Tuesday, August 30, 2011

The Titanic Was Unsinkable

I always worry a little about tempting the fates when I read something like this, about the new span of the San Francisco Bay Bridge:
It’s designed to handle major earthquakes and will be considered the lifeline from the East Bay to San Francisco.

The bridge is designed not only to not fall down but be immediately useable by emergency service vehicles, then open to public without rebuilding.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The engineers build it to handle a specified level of stress. Above this, the thing fails.

This is true for all hardware.

What else would you have them do? It isn't like they have any say in what the PR folks put out.

-Mark Roulo

W.R. Chandler said...

Ismay: "But this ship can't sink!"
Andrews: "She's made of iron, sir! I assure you, she can!

Darren said...

I don't know of any bridge designed *to* fall down, so what they said seems silly on that front.

Don't tempt Fate. She can be a you-know-what.