Swiss Cheese Freeway Melts (Again)

Well, our freeway collapsed again.

"What freeway?" you ask. "You mean the one the collapsed in the 1989 earthquake?"

Yes, it's the same MacArthur Maze, the complex of freeways where Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, and all the traffic from the East and South Bay area come to a head. ~300,000 people pass through here every day.

Not only that!— It's almost the exact same spot where twelve years ago an uncannily similar incident happened, as reported by blogger Cathy Gellis:  On a early morning Sunday, a gas tanker carrying thousands of gallons of fuel exploded on the 880/80/580 interchange, turning into a giant fireball that incinerated the vehicle completely.

And that's what happened this morning too. Only this time, the freeway melted.

Why is this road made out of SWISS CHEESE?

This is the most heavily trafficked, volatile freeway intersection in all of Northern California. After a life-changing earthquake and virtually the same incident blowing up in 1995, don't you think someone should put away the silly putty and think about what it takes to build a reliable freeway interchange?

Don't even think about driving this route for months to come.

It's hard for a spectacular disaster like this not to incite darker thoughts. I was disgusted to see that some of the local media were quick to remark that that so far, this wasn't considered a "terrorist incident." OH FUCK OFF.

Of course this wasn't "terrorism"— this is the cost of of living in America today.  Basic public services, be they schools, hospitals, freeways, food safety, etc. are all blown to smithereens because our government is so Caligula-esque in their corruption, so lax, so disdainful of what happens to "the little people," that you cannot depend on anything to work, run, or operate in a remotely reliable fashion.

Every time we need a dollar for something that millions of people need, "the numbers don't work."  Yeah, it's a HECKUVA job all over again.

Excellent Google map created by John Baynham here. Eve Batey's informative blog updates here.

Here's a commenter named MadOak on Batey's blog who explains the details rather succintly:

As for why the tanker blew up, that doesn't need explained. As soon as I read that it was I.80 going to I.580/Hayward it was obvious. That is the most insanely stupid highway interchange in the entire country.

When I came here nine years ago, I was like, "What do CA Highway Engineers smoke?"

One highway splitting into three major important highways at a single point? —With improperly canted ramps randomly suspended like spaghetti? —With ramps that split themselves down the middle?

It's a complete menace, unsafe at any speed. A major earthquake could hardly make it worse. Why is I.80 always backed up past Berkeley? —That interchange, right there.

Exploding tankers are engineering's way of putting a litte arrow on the place where a highway engineer was a moron.

And for those of you actually trying to GET somewhere:

EB 80 to EB 580 closed (coming from SF over the Bay Bridge headed to the East Bay)
*TAKE 880*

WB 80 to SB 880 closed (coming from Berkeley headed to anything south of Emeryville)
*TAKE 580*

NB 880 to EB 80 closed (coming from South Bay to Berkeley)
*take local streets thru Emeryville to get back on 80*

WB 80 to EB 580 OPEN (Berkeley to East Bay)

WB 580 to WB 80 OPEN (East Bay to San Francisco)

NB 880 to WB 80 OPEN (South Bay to San Francisco)

NB 880 to EB 580 OPEN (South Bay to East Bay)

Comments

[sfmike]

That's a great jeremiad, and I particularly appreciated the "OH FUCK OFF" to the local media doing terrorist-pandering. I heard some of the same nonsense immediately after the Virginia Tech shootings in the form of "We don't know if it's a terrorist event, YET!"

[tallie]

Although i agree with you that the call to terrorism whenever something like this happens is totally insipid, and that many many public services are cut, disproportionately affecting poor folks of color, i have to disagree with "that you cannot depend on anything to work, run, or operate in a remotely reliable fashion."

The United States of America controls most of the world's economy and resources. for a nation at war, things run incredibly smoothly. I'm from the middle east - i grew up in california and still live here. I think the American public would not be so quick to justify the war if we had any idea of what it's like to actually live in a country upon which the war is taking place. a broken freeway, terrifying as it is, is for most a small inconvenience. it will probably get fixed, while homes are still demolished in the wake of Katrina a year and a half later, and the future of Iraqi and Lebenese cities is impossible to imagine.

[t'Sade]

I love the "OH FUCK OFF" bit. I'm getting annoyed with every possible little thing could be associated with terrorists. As for a highway melting, perfectly natural. I mean, the road outside of my house seems to melt and there is only 30-40 people using it a day. :) Imagine what millions of cars per day would do to anything?

[Harel B]

I think Tallie meant well with the "for a nation at war, things run incredibly smoothly" comment but
this needs to be said, so: The US is not "a nation at war" if that term is supposed to refer to what
we usually mean by bombed out countries facing
other countries..we are not being invaded, occupied, or bombed...we are a nation attacking
other countries, which, yes, means more money
for the military and less for services, and in that
sense, yes, it's maybe true that it's amazing
the social services aren't in even worse shape,
but the "a nation at war" phrase...precisely because of the rest of tTallie's paragraph, which
is RIGHT ON: we're NOT living under
anything remotely like what Iraq or Lebanon
or Afghanistan, or even what Panama
faced in the 1989 US invasion for that matter.

As for the middle east, Israel in the 1970s
had better public transit than much of the
US has today (that's one of the
few positive things I have to say
about Israel..that and that Israel's
constitution in 1948 declared women
and men to be equal, something
59 years later the US still finds too radical?!) though yes, the US public
transit is in some areas finally maybe
getting a bit better..

And as for Susie's comments about the massive
flow of funds to militarism and away from
everything else, let's do a little math.
A $100,000,000,000 pentagon budget would be more
than enough if we really were about Defense
rather than Offence. But let's double that
to 200 billion..that would leave about $300
billion we could spend less on militarism, or
about exactly $1,000 for EVERY woman, man, and
child in the US. Imagine each American
getting $1,000 a year every year of their lives..

How much would you have at age 65? $65,000? Yes,
but in a mutual fund getting 10%/yr and $83/month
(or $1000/yr) deposited, growing for 65
years..about $5 million dollars..after accounting for 65 years' of inflation at 3.5%, it would
be "only" $500,000 in today's dollars a child
born today would get at age 65. There are
some hidden assumptions in such calculations, about Wall St growing
at this rate for another 65 years while r*ping
the planet, which might not be possible
(much less "desirable") but still it gives
a flavor for how much we're throwing away
with this half-trillion dollar per year
Offence Department...

[Tomo]

I'm hoping that someone, say the insurance agencies, take care of this rebuilding. There is a degree of fault in the driver none-the-less, and the California public, I'm sure, doesn't want to be further inconvenienced than they already are. But in any case, we're still going to probably see an increase in bridge tolls, taxes, whatnot, to "raise money to fix stuff"... Ahhh Cal-trans we love you.

I always hated that intersection....

[jon Bailiff]

From SFGate.com
4/29 22:34
"The Oakland Fire Department, the first of numerous public agencies to help tackle the blaze and cleanup, arrived with two engines at 3:55 a.m., according to Capt. Cedric Price."

"Firefighters soon saw that the upper ramp was buckling, Price said, and by 4:02 -- seven minutes after they arrived -- it had collapsed."

And I thought "swiss cheese" was just a figure of speech!
I hope they plan to use play-doo for the rebuild. More durable and heat resistant.

[C.S. Lewiston]

Who needs terrorism when you have good old-fashioned American incompetence?

I've never been to California. But in my corner of upstate NY, we have an interchange in which someone coming south has to mingle with eastbound traffic from another highway, the east-west one, and has only MERE SECONDS to go right, across 3 LANES of traffic in order to find the exit for my home town. When it's late at night and there's not much traffic, it's not so bad. If you're coming from west to east, it's not so bad. Otherwise, during the working day and especially during rush hour, it's like being a blip in a video game, trying not to get hit by the other blips. A recently-retired local newspaper columnist wrote about it. Perhaps they'll fix it before someone gets killed. Then again maybe not.

As for Bush being our new Caligula, as Jello Biafra once pointed out, we have for our leader a Leonid Breznev, a doddering, egotistical fool who can't make anything work, even the missile factories, and who only wants to have his ego jerked-off by his closest advisors while his nation turns to melted Velveeta around him. Nero with melting dairy products!

Tallie's words are well-spoken. and I hope that the NSA spooks who are now monitoring everyone who has ever viewed or contributed to this blog don't send us all to Gitmo via a California freeway!

[Steve]

I don't think it's surprising that a road carrying that much traffic has such an accident. Nor do I think it's surprising that such an accident would cause that much damage. What's surprising is that there is so little backup in case of such a disaster.

But given the geography of the area, that's probably unavoidable.

My question: Why are such loads allowed on a bridge like that? Anyone ever hear of a "truck route?"

I remember some of the spectacular truck accidents in the Chicago area, where similar or worse congestion results in similar kinds of road closings. There was the semi full of milk that closed the freeway (all that cream is very slick!) and there was the beer truck that sloshed out and created a huge foamy head over the freeway. But the most spectacular was a 16 axle truck full of molten steel that flipped over and melted through the highway - thank goodness it didn't land on top of a car full of children. Again, I ask, why is such cargo even allowed on a busy road?

[C.S. Lewiston]

Or why isn't that kind of stuff sent over long distances by rail, in specialized containers? Yes, trains do sometimes de-rail or get switched onto the wrong tracks. And rail lines do tend to run through shall we say, "downscale neighborhoods". But quick, which is safer, a heavily-laden truck on a wet, dark or icy road full of traffic, or a train running on tracks along a privately-owned right-of-way?

[RK]

No worries, our freeway is plenty strong!

What happened here is something that happens to steel girders when exposed to heat. Since the Gasoline was positioned under an overpass, the steel supports of the freeway above were directly exposed to high heat. At about 1000 degrees they start to get a bit bendy, under stress (say the weight of a roadway) they will collapse. This is the same thing that happened to the pancaking floors in the World Trade Center.

Thank goodness the guy was driving in the middle of the night! (And a pity he couldn't keep the damn thing on the road!)

[Linda Rowland-Jones]

Another great piece, Susie, and great comments. I remember this freeway from when I was a kid, every weekend my dad would takee us from the 'burbs to the Berkeley Marina to go sailing. And of course, I'll never forget the '89 quake, I knew people who were on that road that day, before. Timing was good on this one. Yes, a HECKUVA job. Thanks again for calling a spade a spade, as you do so well! xoxooxx Linda

[Craig]

We're not talking about three buildings that were massively overbuilt to withstand anything but intentional demolition. Bridges are notoriously flimsy, are made of thin steel wrapped in concrete and asphalt, and manage to collapse and/or burn all the time. There's nothing truly analogous here. The WTC towers and WTC 7 did not "turn to rubber" and sag in high-heat fires. They were intentionally and demonstrably blown up.
--Andy at Uticans for 9/11 Truth