AP: Overpass Near Montreal Collapses (people feared trapped)

[Eugene]

Associated Press
Overpass Near Montreal Collapses
09.30.2006, 02:21 PM

An overpass near Montreal collapsed on Saturday, with TV reports saying
at least five people were injured when their vehicles were trapped by
falling concrete.

"The overpass collapsed," eyewitness Golda Simon told all-news TV station
RDI. "There were two cars on the overpass that ended on Papineau Bridge,
and the two cars are upside down.

"Everyone braked, everyone stopped and that's when we saw the two cars,"
she said.

One witness described chunks of cement falling off the overpass.

Emergency crews rushed to the scene on Highway 19 in Laval, just north
of Montreal.

http://www.forbes.com/technology/ebusiness/feeds/ap/2006/09/30/ap3057040.html

Reports on CNN say that people are belived to be trapped under the debris.

[uppityperson]

1. CBC link, picture

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/09/30/overpass-collapse.html

An overpass in Laval, Que., collapsed on Saturday, injuring five people and possibly trapping at least two others under a massive slab of concrete, police said.

Three vehicles and a motorcycle fell from Boulevard de la Concorde after three lanes of the overpass gave way onto Highway 19 after around noon ET.

Three of the five taken to hospital were listed in critical condition with head, chest and abdominal injuries, said Andre Champagne, a spokesman for the Urgences-Santé paramedics service.

Emergency crews have not been able to get underneath the rubble to reach the people believed to be trapped because they're are worried more of the road will collapse....(more)

[laundry_queen]

11. The worst part is they knew it was in trouble.

IN the article I believe it says they had reports of chunks of concrete falling an hour before the collapse. SO they issued an *advisory* with the media. WTH?? How about shutting down the road and overpass. I have a feeling Transport Quebec might be in some legal trouble for this.

[CHIMO]

2. Overpass collapses in Laval

LAVAL, Que. -- Police feared the worst Saturday for at least two people whose cars were trapped under a huge slab of concrete that plunged onto a busy highway after an overpass "collapsed like a house of cards."

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=4aba69d2-0e1f-401d-b93c-1d41fe86c01f&k=64917

?

[Lost-in-FL]

16. Unfortunatelly, it is not the first time.

It happened 3 years ago near my inlaws (in Laval also) and one person was killed.

I heard from my inlaws that at one time a female cyclist was injured when her front tire got trapped in an overpass sinkhole. The sinkhole was so deep you could see the highway underneat!!!

[aquart]

3. Was there bad weather? An earthquake? A reason?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. Or shoddy construction with just the wrong set of vibrations

set off by that particular combination of traffic?

That's the most likely scenario for those kinds of collapses. Quebec is not known for its earthquakes.

In 1981, two walkways collapsed during a dance in the Hyatt Regency in Kansas City, killing 114 people. As I recall, the rhythm of the dancers' feet set off vibrations in the materials that weakened it fatally.

[newburgh]

6. I read about a study on the Brooklyn Bridge that dealt with this...

and that soldiers are trained to break cadence when marching over bridges. I think it had something to do with all the people who walked over that bridge on 9/11. Apparently this is a part of engineering that has not yet been documented enough to affect design. But this is much different as it involved forward moving vehicles that couldn't possibly create a similar type of stress- unless there was possibly a string of uneven pavement that made the vehicles bounce at a certain speed.

[NYC]

10. If you remember where you read it,

let me know. Thanks.

Welcome to DU. :hi:

(On several occasions, masses of people have walked over the Brooklyn Bridge, but never in lockstep.)

[Tesha]

7. The Hyatt failure...

The Hyatt failure was due to a cost reduction that was done
by the iron fabricators. What should have been a continuous
steel support rod was converted into several segments, with
the load passing through a portion of the support beams that
was never designed to carry the full load that was "passed
through" from rod segment to rod segment.

Carrying that extra "pass-through" load, the beams bent at
the point where the steel rods were attached. And once they
bent, they dropped the rods that carried the lower levels of
the bridge.

Tesha

[eppur_se_muova]

8. Thanks for posting that. I don't often hear that story told right.

The original design was one that called for a continuous hanging rod to carry screw threads near the middle (along a segment of larger diameter) as well as at the end. It was one of those things that only an architect would think of -- not just hard to fabricate, but a real bitch to install. All for the sake of ostentatious decor. So the fabricator changed it, and introduced a fatal flaw in the process.

An engineer would have just put a damned arch (or maybe octetruss) in the bridge, instead of insisting on perfectly flat planes and straight lines. And those people would still be alive.

[Longhorn]

14. A question, please.

I was reading your post and that of Tesha's to my husband who is a remodeling contractor. He was wondering how a fabricator could get away with making such a structural change? That is, who was ultimately held liable?

Thanks! :hi:

[Tesha]

15. Here's lots more data including drawings of the changes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyatt_Regency_walkway_collapse

Tesha

[eppur_se_muova]

17. 1) What Tesha said. 2) It may vary from state to state.

I've heard from someone who works in a civil engineering firm in Alabama that civil engineers (licensed by the state) are liable for damages arising from any buildings they engineered FOR LIFE. A similar liability does not fall on the architects.

[bperci108]

9. Not to mention that it was dangerously overloaded....

...The Hyatt walkway, that is.

I remember that well in the KS state news. Really sad. :(

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

12. My old girlfriend...

An RN, was one of the many health professionals that were pulled from area hospitals and sent to the Hyatt.

The story she told was horrifying. It was so bad that they were administering intraveanous Valium and other ananxiolytics to them while they were working.

It was a charnel house.

[silverweb]

4. Did Halliburton build it?

n/t

[Eugene]

13. Update: At least 4 killed in overpass collapse - AP

At least 4 killed in overpass collapse
POSTED: 9:27 a.m. EDT, October 1, 2006

LAVAL, Quebec (AP) -- Quebec provincial police said Sunday that at least
four people were killed after their cars were crushed in the collapse of an
overpass near Montreal.

Spokeswoman Isabelle Gendron said three people were found dead in one car,
while the fourth person killed was the driver of another car trapped by the
falling concrete in Laval. Gendron said it was not clear yet whether anyone
else was in the second car.

The vehicles were crushed so badly they barely reached the knees of one
firefighter when they were lifted from under tons of concrete rubble early
Sunday.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/10/01/overpass.collapse.ap/index.html