Tanker fire causes bridge collapse in East Bay's MacArthur Maze
Published Mon, Apr 30 2007 12:47 AM
Technorati Tags: News and Politics
This from the San Francisco Chronicle:
(04-29) 18:03 PDT OAKLAND -- Huge leaping flames from an exploding gasoline tanker melted the steel underbelly of a highway overpass in the East Bay's MacArthur Maze early this morning, causing it to collapse onto the roadway below and virtually ensuring major traffic problems for weeks to come.
The elevated roadway that fell carried eastbound traffic from the Bay Bridge onto Interstates 580 and 980 and state Highway 24. It draped like a blanket over a roadway below, a connector from southbound I-80 to I-880 that also was severely damaged.
The single-vehicle crash occurred on the lower roadway when the tanker, loaded with 8,600 gallons of unleaded gasoline and heading from a refinery in Benicia to a gas station on Hegenberger Road in Oakland, hit a guardrail at 3:41 a.m.
Engineers said the green steel frame of the I-580 overpass and the bolts holding the frame together began to melt and bend in the intense heat
-- and that movement pulled the roadbed off its supports.
I'm waiting for the 911 truthers out there to put on their tinfoil hats and explain this one. Those conspiracy theorists like to claim that a jet fuel (kerosene) fire couldn't "melt" the steel frame of the World Trade Center, yet here we have a gasoline fire "melting" the bolts holding the bridge together.
In both cases, the heat may not have really been enough to literally melt the steel, but it was certainly sufficient to soften it, causing it to bend. In both cases the softened, weakened steel of the fasteners holding the structure together bent and failed, causing the structure to collapse.
"It looked like a big slab of plastic because it was melted. It's made of steel and concrete and it was bent at both angles of the pillar. It really looked fake. ... It was an event last night that I'm not going to forget for a long time. It was incredible because it was a roar.
...
Larry Gordon of Oakland, was riveted by the scene of scorched steel and hundreds of yards of melted pavement.
"It's incredible, amazing," he said. "If fire can do that a steel structure like this, what can the next earthquake do?"
Henry Geronimo, 44, of West Oakland, watched the cleanup operation from a fence along Mandela Parkway.
"Coming home is going to be a big big problem," said Geronimo, who commutes to work in San Francisco as draftsman. "Do you know how many terrorists are looking at this? They're getting ideas."
"If fire can do that a steel structure like this..."
"Do you know how many terrorists are looking at this? They're getting ideas."
Fortunately it appears that noone was hurt in the accident. The truck driver, who was driving too fast in a 50mph zone took a taxi to the hospital where he was treated for burns on his hands, face and neck.
Traffic is already pretty bad in the Bay Area. It's going to be worse for a while.
I wonder if the "truthers" will blame this one on President Bush and Karl Rove too.
Trackposted to The Pink Flamingo, Leaning Straight Up, and Conservative Cat, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
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Perri Nelson commented:
By the way, if the "truthers" still need more evidence that steel can be softened and made more malleable by heat, consider that a swordsmith uses ordinary charcoal and a bellows to heat steel to a sufficient temperature to allow him to shape it with a hammer. Imagine the force of the impact of several tons falling upon the heated steel fasteners supporting the floors of the World Trade Center. Just as a blacksmith's hammer can shape heated steel, that impact could bend and break heated steel bolts and flanges.
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