A section of freeway that funnels traffic off the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge collapsed early Sunday after a gasoline tanker truck overturned and caught fire, authorities said. The heat from the fire was intense enough to melt part of the freeway and cause the collapse, but the truck's driver walked away from the scene with second-degree burns.
No apparent terrorist connection here, just a careless and/or stupid trucker. Fortunately this happened in the middle of the night. Since Truthers believe this sort of thing is impossible, maybe they will blame this on Bush or Cheney.
Hey, wait - fire melted steel? Somebody tell Idiot Rosie!
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/29/2007 18:57 Comments ||
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#3
It's going to royally screw commute traffic out here for at least a month (Hah! Far longer if I know CalTrans and contractors).
No terrorist connection so far as anyone knows at this time - the driver hailed a cab and went to the hospital with 2nd degree burns, but nobody else was killed - so far as they know before they begin sorting the debris (just hedging my bets here and I do hope no one was caught underneath the collapse).
Unfortunately, it spells out in plain and simple language just exactly how vulnerable certain portions of the Bay Area are to extremist attacks (I cringe every time I travel through the Caldecott Tunnel which is just about every day).
#4
World class traffic jam tomorrow in Oakland. In all of California this is just about the most perfect spot to drop a ramp and cause everyone in Oakland, Berkeley and San Francisco huge traffic nightmare. Wait, thinking about these cities and their politics, God does have a sense of humor. Certainly it amuses me!
#5
This actually quite serious. Whereas Los Angeles had the wisdom to hire a private contractor after the January 17, 1993 Northridge quake, Alameda County relied upon CalTrans. The LA contractor specifically demanded huge bonuses for early completion and cheerfully accepted heavy late penalties in the final contract. He then went out and hired every cement worker and paving equipment operator in sight and ran the project on a three-shift schedule. The work was finished on April 11, 1994, in a little over one year's time, so far ahead of schedule that even all of the overtime and shift differential pay could not stop him from walking away with several million dollars in early completion bonuses.
After the 7.0 quake of 1989, the five mile Cypress section of I-880 that collapsed was replaced at a cost of 1.25 BILLION dollars. That amounts to some $4,000 per inch. Compare this to the Los Angeles work which cost half as much and was completed in some sixteen months instead of almost a decade.
While the Cypress interchange rebuild was no small project, its lengthy reconstruction was a boondoggle of massive proportions. Estimates are now citing a few months to replace this small portion. Commuter delays will total in the billions of dollars worth of lost time. There will also be an additional kiloton of vehicle emissions from drivers taking slower alternative surface routes.
#6
the contractor in LA (like the bay area) was hired under Caltrans approval - it was work on the state/interstate highway system, and the local agency (I work for one) has neither the $ nor the authority to do that work without CT and FHWA approvals. Both jobs were done by private contractors with agency oversight. I realize you've worked a lot of places doing multi-exciting jobs, Zen, but in this case you're full of shit. Read/Know/Live It before you comment, Jeebus. The cost difference was in "community activists" and local pols requiring add'l "features" like expensive architectural looks and lighting.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/29/2007 21:06 Comments ||
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#7
The cost difference was in "community activists" and local pols requiring add'l "features" like expensive architectural looks and lighting.
Yes, there was some site remediation (a PVC plume) that increased costs plus there were also "local hiring" clauses and other riders that drove up the Oakland project's expense wildly. Among them was the "outcry" of how the old Cypress freeway had "divided" the existing (slum)neighborhood, thus requiring the rebuild to be diverted westward by some distance.
Due to the incredible "flyovers" and changeover from stacked to side-by-side corridors that took place, I'll not argue costs, but the time frame was simply inexcusable. CalTrans has a well-deserved and exceptionally shitty reputation for on-time and on-budget completion of projects. Let me know if you have proof otherwise.
Managing a program of this size, complexity, and cost requires a consistently high level of diligence in applying accepted project management practices. However, Caltrans has not fully incorporated generally accepted standards for project management. This report considers Caltrans' efforts in managing project risk, cost, and communicationsareas in which it could have guided the program better to achieve the maximum chance of success. In the area of risk management, the report focuses on the East Span, which accounts for $2.5 billion of the $3.2 billion in cost overruns and the four-year delay. Although Caltrans took steps to identify and mitigate risks to the East Span project, such as hiring consultants to perform a risk assessment in February 2003, it lacked a comprehensive risk management plan for the East Span. Without a risk management plan, Caltrans never defined its risk management activities for the program. As a result, Caltrans lacked processes to identify, track, and quantify risks throughout the project's life.
[emphasis added]
I realize that the Bay Bridge eastern approach involved some serious non-functional related esthetic issues, but that does not change how badly they tend to mismanage projects.
#8
I have worked with CT on several projects. Like local projects, timelines are dictated by issues/complications. The NEPA process is no more complicate than teh California CEQA process - they generally run conurrently. It's not my intent to defend CT - I have no dog in their fight. Your first allusion to local control vs state control was demonstrively false. I wouldn't appreciate it if the tables/blame were turned, and I don't think you should get away with that crap here
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/29/2007 22:00 Comments ||
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#9
and I only have 22+ years of direct experience to balance your feelings.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/29/2007 22:01 Comments ||
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#10
There was a virtually identical incident here Friday. In that case the overpass stayed up, but the driver died. The headline seems to blame the crash on an illegal shortcut, but that's probably bull.
#12
Your first allusion to local control vs state control was demonstrively false.
If it is, then I withdraw it. All I know is that, somehow, the LA damage was repaired by almost an order of magnitude less time.
I only have 22+ years of direct experience to balance your feelings.
And I have a lifetime of being stuck in crappy commute conditions because CalTrans can't manage it's way out of a paper bag. The auditor's report I cited is only for one single project. Yes, a whopper, albeit, but one they should still be able to negotiate. CalTrans is a state agengy, fer cripes sakes! You'd figure that they knew how to navigate the paper trail required of them. They quite obviously don't and I'm fed up with them sucking down major tax dollars in the process. I've seen the glacial speed with which they address even the most crucial bottlenecks here in Silicon Valley and it's nothing short of criminal.
A BAKER has been forced to rename her novelty pig tarts - because they don't contain any pork. Val Temple, who runs Sgt Bun Bakery, Weymouth, says officers from Dorset's trading standards department also told her she must swap the name of robin tarts as they are not made from robins. And she claims she was instructed to rename her paradise slice because ... it's not from paradise.
Mrs Temple has made the novelty cakes in the shape of pigs and robins as a treat for her customers for years. She said: "It's a joke.
"The officers came in and said they had had a complaint and I must change the names because they didn't contain pork, robin or paradise.
"It's an insult to the public. Of course they don't contain pig, robin or paradise.
"The trading standards officers have been coming into this shop for 26 years and now the name has been picked up.
"It's absolutely ridiculous. Are they going to start banning Christmas cake because it doesn't have Jesus in it?
"You could apply it to everything. It's so silly.
"And as for the paradise slice, that recipe is 120 years old and it's always been known as Paradise Slice.
"They said they were going to come back in and check, so I've changed the names now.
"But people are still coming in and calling them by their proper names."
Mrs Temple said she had swapped the name of her animal-inspired tarts to novelty tarts with jam and fondant and the paradise slice to almond, fruit and nut slice.
Ivan Hancock, the county's trading standards manager, said: "The fact is that piece of food needs to be properly described so that the consumer can tell what it is.
"There's nothing wrong with using other names but it must be accompanied by the true name of the food.
"Consumers have the right to know what is in food."
But Mrs Temple, who runs the bakers with her husband Ian, denied she was told this. She said: "The way they came in and said the names had to be changed didn't give me the impression you could keep the names.
"I'm sure other places haven't been told they should list all the ingredients. It's ridiculous having a long list of ingredients - of course customers are not going to think I put robin and pork in a cake."
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/29/2007 16:07 Comments ||
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#3
yule log?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/29/2007 16:20 Comments ||
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#4
Can we bomb Brussels now, before we have to destroy all of Europe to rid it of this infestation?
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/29/2007 16:28 Comments ||
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#5
"They're bound to think it's some form of mock frog. . . . I must warn you that in future you should delete the words 'crunchy frog', and replace them with the legend 'crunchy raw unboned real dead frog', if you want to avoid prosecution."
#7
"It's absolutely ridiculous. Are they going to start banning Christmas cake because it doesn't have Jesus in it?
Gotta like her gumption. What's next? Girl Scout cookies because they aren't made with real Girl Scouts?
Here's another example. Denmark is a nation absolutely addicted to licorice. In every town of moderate size there are Lakrids Boutiques, which often sell over 100 different types of licorice. In Copenhagen, these same shops will usually have over 200 types on hand. Scandinavian licorice is a pinnacle of the confectioner's art. Unlike the coarse grainy wheat-starch based "vine" licorice we have here in America, Danish licorice is made with gum arabic, various syrups, highly milled starches and flavored with anise extract, licorice root, menthol, eucalyptol, different sugars and, most of all salmiak, the salt of ammonium chloride which gives it the characteristically salty flavor so adored by all Danes.
A few other countries make bulk quantities of salted black licorice. Holland, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Finland produce it, but in nowhere near the same quantities that Denmark does. To give some perspective, here's a statistic:
Danes consume more licorice than chocolate.
In light of such over-concentrated licorice production, the EU has seen fit to demand that Denmark reproportion its output to match that of other European nations. The insanity of this goes beyond comprehension. No other countries even consume anywhere near the same quantities, nor anywhere near the same variety or quality of manufacture. I'm confident that Denmark might well bolt from the EU were such policies strictly enforced. I've yet to hear of any resolution regarding this inane matter.
Let's all remember that it took an EU council years and several million dollars to sort out which countries would produce which crisps (chips). Be it potato, maize (corn), shrimp, vinegar and salt flavour and so forth. This bullshit is a bureaucrat's dream. No heavy lifting all the four star lunches you can eat.
The EU is one of the most parasitic entities to arise since Islam itself. That Muslims find themselves so at home in the EU countries should be a surprise to no one.
#15
I think I dated the winner of the megapussi 300.
She kept asking if I had spotted dick. I ended the date early and made a doctor's appointment.
I don't, I'm fine.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
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Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
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Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
