I-35W bridge collapse

A little over a year ago, August 1, 2007, the I-35 W bridge collapsed into the Mississippi River. The death of 13 citizens made the collapse even more devastating. A terrifying moment for the Twin Cities, the main priority that day was to try to rescue everyone, and later find the cause. This tragic event was a scary moment for me and my family, because we had relatives coming to our cabin that day across the I-35 bridge that same day. Thankfully they were OK, but ever since then I have wanted to know what made the huge bridge crumble into pieces. 

This article shares the design issues that investigators found when analyzing the bridge collapse. They discovered that the gusset plates, located in the center of the bridge failed to hold the 287-ton construction load crossing the bridge that day. Not only did this heavy load impact the collapse however; the constant heavy loads on the bridge daily were an issue, as well as the failure to calculate the thickness of the gusset plates. The gusset plates, only measuring 1/2 inch, should have been 1 inch, proving the designers did not perform the task of calculating the thickness. The investigators will share these findings to the Washington headquarters on Nov. 13, which will help determine the final report on preventing this problem in the future.

I hope the investigator's findings are correct, so there will never be this issue again in the future!