Hernando de Soto Bridge Crack

[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. I could've pulled over and stitched up, but had no rods.
JK. It does say something about civil engineering that 1 complete failure didn't cause a catastrophic event. Hats off. Saw this evening that crack was photographed from a kayak in 2019, maybe that shot with the truck.

[jimfols]

They are likely engineers at this point, possibly surveyors. On a local bridge surveyors worked for weeks figuring out how the shape of the bridge changed and what was the likely cause. At the same time you have engineers involved to make sure no error in construction happened and that the engineering was correct for the bridge design. Most likely specialist in failure analyst is also involved. This is actually going to be a long process as they will need to make sure nothing else is near failure. Beyond that more than just the broken beam will end up getting replaced.

Whatever is going on I hope this thread continues to receive reports and pictures of the whole process of getting this bridge back into operation. I find these sorts of mega repairs to be most interesting.

Here's a video of the planned repair.

[Toolmaker51]

TDOT prepares a 46 second animation of a fairly monumental repair; in sufficient detail and logical arrangement of sequences to visualize what fixes what.
Youtubers expend 46 minutes building a bench.

[Frank S]

TDOT prepares a 46 second animation of a fairly monumental repair; in sufficient detail and logical arrangement of sequences to visualize what fixes what.
Youtubers expend 46 minutes building a bench.

In a way the 46 minute youtuber videos are no worse than my using 500 words to explain some of my more simple builds

[NeiljohnUK]

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

There's a number of 'inspectors' who need to do inspections, not just sign things off, out there. I'm currently dealing with some 1960's University buildings where the cement and mosaic facings have started falling off, estimated weight of the last 4 foot square that came down, thankfully at night, was ~100 Kg. There are at least 6 buildings clad with the same materials one of which is over 150 feet tall, which has already lost parts of the facings. The Universities estates claim to do 'regular' binocular (visual) inspection and 'tap' testing, hard to claim that if as one of the core safety specialists informs me the last one was 6 years ago...

[jimfols]

TDOT prepares a 46 second animation of a fairly monumental repair; in sufficient detail and logical arrangement of sequences to visualize what fixes what.
Youtubers expend 46 minutes building a bench.

Plus I do not need a face shot of the youtuber whilst narrating the video.

[Toolmaker51]

In a way the 46 minute youtuber videos are no worse than my using 500 words to explain some of my more simple builds

FINALLY! I get to disagree with Frank S.
Despite entirely different backgrounds and talents, never a sliver of discord. In 5+ years, he's aided progress for a [to me] monumental project; I'm confident of filling-in details to his. We've met in person, including his associates, over course of a day and a half, including a trip west to pick up auction material. Prior to that, en route his home, he tolerated my errant navigation [which I maintain a case of rural hide-and-seek]. All this and more, entirely due HMT.net.

But to equate a droning 46 minute you-tube with 500 word descriptions, is out of line. I doubt many recorders can verbalize so accurately, depending on video as a crutch. The ability to render a technical description is getting lost; not only to convenience, poor technical vocabularies, and general lack of commitment. Example; I'm looking for a pair of jackposts, type with handles to run the nut. Of five sites I use, 3 locals have posts, none with height listed or scalable photo, how elementary is that?

There's not a handful of people generating video content I'd give two cents; however, that same few do terrific jobs.

Run of the mill video is, well, run-of-the-mill; narrow, myopic, uninspiring. Obnoxious background music worsens it; fill indicates a lack somewhere within. When the opening lines are "Hi, I'm Xxx, please like and subscribe..." instant mute. Timeline indicates breaks or interruptions? A big jump from intro to last minute.
As a left-handed comparison, insurance commercials are my current peeve. I see nonsense as camouflage, only thing funny about that product, insistence it's critical to our security. The cable show "How It's Made" is the same, just superfluous airtime interspersed with unrelated commercials. Admittedly, a tiny handful are good, showing enough depth in/ of raw material to product.

Watching never equals observing, and so few projects require duplication... I contend, of the two, one is strategic, one tactical. Watching generates mere copies. Observation breaks down elements into "they did this, but I'll do this way". A less productive group, say, armchair quarterbacks, do that, but never have impact. Should-a, would-a, could-a.
A proper description is the same. The post discloses what is believed most important; you read and re-read to dissect an interpretation. The most benefit is in the gaps; when references are found only with initiative, until sufficient CONFIDENCE has you undertake said project; or incorporate DIFFERENTLY.

Another reason I believe little separation exists between dyed-in-the-wool tradeperson and so-called hobbyist.

[jimfols]

Here a guy did a 12:54 video of how this type of bridge works.
When being a maker, I believe it's good to know what keeps bridges up.
Plus a lot of us drive over or under them quite often.