Large bridges in California need probes to determine the risk of a catastrophic collapse, the authorities say

A year after the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in BaltimoreAn independent government agency insisted on the owners of seven bridges in California – including the iconic Golden Gate Bridge – to urgently assess their risk of a catastrophic collapse.

In March 18 reportThe National Transportation Safety Board identified a total of 68 bridges in the United States because they have not undergone vulnerability assessment based on recent ship traffic. The bridges, it said, have an “unknown level of the risk of collapse of a vessel collision.”

The report, part of the current research In the collapse of the Baltimore Bridge said that the owners of the Bruggen-All all-built waterways that are visited by Ocean ships-“are probably not aware of the risk of their bridges on a catastrophic collapse of a vessel collision and the possible need to implement countermeasures to reduce the bridges.”

Some owners of California Bridge told The Times that, after the collapse of the Baltimore Bridge, there were already reviews.

The Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District said in a statement that it was in “full compliance with all national and federal regulations, including federal bridge inspection and evaluation requirements” and the iconic bridge has “one of the most robust protection systems for every bridge on the coaster.”

Nevertheless, the district noted that it hired a consultant earlier this year to carry out an assessment of the structural capacity of the South Tower Fender System of the Bridge for Schipbots.

“The results of the investigation will be submitted to the Federal Highway Administration,” said the district.

John Goodwin, a spokesperson for the Bay Area Toll Authority, who manages all toll income from toll bridges in the area that are owned and operated by Caltrans, told the Times that his office began to work with Caltrans last July and other groups to assess the Schipel traffic in the Baandit, including the waterways.

“I think it’s smart that we judge the vulnerability of all bridges,” said Goodwin. “The risk of collapse is very small, but it is not zero. There is no false sense of safety there …”

Most of the seven bridges in California identified as potentially vulnerable in the Bay Area: the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, the Carquinez Bridge, the Benicia-Martinez Bridge, the Antioch Bridge, the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge. The only in South California is the Coronado bridge in San Diego.

Caltrans, who owns the Coronado Bridge, has said that the agency will assess the recommendations of the report.

“All government bridges are regularly inspected to guarantee strict structural safety and are seismically disadvantaged to the highest national standards,” said a spokesperson for Caltrans CBS partner KFMB TV In a statement. “Caltrans investigates the recommendations of the National Transportation Safety Board and responds to its request as soon as the assessment is completed.”

The NTSB insisted on the owners of the Seven California Bridges to carry out a risk assessment based on guidance from the American ASN. from Staatsweg and Transport Officaries, or Aashto, more than 30 years ago.

If the bridge owners determine that a bridge has a high risk level, the agency has recommended that it develops and implement an “extensive risk reduction plan” that safety strategies identify in the short and long term.

Experts told The Times last year that the California bridges were less likely to fall into a crash with a wandering cargo ship than many bridges throughout the country, because their supporting columns have been installed afterwards to have them resisted.

Yet Robert Dowell, a associate professor of structural engineering at San Diego State University, said that the collapse of Baltimore has shown how important it is to protect bridge pillars against large container ships by installing large mudguards and upgrading ‘dolphins’ on the bridge donation.

“The impact force with these very large container ships is huge,” Dowell said. “If you look at the large container ship that touches the bridge in Maryland, the top of the ship stuck away from the bottom, so even if there was a fender around it, the top of the ship can partially influence the column.”

In the 30 years since Aashto introduced its guidelines, Goodwin said, ship traffic in and out of the Bay Area has increased and there are much larger ships in the waters.

The busiest bridge in the Bay Area-de San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge-Werd is not identified in the NTSB report. Goodwin said the bridge was omitted because it has already been assessed and that a project of $ 100 million has been set to start some time after July to replace and upgrade the fender system of the bridge.

Upgrading the Bay Bridge has been a regional priority after it was hit by ships in 2007 And 2013Said goodwin. In both cases, the mudguards absorbed the energy, but the collision of 2007, with an oil tanker, damaged the fenders and the ship, so that it spilled more than 53,000 liters of oil.

The next generation Bay Bridge spat signs, said Goodwin, would be built with rubber, so that they could better absorb the energy from a ship strike and the bridge and the ships.

Yet Dowell said that all bridges should be evaluated before the collapse of Baltimore Bridge, even the Bay Bridge.

“Each of them must be viewed,” he said. “If the assessment were to be done more than a year ago, I would double and take a look, because there was a lot of work that has been done in the past year since the bridge in Maryland collapsed.”

On March 26, 2024, a 948 feet of freight vessel lost the current when it left and left the port of Baltimore Ramed in a support muscle from the Francis Scott Key BridgeCoupl the structure almost immediately. In 25 seconds the entire bridge collapsed into the Patapsco River.

Six members of a building team were killed.

The NTSB discovered that the Baltimore Bridge was almost 30 times above the acceptable risk threshold for critical or essential bridges, according to guidelines established by the Aashto.

While the Golden Gate Bridge was built in 1937, the other Californian bridges that could be attributed in the 1950s to the 1970s -long before Aashto guidance was published in 1991 for new bridges in response to the research of the NTSB’s research into the Sunshine Skyway Bridge collision in Florida.

In the March report, the NTSB insisted on the Federal Highway administration to set up an interdisciplinary team with the American Coast Guard and the US Army Corps of Engineers to help the owners of potentially vulnerable bridges evaluate and reduce the risk of collapse.

The Federal Highway Administration and Aashto cannot require bridge owners that they evaluate the risk of a bridge on catastrophic failure of a vessel collision if it was designed before the 1991 guidelines were published.

Although existing bridges were not obliged to perform a vulnerability assessment, the NTSB said in a News item That AASHTO in 1991 – and again in 2009 – has recommended that all owners of Bruggen perform such an assessment on existing bridges to evaluate their risk of catastrophic collapse.

Als de Maryland Transportation Authority, die niet verplicht was om een ​​​​kwetsbaarheidsbeoordeling uit te voeren om de Francis Scott Key Bridge te evalueren, een dergelijke beoordeling had uitgevoerd op basis van recent schipverkeer, merkte de NTSB op, zou het staatsagentschap zich ervan bewust zijn geweest dat de brug boven het acceptabele risico was en de stappen had kunnen verlagen om de stappen te verlagen om de instorting van de brug te verlagen en doden te prevent.

Dowell said that the assessment of older bridges – and if necessary upgraded – should be mandatory.

“I think they should be obliged to do a detailed assessment,” Dowell said. “And if the assessment, according to the procedures that have been classified, show,[s] Those upgrades must be done or must be done, then I think they should do it to do it. “