the sound up and found out it was the heat from the fire alone that'd caused all the damage.

It must have been intense.

Those poor bastards will have traffic nightmares for a while with this. Glad it didn't happen in my city.

This even made page one of the Taipei newspaper.

Wow.

Something like this should quiet the conspiracy theorists that think the WTC towers were brought down by the government...but they'll find some way to twist it to their point of view.

W.O.W.

Would the tankers insurance company be responsible for the repair of the bridge, (assuming it was properly insured), or does the city end up having to eat the cost of the repairs?

Either way, yikes.

Or MAYBE this was caused by the government to make us BELIEVE that it's possible to melt that kind of steel with the flames alone.

Not that I want to start any conspiracy theories or anything. hehehe

I forget what there response to it is...

This is really their own fault for building a bridge on the cheap. Engineers have known for years that all structural steel should be encased in concrete. That protects it from fire, especially the ultra-hot kind. And it's not like this the first time a gas truck ever burned on the road. Hopefully, they'll rebuild it right this time.

From www.rosie.com:

"jen writes:

Your right again! Have you seen them demo the SF bridge? Steel Beams still there and holding up most of it! Not melted rubble, concrete having to be broken up. Keep speaking out - more are joining!

CORRECT JEN "

Paging Dr Rosie O'Donnel....

Sheldon, if you and your partner ever go on one of her cruises, I may have no choice but to kick your asses...but it won't be a hate crime, I assure you. :)

Traffic nightmares? This is a day in the life of commuting to Chicago.

Actually this is extreme but yeah our traffic here sucks.

I'm sure traffic in Chicago is bad, but this happened in SF which has the second worse traffic in the country after LA. Chicago isn't even in the top five. This takes out two major highways. It's a big deal for them.

Yeah my bad, I guess Cali has worse traffic.

My partner hates boats so that ain't going to happen.
But I actually like Rosie. So you can go ahead and do what you want with my ass. ;-)

So - I live in the bay area - but I live in south bay - San Jose - and I work in Fremont (about 30 mins south of Oakland). This was expected to cause ALL sorts of traffic nightmares - but so far it hasn't been that bad. Public transportation is free this week. Oddly enough - everyone has been pretty gracious about the whole thing.

Funniest thing though - CalTrans has said that they hope to have this fixed by the end of the week - I say HAHAHAHAHAHAH to that.

Eh, it *should* all be modular, so they just need to unbolt a few sections, and slap in a couple new ones. Unless the support pillars are damaged, which they shouldn't be - concrete is pretty fireproof. Didn't they show us that in a movie? Volcano, i think it was?

Is it a modular structure? I have no idea...

With all the earth quakes in that part of the world I would THINK they have a contingency plan for failed bridge sections , hell even have a few of them laying about in generic sizes ??

A few years back a 2 lane bridge over the Missippi at Helena Arkansas was hit by a bardge , it didn't do THIS much damage but , the bridge was closed and a section had to be ripped out and re poured ( its cement ) , from start to finnish the bridge was only closed for 2 weeks or less .

I have a feeling daniwong wasn't referring to the engineering or physical difficulties but caltrans bumbling, molasses slow nature.

California. Pah. Young State, thinks it's know everything. We warned it not to burn it's bridges but it has to go find out the hard way......

Concrete is not fireproof. Concrete simply raises the temperature necessary to destroy the structure. In Philadelphia many years ago, rags in a pile started a skyscraper fire that destroyed the structural integrity of that entire building. A 30+ story building had to be disassembled because concrete encased supports may have been too hot. If concrete is so fireproof, then the building would have been cleared and quickly reoccupied.

That fire was fueled only by room furnishings. This gasoline fire was far hotter. Surprising is that the damage was so limited.

Is this new roads built after to replace and bypass the Admiral Nimitz freeway?

Briefly glanced at the front of a newspaper here. Sounds like the driver had numerous run-ins with the law. It wouldn't be a huge leap to wager he was on something when he crashed.

The truth will out.

If the WTC has taught us anything, it's that large amounts of flammable liquid cannot melt concrete and steel.

The fuel ran down the drains and heated things from the inside too.

No they don't have 100 ton bridge sections lying around. How would you even move it?

That spot is horrid for traffic because all the north bound traffic on one side of S.F. bay is trying to funnel onto the Oakland Bay Bridge to get to S.F. over that section. The detours are miles and miles around.

Caltrans signage thru there is absolutely terrible! You can easily discover 'your' exit on the the wrong side of your lanes, in the middle of a curve right in that maze.


That particular road way was steel beams forming the bottom with a concrete road surface on top. That's why it eventually slumped.

Who pays for it?? Good question. Normally if you "lose it" and say knock down a street light you or your insurance company,(property damage aspect), pay for it. In this case they're talking probably 30-50 million dollars. (Chop chop hurry hurry and all.) So I am curious how they deal with that. It would sink a lot of insurance companies. But in most cases they have liability limits. Like 5 or 10 million with a hazardous trucking policy.

They deal with it by 2 methods. The first, as you said, is policy limits, the second is by what is called re-insurance. This is (effectively) an insurance company taking out an insurance policy on itself - over a certain $ figure, the re-insurance company pays. These are usually written by the BIG boys

Also of course, not only the usual vehicle insurance but presumably business indemnity insurance would come into play in this one.

I'm sure they'll work it out somehow though. Maybe arnie could help out?

Correct....concrete contains moisture. So when fire heats it up it "spalls", cracks and breaks apart.. Then the fire hits the steel and guess what? It begins to weaken (not melt). Steel weakens at approx. 1000 degees, meaning it could start at 900 or 1100 etc...
I could bore you with more FACTS about steel and concrete. But, I'll leave it at this

Great link; for laughs.

With a 100-ton crane, of course. :)

A long time ago, my mother told me never to say "Nobody would ever be so stupid as to believe...", because as soon as you say that, somebody will publish something that is just that stupid.

http://www.429truth.com/

Now I wonder if this site is intended to be a parody, of it somebody actually is that stupid. Consider, in addition to the GAY thing:

"The tragic attack occurred on Yom Ha-Atzmaut, Israeli independence day. The “driver” was named “Mosqueda”, a mix of “Mossad” and “al Queda”. 4/29 is also the anniversary of the ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention."

Well that proves everything.

I would not expect anything worthwhile from "Blubber Brain" Rosie, but it is really sad if somebody is stupid enough to believe her, or to believe anything on that site.

Okay, what does the color of the steel frame have to do with anything? When I saw green and frame, for a 1/10 second I thought wood since why would engineers care if steel was painted green?

"Engineers state that if the steel had been properly seasoned and not green the bridge might have survived."

That's so people reading the story will know which part they are talking about. Don't laugh, a lot of people don't know which is which... or care.

This morning's paper says the road is now reopened to traffic.

Only took 25 days to fix. Impressive.

Some people will be able to afford a great vacation financed by overtime and bonuses.

I believe they got a $5M bonus for getting it open one month early.

They also got it open a week before they said they would.

But according to the 9/11 conspiracy theorists you can't melt steel with gas. So did the goberment plant bombs on those steel beams and plan for that truck to hit the overpass at that point and burst into flames covering the goberment explosions?

When they tore up RR tracks during the Civil War, they melted them with wood fires. Maybe it was a wooden truck.

Fucking hell. Green steel, gas won't melt steel. RR tracks are tough as a wood haulers ass. Gas won't do it, but wood would? get real. Flappin reporters.

It doesn't melt like with a cutting torch, becoming a liquid. The fire makes it hot enough to lose its strength, while under load, and bend like plastic until it fails. If you look at the pictures, the beams are still all there, just twisted up from failing under load.

I well understand that. I was in the field when this one burned and helped rebuild. Chevron

Better in the field than on the platform.

Nice pictures. The first one reminds me of something out of Terminator.

I figured that, that's why I didn't understand your previous post. But that's OK, we geriatrics get confused easily, be gentle.

WOW Buster !!! Killer pics !!!!!
I bet it SUCKED getting that shut off !!!!!!

Any more pics like this ??

Search for references to Piper Alpha (I think that was its name) in the North Sea.