AARoads Forum

Regional Boards => Mid-South => Topic started by: roadman65 on April 13, 2015, 12:08:50 PM

Title: Queen Isabella Causeway
Post by: roadman65 on April 13, 2015, 12:08:50 PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Isabella_Causeway#/media/File:Queen_Isabella_Causeway_collapse.jpg
Above is a picture of this particular bridge when it was severely damaged after a barge struck it.  As some of you may remember the incident, three 80 feet sections of bridge collapsed and 8 fatalities occurred as some vehicles went plunging into the water below.

If you look at the center pier of the missing piece you will see that it got shortened from the crash as it is not as tall as the other piers and it is at the height of the 3rd from the bottom cross connector.  Outside of finding this interesting, it seems almost unusual that the pier would sink even if that was the pier that got struck by the barge that cause the disaster.  However, the picture does not lie and it did indeed sink.

It would be interesting to actually know what caused this in this here manner.  I cannot find anything of the sort that goes into details about the pier itself as all archived articles just mention the main facts of the accident and the vehicles involved.