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Sixteen Inches from Disaster: How Skagit's Span Suddenly Fell
Sixteen Inches from Disaster: How Skagit's Span Suddenly Fell
Sixteen inches was the difference between safe passage and sudden collapse when a permitted oversize load struck the Skagit River bridge on the evening of May 23, 2013 - a fracture-critical span built in 1955, struck repeatedly over decades, and carrying 71,000 vehicles a day. How did routine inspections, a noted three-inch gash, and a pilot car on a cellphone all align to make a bridge fail in seconds?
In this episode, we walk through the sequence of events, the design limits of a through-truss bridge, and the human and regulatory…
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