Hernando de Soto Bridge Crack

[jdurand]

In the left picture, is that a mark from tape that was on there AFTER the crack moved? If so, that looks quite old.

[jimfols]

A twitter person took this photo in July 2019.



The bridge was inspected in Aug 2019.

The yellow truck is westbound.

[metric_taper]

Here's a couple more photos,

Attachment 39517 Attachment 39518

The right photo looks like it cracked on a weld. It's so straight (the 'crack'), and the edge looks like weld failure of insufficient penetration. Like they tried to weld it from the outside and inside, and hid it all with grinding it off then painting with primer at the fab shop.

[Ralphxyz]

It would be interesting if the supplier supplied a welded beam and not a solid beam as speced.

Of course the question is if this beam has a problem what about the other thousand making up the rest of the bridge.

Shows what might happen when you go for the lowest bidder.

All speculations of course.

Ralph

[jimfols]

May 17 2021
The Arkansas DOT released this photo from drone footage taken in 2019 of the cracked beam on the Hernando de Soto Bridge in Memphis. The ARDOT leader of the inspection team has been fired for missing the crack during reviews of 2019 and 2020 inspection reports.
Source: Arkansas DOT

[Moldyjim]

Here's a few more photos.

Attachment 39483 Attachment 39485

Attachment 39484

Is that an inspection walkway on the other side?
Maybe the inspector should have taken a walk in addition to watching drone footage...
Just sayin,...

[Ralphxyz]

The Drone footage shows the obvious crack, the inspector general was fired because he did not even look at the drone footage or take a walk.

Ralph

[Toolmaker51]

After jimfols climbed out for those shots, I recall we have a friend who works on the Mississippi [thank you spell check, mine had one too many snake hisses]. She was caught in that river traffic restriction. So I HAD to google up what transpired.
Some kind of drama!
https://www.google.com/search?client...de+soto+bridge

[jimfols]

Using GPS data, ArDOT found that the detours in place take an average of 10 times longer than the normal route over the bridge.

“Using GPS data, we can discern that a previous 8-minute drive is now averaging 84 minutes” Newton added.

[Toolmaker51]

I was east of St. Louis 2-1/2 weeks ago, right before this. My loop had me return on I-40. The F-150 loaded 100%, but certain I didn't cause it.
But finally have engine powered portable welder.