OT:Didn't Think of This

RBnSC · Jan 31, 2014

Today the temperature got into the 60s in Charleston after hovering below freezing for three days. The big bridges have been closed from the beginning and reopened this morning. They closed them again midday when large chunks of ice damaged several cars and injured one person. Didn't expect that.
Ron

John M · Jan 31, 2014

Heard about that! I don't recall ever hearing about it with the old bridge though.

Kevin S SC · Jan 31, 2014

Working in this makes me wonder how they deal with these things up north. I don't remember a day that it stayed below freezing until now.

Janicholson · Jan 31, 2014

Ice falling from bridges is not common, but does happen up here in the 45N latitudes. It is the responsibility of road crews to remove Ice and frozen snow which could fall on vehicles. Jim

Fawteen · Jan 31, 2014

They built a fancy new bridge over the Penobscot river connecting Hancock and Waldo counties in Bucksport, Maine. It carries US 1 and US 3 traffic and is the only way to cross the river in the neighborhood. Busy, in other words.

This year, all those humungous suspension cables got coated with ice during the ice storm, and when it started warming up, they wound up closing the bridge for a couple of days.

You'd have thought the engineers/architects would have given winter weather some consideration here in Maine...

JMS/.MN · Jan 31, 2014

We don"t get as many ice incidents as those in the mid-South states. Mostly just snow and cold.

Bob · Jan 31, 2014

Yep, stuff happens. Just west of my place, here on the tundra, there was a simple bridge in a two-lane highway.

I don't think there was ever an accident/wreck rollover for 3/4 of a century.

THEN, they installed federally-approved guard rails.

The guard rails = snow fence.

Since the rails were put in place, every little snowstorm or blow blocks the bridge and there have been numerous rollovers and crashes.

I just heard today that come summer the bridge/guard rails are history, to be replaced by a wide box culvert with NO guardrails.

Billy NY · Feb 1, 2014

That happens in the winter on the GWB (I95- across the Hudson), I think all suspension bridges in this environment do it, though ice accumulation is not very common, I do remember the warnings, they may have partially closed it too, its a hard problem to solve. Sometimes its packed snow/ice, in sheets like what you see come off the top of box/van trailers, always makes the news.

OT:Didn't Think of This

RBnSC

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John M

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Kevin S SC

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Janicholson

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Fawteen

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JMS/.MN

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Bob

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Billy NY

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