DID YOU JUST DRIVE OVER A SAFE OR AN UNSAFE BRIDGE? IS THE DORM HOUSING YOUR SON LIKELY TO COLLAPSE? CAN THAT TUNNEL ROOF SUPPORT THE 747 AIRPLANE YOU ARE IN? WILL THAT PARKING GARAGE LAST ANOTHER 5 YEARS? DID THE CEMENT MEET THE SPECIFICATIONS? WAS DEFECTIVE CEMENT USED IN CRITICAL STRUCTURES? WAS THE CEMENT FALSELY CERTIFIED? BILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF POTENTIAL LOSS TO YOU THE TAXPAYER - THAT'S WHAT THIS BOOK DOCUMENTS BASED ON A LAW SUIT BROUGHT BY A SMALL CONCRETE SUPPLIER AGAINST A LARGE CEMENT SUPPLIER.

Is That Bridge Safe?

Corporate Greed vs. Public SafetyBy Sachinder Gupta

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2010 Sachinder Gupta
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4490-4471-8

Contents

1. Bridge Failures...............................12. Concrete Or Cement?...........................153. Metro Ready Mix, Inc..........................354. Essroc Cement Corp............................516. Trouble Starts................................656. Essroc's Defective Cement.....................897. Other Customer Complaints.....................1678. The Trial.....................................1899. The Verdict...................................23510. Your Loss And Risk...........................243APPENDIX.........................................2611. Order of Judgment.............................2632. Newspaper Article.............................265EPILOGUE.........................................273

Chapter One

BRIDGE FAILURES

Is the bridge that you are about to drive over, safe?

Or, are you going to be like one of the 13 very unfortunate commuters who perished when the I-35 West Bridge over Mississippi River in Minnesota collapsed on August 1, 2007?

Or, like one of the 5 unfortunate people who perished when a 25 meter section of the 35 year old Laval Bridge in Quebec, Canada, sent tons of concrete onto two cars, on September 30, 2006. The cars were flattened to about knee height. The collapse of this bridge was blamed on total lack of quality control, shoddy construction, and low quality concrete. Chunks of concrete were seen falling from the overpass before it collapsed.

Will you be another Linda and Daniel Sanchez who suffered personal injury on October 18, 2003 in Albany, when a boulder size chunk of concrete smashed through the windshield and into the passenger compartment while the Sanchezs were driving on I-90?

Remember the multi-story parking garage you just parked in? Did you notice the fine hairline cracks in the concrete? They didn't seem critical, did they? Did the salt and deicing chemicals seep into those cracks; and cause corrosion of the reinforcing steel? Will a chunk of concrete fall on your car as you enter or leave the garage next time?

On March 19, 2008 motorists in Michigan called the police to say that a chunk of concrete fell on to the highway from the overpass that takes M-84 over I-75. Deputies closed one lane of southbound I-75, the lane above which the damaged decking was most pronounced. There was a 3 foot to 4 foot section of decking where it appeared chunks of concrete were falling on to the roadway.

In March 2007, three overpasses crumbled on to Metro Detroit roadways within 4 days, damaging vehicles, shocking commuters and drawing renewed scrutiny to what federal reports said was the ninth worst network of bridges in the country. On Tuesday, several vehicles were damaged when chunks of the Groesbeck overpass fell onto westbound I-696. No one was seriously hurt. On Sunday concrete fell from a bridge at Stark Road and I-96 in Livonia, and on Friday, from a railroad overpass onto Schaefer in Melvindale. Will Maddox, a 22 year old Detroiter who drove on Groesbeck on Tuesday, said he worried about debris falling from Metro Detroit overpasses.

Bridges and buildings have been collapsing from time immemorial. The earliest bridge collapse was probably the Stirling Bridge, in Scotland, in September 1297. During the Battle of Stirling Bridge, the beam and trestle bridge over River Forth was overloaded by the attacking forces and collapsed.

In 1444, the Rialto Bridge in Venice, Italy, was overloaded by spectators during the wedding of Duke of Ferrara, and suffered total damage.

On May 2, 1849, the Yarmouth River suspension Bridge, in Great Yarmouth, England collapsed as the weight of the people who had crowded on to the bridge to see a circus clown go down the river in a barrel pulled by geese, shifted. Seventy nine children drowned.

On December 29, 1876, Ashtabula Railroad Bridge in Ashtabula, Ohio, collapsed, due to possible fatigue failure of cast iron elements, killing 92 people and injuring 64.

Bridges and structures can collapse due to many causes. In case of bridges, the main cause so far has been floods, erosion of the soil and undermining of the footings. Between 1966 and 2005, about 1500 bridges collapsed in USA i.e. an average of about 50 bridges per year. Hydraulic conditions, especially soil erosion around bridge supports during large floods accounted for about 60% of the collapses; ships / barge collisions and overloads accounted for about 12% each.

Some examples of bridges collapsing due to erosion or undermining of the foundations, and ship / barge collision are:

On January 27, 1938, Honeymoon Bridge and Falls View Bridge in Niagara Falls, New York and Ontario, Canada, got pushed off the foundations due to ice jam in the gorge.

On May 9, 1980, a 1200 foot section of the southbound span of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge near St. Petersburg, Florida, collapsed when a ship collided with one of the piers. A Greyhound bus and six cars plummeted in Tampa Bay, killing 35 people.

The Schoharie Creek Thruway Bridge over Schoharie Creek near Amsterdam, New York, gave way in April 1987. Five vehicles fell into the flooded river, killing 10 people. The collapse was blamed on flooding and soil erosion beneath the footings.

On April 1, 1989, a 54 year old bridge carrying two northbound lanes of US 51 over Hatchie River, 45 miles north of Memphis, collapsed, and killed 8 people. The collapse was blamed on shifting river.

On May 26, 2002, a runaway barge hit a bridge pier over the Arcauses River in Webber Falls, Oklahoma, forcing a 500 foot section of the bridge to cave in. Fourteen people died in that collapse.

Bridges can also collapse due to other reasons, such as earthquakes, corrosion, metal fatigue, wind effects, design faults, defective materials, poor construction and error during erection. Some examples of these are:

The Angers River Bridge in France collapsed on April 16, 1850, when soldiers marched across the bridge. The marching in steps caused resonance. This is why today the soldiers and pedestrians are told not to march in step when crossing a bridge.

Cypress Street Viaduct in Oakland, California, was destroyed on October 17, 1989, during the Loma Pietra earthquake.

San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge in California, suffered significant damage and a 50 foot section of the upper deck collapsed on October 17, 1989, during the Loma Pietra earthquake.

Kizua Bridge in Pennsylvania suffered a partial collapse when it was hit by a tornado on July 21, 2003.

Caracas - La Guaira Highway Viaduct in Venezuela was demolished on March 19, 2005, by a landslide.

Silver Bridge on US 35 connecting Point Pleasant, West Virginia and Kanauga, Ohio, collapsed suddenly on December 15, 1967, into the Ohio River. At the time of the collapse, 37 vehicles were crossing the bridge, and 31 of those vehicles fell with the bridge. Forty six people died and 9 were seriously injured. Older resident claimed that the cause of the bridge collapse was "The Curse of Cornstalk."! Chief Cornstalk, upset over his defeat at the Battle of Point Pleasant, placed a curse of death and destruction over the entire Point Pleasant area. The real cause of failure was attributed to a fracture in the eye bar, which fracture was caused by a minute crack formed during casting of the steel eye-bar!

On September 17, 2004, a major section of the Escambia Bay Bridge in Florida collapsed in the wake of Hurricane Ivan. Several hundred...