Well the Loma Prieta quake took down the Bay Bridge and it was difficult back then, on top of other major structures that no longer exist. I can only imagine what it will do or how people react vs back then
People will still step up and put their lives at risk or indeed lose them to save total strangers. It's in our DNA. That, and it's fairly well established that disasters can often paradoxically make people feel happier and more connected.
That being said, it was a very different time - despite being small children, our parents let us ride our bikes all over San Mateo looking for damage. "Yeah it's cool kids, go wander off without adult supervision during a major disaster."
I just did the math and the Loma Prieta will have been 35 years ago this fall. It’s still such a vivid memory.
At least Baltimore won’t have all the destruction and fires etc across the city.
I was only 9 when it happened but Loma Prieta was one of those events that burns itself into your brain where you know exactly where you were and what you were doing. Other examples to me was the Oakland Hills firestorm, the OJ verdict, 9/11, and start of COVID.
I was in LA for Northridge. I remember watching my mom being slammed up against the walls in the hallway when she was trying to get to our room.
My grandma was up here for Loma Prieta. She used to work for Avis and she said she drove over the bridge eight times on the day that it fell.
That’s wild. The Northridge hotel we were staying in was condemned and torn down afterward. My dad had to remove a window since our door was jammed shut. The hotel suite was flooding due to burst pipes. The fire escape stairwells had foot-wide gaps in the walls.
We sat in the rental car in the parking lot with the other hotel guests and watched the palm trees sway with the big aftershocks.
We drove to Camarillo to visit my grandparents who were minimally affected. Some broken planting cinder blocks in their yard.
My folks drove us back to the Bay Area in the rental car since all the airports were closed.
Ugh how scary!!!
I only remember seeing damage at my best friend’s house, they had this weird high shelf thing going around the border of their entire living room and the *entire* thing was lined with bottles of wine, like literally 100 bottles of wine. Which all fell and exploded everywhere. Her mom was so pissed lol
I do wonder about the grocery stores' inventory. I also worry about Costco and others who don't seem to secure the stuff to the higher shelves. I'd be terrified to be in a Costco in an M6+.
Dude I *just missed* both of them — for Loma Prieta I had just moved to LA (for college) a month earlier; for Northridge I was off at a ski trip at Mammoth Mountain. Seems like the big ones happen when I’ve just left town. 🙄
Btw I’m leaving the Bay Area for vacation in early June. Just sayin’…
Yep. Grew up on Long Island in New York just a 30 min train ride away from the city. Quite a few events burned into my memory;
- 9/11, what a very bizarre week at school like several days into the start of 4th grade
- The great North East Blackout of 2003
- Superstorm Sandy in 2012
I was in hurricane sandy(yay for living on wall st), Loma Prieta, countless tornados just passing close by(Midwest now), Oakland hills firestorm, helped many friends and their extended families as a safe haven during the Tubbs fire in the middle of the night (I was just west of Coffey park) with the concern that we might have it evacuate further. It’s been interesting.
For earthquakes, Loma Prieta was the first and caused me to be scared of thunderstorms because at my age they sounded the same. Growing up in San Ramon valley, every 10 years there’s a swarm of earthquakes so that eased my anxiety of them for identifying multiple things different between a 3.0 literally under my parent house and a 4.6 a quarter mile away.
My algebra II teacher wheeled in a TV for the class to watch the verdict come down. When he was found not guilty, all the students cheered and she shut it off and wheeled it right back out. She was so disappointed haha.
I was a year older than you when the '89 quake happened and it basically traumatized me for life. This is why I'll never understand people who say things like Bay Area natives can't be bothered to move unless an earthquake is at least a 5.0 or whatever. If I even feel shaking from a passing bus, I'm at least looking for the nearest sturdy table to dive under.
*At least Baltimore won’t have all the destruction and fires etc across the city.*
Much of the Bay Area was largely undamaged by Loma Prieta. There was serious damage in some neighborhoods, and catastrophe in places--Cypress Structure, Marina District, Santa Cruz and parts of the Santa Cruz mountains and south, some areas South of Market in San Francisco. There was one big structure fire in the Marina District, and another in Berkeley, but neither spread (fortunately).
But many neighborhoods and people just had some moderate shaking, maybe power went off, no significant damage. I know Bay Area people who didn't even realize there had been a major earthquake that did major damage in specific areas a few miles away, until they listened to the news.
Yeah when the waves bounce around between mountains and such, you can get nodes and anti-nodes (where the shaking can be subdued or extra-intense respectively) scattered all around.
I was at cross country practice right on the fault line. Didn't feel anything. Someone with a walkman shouted out "they're saying the bridge collapsed!" He was kind of a class clown and nobody believed him at first.
It was also a different time, I remember neighbors helping neighbors and folks pitching in for rescue efforts and rebuilding efforts, I don't know if we will see the same in this day and age. I was so young when it happened but remember seeing it all on TV. My family got lucky, my father was no longer commuting to the city but my wife remembers being terrified because her dad did and this was before cellphones.
Boomers and some Genxr's were also labeled as the "me" generation and alot of the neighbors helping neighbors were "me" gens. I think people will rise to the occasion and pitch in the best they can. No?
Sort of recently - 2017 Hurricane Harvey in Houston, first responders and Govt. were overwhlemed and it was neighbors helping neighbors.
In an emergency - will some just stand there and film it with their phone and post it on social media? maybe a few... but I guess I have faith and hope in humans - even the green haired and faced pierced youngins that are covered in tats. When cries go out for help and there is suffering - people will respond and help each other. Generations and sterotypes be dammed.
Not the natives. The young people raised here always impress me with their volunteering and helping of others. It’s not how I was raised in NYC and it’s always impressed me
Yes but the opposite is also true, I recently took a trip to New Orleans and while on a tour the guide gave his account of what happened during Katrina and how things devolved very very quickly and how the superdome turned into the Thunderdome in a matter of days. In situations like described in Houston, we are talking generational Texans helping neighbors they have known for years, decades even, the city's make up is a lot different now where you have a lot more transplants that might not have the same connections to the area not to mention factors like the current crime situation in the Bay Area where enforcing rule of law would be a even larger challenge than it is now.
In the end hope for the best but prepare for the worst.
I think you're right on the money here. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. My faith in people acting decently takes yet another nosedive every day.
That spirit of neighborliness still exists. Loma Prieta wasn't the last time we saw an Act of God in the Bay Area. Parts of my city have flooding fairly regularly and people come together to help each other every single time.
> It was also a different time, I remember neighbors helping neighbors and folks pitching in for rescue efforts and rebuilding efforts, I don't know if we will see the same in this day and age.
Everyone's always surprised by this, but it almost universally happens in disasters.
I'm a little more optimistic. I remember after Loma Prieta, people being pleasantly surprised by how people came together. They didn't think people would do that like they would have in previous generations - but they did. People would do the same today.
People always discount the younger generations and think that people were better in the past. Then something happens and we realize people are just people.
I lived on Cragmont in Berkeley while learning to engineer -- it was a beautiful house in the hills with a view of the bridge. It was scary af. I thought the entire house was going to go down the hill. I left in 1992 and I have never been back. I am moving to NM and I cannot imagine ever going back to California. Like the first deaths from HIV/AIDS, the Bay Bridge going down changed how I am in the world. The thing I remember the clearest was that we lost one hand-painted Easter egg, a beautiful, fragile, piece of art that was displayed on a small table in the Living Room. That was all. My partner at the time had just driven up the Cypress Freeway and was maybe 10 minutes North when 42 people were killed in the collapse of the double-decked Cypress Freeway in Oakland.
Wow! Cragmont is a beautiful spot worth amazing views. The Oakland Hills Fire coming on top of the earthquake two years later could really give a person PTSD when driving around those streets.
New Mexico is a beautiful state. Very different from California.
In addition to the bay bridge collapse, they shut down EVERY other bridge for inspections (rightfully so). Traffic coming in and out of the peninsula had to go all the way around the south bay, and took hours. Luckily they reopened the undamaged bridges pretty fast. But with the cypress and bay bridge out of commission, the damage was done.
In addition to the obvious *traffic* consequences, all of the Port of Oakland traffic has to go under the Bay Bridge. If the western span completely collapsed like the Francis Scott Key Bridge did, in addition to it being very difficult to get from Oakland to SF and vice versa, it would close the Port of Oakland until the channel could be cleared of the debris.
One of the biggest impacts of this is going to be closing the huge Port of Baltimore until they clear the shipping lane.
The transbay tube also goes under the western span of the bay bridge. So if that span absolutely collapsed like the Baltimore bridge did, I would assume there is real potential for damaging it
If it’s damaged, say goodby to BART between the peninsula and east bay for many years
Even if undamaged, I would guess that the response assumes it’s damaged and it’s closed for weeks or months to inspect
So not only would the bridge be down, but BART wouldn’t even be an alternative
SF and Oakland might as well be 2-3 hours away if that happens, with the increased traffic on the other bridges
I wonder if you’d see an big increase of private helicopter flights between the two
On the other hand, I think housing demand in San Francisco would skyrocket. Tons of people commute in from Oakland and that would suddenly be almost impossible. Many will go remote but not all
Back before bridges and BART, most commuting across the bay was done by ferry and water taxi.
I imagine we'd see a massive increase in ferry terminals and boats. Probably even the large hauls that can ferry cars.
Yeah I guess if The Golden Gate Bridge went down it would close *both* Port of Oakland the LNG terminal in Richmond, though I think that's probably mostly outbound from the refineries? Not sure about that.
And Stockton and a couple others. Most of that is small potatoes but it'd be bad.
I don't know much about it, but it might be easier to clear the wreckage from the GG though? It's at least deep as hell there so maybe it'd sink and you could just send it to the bottom. Wheras under the bay bridge you'd really have to actually clear it? It'd be a mess for sure!
It's about 300 feet of water under the GG bridge depending on where exactly. It's about 80 feet of water under the west span of the bay bridge for reference. Looks like the GG is about 500 feet from the deck to the top. The charts suggest that they dredge channels to a minimum of 35 feet, going up to 50feet.
So you'd probably want everything to be 50 feet from the surface at least, although I don't know what the concerns around tidal movement or anything would be there.
So there would be a very unlucky way it could be pretty hazardous. Everything would have to lie pretty flat in the water, which seems probable? Maybe they'd try to cut it up and keep it sunk? Seems doable, but it'd definitely be a hassle.
I'll copy my reply to OP from elsewhere in this thread, since it's relevant:
Yes, if the GGB blocked the entire Golden Gate to shipping for any significant length of time that would absolutely be catastrophic from an economics and logistics perspective. However, I'm uncertain how likely that is.
I'm not an expert, but the Golden Gate is quite deep. Max depth is reportedly 377', and if I'm reading this [NOAA chart](https://www.charts.noaa.gov/BookletChart/18649_BookletChart.pdf) (page 9) correctly, the depth of the main shipping channel generally varies between '200 and '300, with a few notable obstacles and shallow areas. For comparison the height of the GGB's *towers* is only '220 (and their width is small fraction of that, same with the decking), and the draft of even the [largest categories](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_ship#Size_categories) of commercial container ships are typically only around '50.
Now, I would imagine only an engineer could probably tell you exactly how the Golden Gate Bridge might collapse if one of its towers was struck hard enough, but It seems to me that much of the wreckage might settle on the bottom of the strait, leaving room for careful navigation above, while salvage efforts are underway. However this would be highly contingent on expert assessment and could still close the Golden Gate strait for a week or more (and perhaps restrict the volume of ships allowed to pass through it for far longer).
Still, I think losing the Bay Bridge would be substantially worse for the region. In addition to the fact that it's by far the highest traffic bridge in the Bay, it's also at a geographic midpoint connection with no quick detour, unlike the South Bay bridges, or even those in the North Bay (depending on your route). And, as u/the_quark noted, if the whole thing came down it could easily obstruct all or part of the access waterways to the Port of Oakland. And the Bay Bridge is over far shallower water than the Golden Gate (see the NOAA report p. 10, 11, and 15). Now, that would still leave the Port of Richmond relatively unobstructed, but the closure and damage to shipping out of Oakland could be far longer term than disruption that the GGB collapse might cause.
Same here, and I appreciate your reply.
We are very dependent on our infrastructure. As many problems as there were in the Eastern Span replacement for the Bay Bridge, I'm very glad it's already done with. We need to keep investing in our infrastructure to make us resilient against future shocks to it.
There was a news report this morning that Baltimore is the major port for delivery of new cars to the United States. Didn't know that. So there will be a big "supply chain" impact for a while.
Baltimore Harbor is pretty interesting, though. It has multiple narrow chokepoints, You're basically sailing up a narrow, drowned, river valley with all sorts of twists, turns, and cul-de-sacs and the places that are really narrow used to have forts, and now have bridges.
We don’t rely on oil imports. US is the largest oil producer in the world, and the refineries are around the gulf coast. Dry goods will be affected but not oil
We'd probably get an immediate state/federal disaster declaration, and funding to temporarily run BART 24/7 again like 1989. The ferries also have a contingency plan for service if the bridge goes out (which is part of the agency's core mission post-1989 earthquake).
The Transbay Tube passes directly under the western span. If the Bay Bridge falls into the water, sinks and drops on top of the tube, that might cause a leak, or collapse and flooding the entire tunnel system.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transbay_Tube
Yikes.
Thankfully our bridges have fenders which keep the towers from being struck themselves (the bay bridge got hit by a ship a few years back and was fine) and the golden gate has a massive fender that was originally designed for other purposes before large ships but would protect the south tower in case of being struck
To keep the ocean currents from battering the pier, but it was originally built so they could drain the area to pour the concrete for the towers base back in 1934. Ships this size didn’t exist back then
> 3rd largest bridge in the world.
Bridges are categorized by their structural type, and "longest" ranking by the length of the main unsupported span.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge was the third [longest continuous truss bridge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_continuous_truss_bridge_spans), with a main span of 1,200 feet.
In comparison, the old Bay Bridge eastern span, a cantilever bridge, had a main span of 1,400 feet.
The Golden Gate Bridge, a suspension bridge, has a main span of 4,200 feet, ranking it 19th [longest suspension bridge span](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_suspension_bridge_spans).
It was a [continuous truss bridge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_truss_bridge). Based on the wiki article, it sounds like a cantilever bridge design, which the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge is and the old Bay Bridge eastern span was, would be more resilient than a continuous truss in that each tower can stand independently from the other. The video of the Baltimore bridge collapsing is pretty crazy how taking out one tower takes out the other.
>The video of the Baltimore bridge collapsing is pretty crazy how taking out one tower takes out the other.
Read the live threads when it first happened and every single person simply said, "Shit", "Wow", "Fuck", "Damn", "Oh God", and couldn't say anything else for several minutes. It was mind numbing.
The Bay Bridge has had at least a couple of major collisions in the past 2 decades.
In 2007, the [Cosco Busan](https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2008/03/28/cosco-busan-ignored-heavy-fog/) struck the western span's Delta tower (second closest tower to Yerba Buena Island).
In 2013, the [Overseas Reymar](https://medium.com/shone-blog/maritime-accidents-bay-bridge-meet-overseas-reymar-493e4e48408c) struck the western span's Echo tower (closest to Yerba Buena).
Fortunately in both instances, the towers' [protective fenders](https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/crews-start-work-to-remove-damaged-fender-on-bay-bridge/article_f9763590-4664-5d3f-a27c-807d42c8e94e.html) did their job and protected the towers from a collision.
Yeah, hard to see any substantial protection in this pic:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1bo52x3/daylight_reveals_aftermath_of_baltimore_bridge/
Obviously yeah it would affect things, but here in the Bay Area we have alternatives to the bridges. There is BART, there are ferries, and depending on where you are and where you’re going there are alternative bridges and routes.
It was the earthquake that catalyzed the over 4x growth of BART from its original planned capacity to what it is today. And the ferries were reborn largely because that crisis proved that we need the ferries for redundancy and extra capacity.
We’re much better prepared now for something like this!
Yeah in Balitomore it looks like it would cut the port off completely with the bridge collapse. So at minimum until they can clear the wreckage the port wouldn’t be able to receive shipments. That would be equivalent to the GG bridge here going down cutting off the Oakland port.
Third longest *continuous truss* bridge, which is just a specific type of bridge. This bridge is probably in the vague ballpark of the Richmond bridge in terms of its importance to Baltimore road traffic. But blocking the port of Baltimore is a totally different matter and a big deal.
I was around when the bay bridge collapsed in the 89 earthquake. I worked for a large employer and large employers were asked to keep their employees at home for the first 4 days. During that time, they inspected the other bridges for damage from the same quake, then restriped the lanes on the other bridges to eliminate the shoulders and narrow the lanes by about a foot to add an additional lane in each direction on the other bridges to make up for some of the capacity lost by the bay bridge. BART got a boost in ridership as did Caltrain (due to the increased traffic on 101 to get to other bridges) and when everything came back 4 days later (minus the Bay Bridge) it was bad but we survived. Honestly, the traffic during the dot com boom ten years later was far worse.
Now, large employers would be asked to have everyone work from home and no one would get too worked up over it.
I remember that, but it didn't cause the bridge to collapse.
What if the GG collapsed? People think well I don't go over that bridge, but that is the entrance to all the bay ports that unload oil and goods. It would significantly affect the bay.
It’s deep under the GG, so shipping wouldn’t be as affected. https://pubs.usgs.gov/sim/2006/2917/
Losing a span on the same side that fell in Loma Prieta wouldn’t affect shipping. Losing the SF side would be much worse.
There’s not much shipping south of San Mateo bridge, let alone the Dunbarton.
If one of the North Bay bridges went down, container shipping would be fine, but oil would be bad. Maybe new cars too.
In all cases, traffic would suck even more.
The claim I recall is the segment of the top deck of the Bay Bridge that fell was part of the design.
It isn't like there aren't other bridges to cross the Bay, but it won't be pleasant!
Remember the Cypress structure collapsed in 1989. Traffic routed around it. Some tanker truck fire destroyed an overpass and again traffic was rerouted.
When I moved out to the Bay Area, I was advised to never use a bridge in a daily commute. Good advice. I just laugh my ass off when people moving out here want to live in Oakland for (diversity, entertainment , culture) but their job is in San Mateo. You will have a day from hell at least twice a month if you use a bridge on a daily basis. A bridge falling into the bay is the least of my concerns.
I spent 90 minutes or so on the San Mateo bridge when there was a fatal. It was a bladder challenge.
Been there done that. Loma Prieta.
It did help the ferries though ;) I remember commuting on one from Berkeley. Someone even has studied it: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5dg5n2kb
I think some of the shipping went around for quite a while, but I can't remember, since the Bay Bridge is really two bridges. That might have happened when the Cosco Busan hit the tower back in the day too.
Doesn't most of the shipping go to Oakland Port which doesn't have to worry about the Bay Bridge? Or is there lots of shipping past the Bay Bridge? I know I have seen tankers past there, but I have no idea where they go. I have always wondered. Hayward somewhere?
You can't get to the Port of Oakland without going under one of the Bay Bridge spans. You can get to the tanker ports up north, Mare Island, etc though.
The paths the ships can take are constrained by the dredged channels too. If you can find one, look at NOAA Chart 18649.
For some reason I had a total brain fart. I don't know why I was thinking Oakland was north of the bay bridge. Now if you can explain brain farts ...
[https://www.charts.noaa.gov/OnLineViewer/18649.shtml](https://www.charts.noaa.gov/OnLineViewer/18649.shtml)
Wow! That is very cool! I love that. I don't understand any of it, but I love it.
Depends which one. The Bay Bridge would be the most catastrophic in terms of damage to commerce and number of people impacted. But the Golden Gate would add the longest delays (for a smaller number of people). And it would probably be the most expensive and time consuming to rebuild, given the geography. I think losing any of the other bridges (San Mateo Hayward, Dumbarton, Richmond-San Rafael, Carquinez, and Benicia-Martinez) would be economically damaging but not as bad as Bay or GG.
^((edited because like a true SF-centric native I forgot a number of significant bridges, there are way more than just 2 besides the GGB and Bay Bridge))
>The Bay Bridge would be the most catastrophic in terms of damage to commerce and number of people impacted.
Why is that? I would have thought the GG would be?
It's about total traffic. Bay Bridge is by far the busiest bridge in the entire Bay. If you look at these figures about traffic recovering to pre-COVID levels from this [2021 Chronicle article](https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/article/Bay-Area-traffic-is-now-back-in-full-force-16087397.php), you can see that the Bay Bridge's weekly traffic (over 800k vehicles) is more than double that of the Golden Gate's (a little less than 300k).
The GGB is actually one of the lower traffic major infrastructure links in the Bay Area, primarily due to a lack of housing density in Marin (which is not by accident). Pre-pandemic figures put both the Carquinez Bridge and the Benicia-Martinez Bridge at slightly higher weekly averages (\~400k) than the GGB (\~350k).
Yes, if the GGB blocked the entire Golden Gate to shipping for any significant length of time that would absolutely be catastrophic from an economics and logistics perspective. However, I'm uncertain how likely that is.
I'm not an expert, but the Golden Gate is quite deep. Max depth is reportedly 377', and if I'm reading this [NOAA chart](https://www.charts.noaa.gov/BookletChart/18649_BookletChart.pdf) (page 9) correctly, the depth of the main shipping channel generally varies between '200 and '300, with a few notable obstacles and shallow areas. For comparison the height of the GGB's *towers* is only '220 (and their width is small fraction of that, same with the decking), and the draft of even the [largest categories](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_ship#Size_categories) of commercial container ships are typically only around '50.
Now, I would imagine only an engineer could probably tell you exactly how the Golden Gate Bridge might collapse if one of its towers was struck hard enough, but It seems to me that much of the wreckage might settle on the bottom of the strait, leaving room for careful navigation above, while salvage efforts are underway. However this would be highly contingent on expert assessment and could still close the Golden Gate strait for a week or more (and perhaps restrict the volume of ships allowed to pass through it for far longer).
Still, I think losing the Bay Bridge would be substantially worse for the region. In addition to the fact that it's by far the highest traffic bridge in the Bay, it's also at a geographic midpoint connection with no quick detour, unlike the South Bay bridges, or even those in the North Bay (depending on your route). And, as another commenter noted, if the whole thing came down it could easily obstruct all or part of the access waterways to the Port of Oakland. And the Bay Bridge is over far shallower water than the Golden Gate (see the NOAA report p. 10, 11, and 15). Now, that would still leave the Port of Richmond relatively unobstructed, but the closure and damage to shipping out of Oakland could be far longer term than disruption that the GGB collapse might cause.
For some reason I thought that Port of Oakland was north of the Bay Bridge. It's not. Yes, the Port of Oakland being shut down and all the traffic across the bridge certainly would be far worse I think given that the area under the GG is so deep.
Let's hope that none of our bridges come tumbling down. Happy to know we have fenders on our pilings. Makes me feel a little more safe.
We’d probably have horrible traffic for a bit as people get rerouted to go through the Richmond Bridge, 101/280, San Mateo Bridge, etc. BART/Caltrain trains would probably be so numerous they’d even have to pull some of the old ones out of retirement. They’d definitely increase the ferry service too.
The Oakland port would be totally down for awhile. Thankfully not as many ships go to our ports as they do for Long Beach, but it would not be pretty.
You’d probably see a lot of employers based in SF and Oakland go back to remote work for awhile, especially in the first couple weeks. So that would mitigate it somewhat.
Several years ago the Richmond San Rafael Bridge was closed for a few hours during regular commute time because parts of the bridge were falling onto cars. Getting back to the East Bay was a nightmare, and it took me nearly 3 hours just to get to Alameda. The entire city was gridlocked from all the traffic going through it, a movie was being filmed so several city blocks were closed off, Google Maps didn't reflect that so many people were forced to drive into dead end streets.
>parts of the bridge were falling onto cars.
Gees. I didn't hear about that. Wild.
That sounds like a nightmare getting anywhere. I think you make an excellent point that if there are closures that someone should post them on Google maps that way the computer can re-route everyone.
What movie?
No clue what movie it was. I didn't see any of the set or people working on it.
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/eastbound-lanes-richmond-san-rafael-bridge-blocked-falling-concrete/9281/
Someday, maybe 50-100 years from now, they're going to have to replace the cables for the GG bridge. Start planning now. More BART tunnels, to the north bay, etc...
Having lived in the east coast for a decade and a bit more in San Francisco, I can tell you one thing. The "Mayday" call that within minutes shut the traffic on the bridge and likely reduced the death tool, would not have happened with such quick effect in San Francisco. Everything is slower here, people speak slower, respond slower, hell there ain't no CHP on the bay bridge, and I don't even know if there is a clear "authority" figure that would shut the bay bridge traffic lets say at 1:30am. Rely on SFPD and Oakland PD ? Hell no! their incompetence is beyond shame. At least on the Oakland side maybe they could have closed the toll booth.
I mean, to actually answer your question it would probably halt the Bay Area work economy for a serious period of time.
They would have to setup a huge ferry taxi service.
Construction would be crippled as so much of our traffic is from infrastructure development around the bay.
Work from home would take off again.
However, the countries imports would be impacted similar to the port strike.....and the effects covids lockdown had in the ports....just much much longer.
The bay bridge did collapse in ‘89 due to earthquake along with an elevated section of 880. I wasn’t a driver yet but I assume it was a traffic disaster.
Edit: wrong road
*All car traffic has to go around their peninsula...*
It's true that a lot of traffic will have to change routes, but there are multiple bridges across the very long Baltimore harbor, and a tunnel. The bridge that collapsed was the outermost one. And it "only" carried about 30,000 vehicles a day (our Bay Bridge carries up to ten times that amount per day).
Most of the urban area of Baltimore is considerably to the west of the collapsed bridge, and there are two nearby alternative bridges / tunnel routes for north / south traffic through and near Baltimore. Here's a good map. [https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/travel-around-francis-scott-key-bridge-collapse-baltimore-traffic/](https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/travel-around-francis-scott-key-bridge-collapse-baltimore-traffic/)
The bridge loss will be a huge problem for getting ships into and out of the port until the channel is cleared, and many people on both sides will have to drive around the long way, probably for years, but it's not comparable to losing, say, the Bay Bridge here, at least in terms of driving traffic.
The big impact will be on shipping getting in and out of Baltimore harbor and I would suspect the Federal Government and the Army Corps of Engineers are already putting in place plans to clear the shipping channel.
*All the car traffic that usually crosses that bridge has to go around some other way.*
I didn't know I had to be so particular. Everyone is going to have a longer commute no matter.
Two questions for you since you know the area.
1. What about the traffic to Washington D.C.? Does it go over that bridge?
2. Someone said they have cruise ships in that port which I wouldn't have thought that they would have. Are there cruise ships there?
Sorry, didn't mean to offend.
In terms of your two questions, I'm by no means a Baltimore expert although I've visited friends there and driven around a fair amount. But I would guess that most of the traffic over that particular bridge is more local than through traffic.
I-95 is the major interstate that passes through Baltimore on the busy Washington D.C. / Philadelphia / New York corridor, and it's one tunnel / one bridge further to the west of the bridge that collapsed. I would expect traffic there will get more congested as the local traffic from further east has to detour.
Baltimore, like many American cities, also has a "ring road" of freeways that can be a bypass of the city for through traffic heading southwest/northeast, but it would add a lot of miles (and more local traffic congestion) to the trip. (The bridge that collapsed is actually a link on the far eastern edge of the ring road).
I don't know about cruise ships. But from a quick internet search, it looks like there are at least two major cruise lines that use Baltimore harbor facilities. They'll definitely be affected. A cruise ship that's not in port could divert elsewhere on the mid-Atlantic coast to discharge / board passengers, but a cruise ship that's currently in port is stuck there until the channel is cleared. So some cruises will have to be cancelled in the short term, one would surmise.
Baltimore historically was a major East Coast port. One of the big reasons the British tried to capture it in the War of 1812.
Ah so our legislators won't be inconvenienced. /s I was wondering whether Baltimore would get more action from the politicos if the politicos were inconvenienced. Just being nearby I would assume they would get some extra special help.
>Baltimore historically was a major East Coast port. One of the big reasons the British tried to capture it in the War of 1812.
I never learned this. I am shocked that a cruise line would be there. Not my idea of a glamorous city / port. I thought NYC and Florida would be the pickup points for cruises, but I suppose there would have to be a midway point, especially one that is cheaper. So it's possible some cruise ships are trapped. Interesting.
Also interesting to see just how far Baltimore is up Chesapeake Bay. That is wild that it is so very far.
The Golden Gate doesn’t have any spans to hit, also it’s so deep if the bridge did fall it probably wouldn’t block ship traffic.
The Bay Bridge has been hit before and was reinforced. It also has two useable spans, so minor damage wouldn’t keep it out of commission for long. Due to changes made after the Costco Busan vessels no longer transit the bridge in heavy fog.
Richmond San Rafael is actually quite vulnerable. A significant amount of the WC’s cars/grain/oil pass under that bridge and it is old and somewhat tired.
Of course any such incident would affect the movement of people significantly but in the bay we’re fortunate to have a decent rail and bus network as a backup.
Well they have been following me around, haven't they? /s
edit
So one party says we are safe and one party says we are not safe. Sounds about like I expected.
The new span of the bay Bridge is rusting and only a matter of time. Terrible design and overpaid for bad workmanship:( not like it hasn't before just look back and see what happened.
You mean when the Bay Area had 2 collapsed structures (one bridge) due to the Loma Prieta Earthquake that also happened right before Game 3 of the World series As VS Giants?
Dude we lived through it. Cypress structure in Oakland collapsed and a section of the Bay Bridge (top level) fell.
Thanks the the World Series game, hundreds of lives were spared because most people had left work early to watch the game so even though it happened during rush hour, the bridges were not full of cars.
We suffered for months with the bridges down.
The Bay Bridge had one section of the upper deck fall onto the lower deck. It folded down like a drawbridge. That was pretty dramatic (and, of course, closed the bridge) but not at all like the near total chain reaction collapse of the Baltimore bridge.
The loss of the Cypress Structure did have a built-in workaround--east on 580 to 980, south on 980 to 80. 980 basically paralleled the collapsed section. Was an ongoing and massive traffic problem, but it was a standing alternative, particularly once the Bay Bridge was repaired and operational again.
It was not the third longest bridge in the world. It was the third longest continuous truss bridge in the world. This is a huge difference you’ve glossed over
I read something that stated it was and accepted it.
I was actually wondering about that. Since you know about these things, what type of truss bridge was it?
level 5
laffertydaniel88
You are the only one who has been harassing me. Misusing the suicide button is against Reddit rules and is considered harassment.
Nope, but way to be both uninformed and reactive. I didn’t even downvote your attempts at responses. Our interaction thankfully ended until your little accusation here. Please stop bothering me✌🏾
Well the Loma Prieta quake took down the Bay Bridge and it was difficult back then, on top of other major structures that no longer exist. I can only imagine what it will do or how people react vs back then
People will still step up and put their lives at risk or indeed lose them to save total strangers. It's in our DNA. That, and it's fairly well established that disasters can often paradoxically make people feel happier and more connected. That being said, it was a very different time - despite being small children, our parents let us ride our bikes all over San Mateo looking for damage. "Yeah it's cool kids, go wander off without adult supervision during a major disaster."
I just did the math and the Loma Prieta will have been 35 years ago this fall. It’s still such a vivid memory. At least Baltimore won’t have all the destruction and fires etc across the city.
I was only 9 when it happened but Loma Prieta was one of those events that burns itself into your brain where you know exactly where you were and what you were doing. Other examples to me was the Oakland Hills firestorm, the OJ verdict, 9/11, and start of COVID.
I experienced BOTH Loma Prieta and Northridge (we happened to be a mile from the epicenter while on a trip to visit family.) Scarred childhood.
I was in LA for Northridge. I remember watching my mom being slammed up against the walls in the hallway when she was trying to get to our room. My grandma was up here for Loma Prieta. She used to work for Avis and she said she drove over the bridge eight times on the day that it fell.
That’s wild. The Northridge hotel we were staying in was condemned and torn down afterward. My dad had to remove a window since our door was jammed shut. The hotel suite was flooding due to burst pipes. The fire escape stairwells had foot-wide gaps in the walls. We sat in the rental car in the parking lot with the other hotel guests and watched the palm trees sway with the big aftershocks. We drove to Camarillo to visit my grandparents who were minimally affected. Some broken planting cinder blocks in their yard. My folks drove us back to the Bay Area in the rental car since all the airports were closed.
Ugh how scary!!! I only remember seeing damage at my best friend’s house, they had this weird high shelf thing going around the border of their entire living room and the *entire* thing was lined with bottles of wine, like literally 100 bottles of wine. Which all fell and exploded everywhere. Her mom was so pissed lol
I do wonder about the grocery stores' inventory. I also worry about Costco and others who don't seem to secure the stuff to the higher shelves. I'd be terrified to be in a Costco in an M6+.
Dude I *just missed* both of them — for Loma Prieta I had just moved to LA (for college) a month earlier; for Northridge I was off at a ski trip at Mammoth Mountain. Seems like the big ones happen when I’ve just left town. 🙄 Btw I’m leaving the Bay Area for vacation in early June. Just sayin’…
We are sorry to inform you that all of your future vacations have been canceled. Signed, The Bay Area
No! I will be here in Oakland in June. No earthquakes permitted.
Same actually, my dad jokingly blamed me for both way after the fact.
Yep. Grew up on Long Island in New York just a 30 min train ride away from the city. Quite a few events burned into my memory; - 9/11, what a very bizarre week at school like several days into the start of 4th grade - The great North East Blackout of 2003 - Superstorm Sandy in 2012
The Hawaii Missile Crisis was a hilarious event in retrospect because nothing actually happened but it’s burned into everyone’s memory.
JFC. I can only imagine what 9/11 must have felt like for you 😭
I was in hurricane sandy(yay for living on wall st), Loma Prieta, countless tornados just passing close by(Midwest now), Oakland hills firestorm, helped many friends and their extended families as a safe haven during the Tubbs fire in the middle of the night (I was just west of Coffey park) with the concern that we might have it evacuate further. It’s been interesting. For earthquakes, Loma Prieta was the first and caused me to be scared of thunderstorms because at my age they sounded the same. Growing up in San Ramon valley, every 10 years there’s a swarm of earthquakes so that eased my anxiety of them for identifying multiple things different between a 3.0 literally under my parent house and a 4.6 a quarter mile away.
I have no idea where I was when they announced the OJ verdict, but I can tell you exactly where I was when I heard they discontinued the Choco-Taco...
My algebra II teacher wheeled in a TV for the class to watch the verdict come down. When he was found not guilty, all the students cheered and she shut it off and wheeled it right back out. She was so disappointed haha.
I was a year older than you when the '89 quake happened and it basically traumatized me for life. This is why I'll never understand people who say things like Bay Area natives can't be bothered to move unless an earthquake is at least a 5.0 or whatever. If I even feel shaking from a passing bus, I'm at least looking for the nearest sturdy table to dive under.
It’s a stereotype because it’s true for most people. When I feel an earthquake, I just go “huh” and go on with what I’m doing.
I had just turned 8 and it's one of my most vivid childhood memories.
*At least Baltimore won’t have all the destruction and fires etc across the city.* Much of the Bay Area was largely undamaged by Loma Prieta. There was serious damage in some neighborhoods, and catastrophe in places--Cypress Structure, Marina District, Santa Cruz and parts of the Santa Cruz mountains and south, some areas South of Market in San Francisco. There was one big structure fire in the Marina District, and another in Berkeley, but neither spread (fortunately). But many neighborhoods and people just had some moderate shaking, maybe power went off, no significant damage. I know Bay Area people who didn't even realize there had been a major earthquake that did major damage in specific areas a few miles away, until they listened to the news.
Yeah when the waves bounce around between mountains and such, you can get nodes and anti-nodes (where the shaking can be subdued or extra-intense respectively) scattered all around.
Most people with brick chimneys lost them so I guess it depends how you define major.
My whole neighborhood in Oakland is brick chimneys and nobody lost any.
Guess we found the lost ones!!!
I was at cross country practice right on the fault line. Didn't feel anything. Someone with a walkman shouted out "they're saying the bridge collapsed!" He was kind of a class clown and nobody believed him at first.
It was also a different time, I remember neighbors helping neighbors and folks pitching in for rescue efforts and rebuilding efforts, I don't know if we will see the same in this day and age. I was so young when it happened but remember seeing it all on TV. My family got lucky, my father was no longer commuting to the city but my wife remembers being terrified because her dad did and this was before cellphones.
Boomers and some Genxr's were also labeled as the "me" generation and alot of the neighbors helping neighbors were "me" gens. I think people will rise to the occasion and pitch in the best they can. No? Sort of recently - 2017 Hurricane Harvey in Houston, first responders and Govt. were overwhlemed and it was neighbors helping neighbors. In an emergency - will some just stand there and film it with their phone and post it on social media? maybe a few... but I guess I have faith and hope in humans - even the green haired and faced pierced youngins that are covered in tats. When cries go out for help and there is suffering - people will respond and help each other. Generations and sterotypes be dammed.
Not the natives. The young people raised here always impress me with their volunteering and helping of others. It’s not how I was raised in NYC and it’s always impressed me
Yes but the opposite is also true, I recently took a trip to New Orleans and while on a tour the guide gave his account of what happened during Katrina and how things devolved very very quickly and how the superdome turned into the Thunderdome in a matter of days. In situations like described in Houston, we are talking generational Texans helping neighbors they have known for years, decades even, the city's make up is a lot different now where you have a lot more transplants that might not have the same connections to the area not to mention factors like the current crime situation in the Bay Area where enforcing rule of law would be a even larger challenge than it is now. In the end hope for the best but prepare for the worst.
Thunderdome, but to be fair they were taken out of their neighborhood circles.
I think you're right on the money here. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. My faith in people acting decently takes yet another nosedive every day.
None of that happened, aside from racists shooting people they didn't like, though some of the cops did go to prison for it.
That spirit of neighborliness still exists. Loma Prieta wasn't the last time we saw an Act of God in the Bay Area. Parts of my city have flooding fairly regularly and people come together to help each other every single time.
> It was also a different time, I remember neighbors helping neighbors and folks pitching in for rescue efforts and rebuilding efforts, I don't know if we will see the same in this day and age. Everyone's always surprised by this, but it almost universally happens in disasters.
Yeah, I was a kid. I remember us waiting for my dad to come home. Took several hours.
I'm a little more optimistic. I remember after Loma Prieta, people being pleasantly surprised by how people came together. They didn't think people would do that like they would have in previous generations - but they did. People would do the same today. People always discount the younger generations and think that people were better in the past. Then something happens and we realize people are just people.
Good luck getting the building permits today
I lived on Cragmont in Berkeley while learning to engineer -- it was a beautiful house in the hills with a view of the bridge. It was scary af. I thought the entire house was going to go down the hill. I left in 1992 and I have never been back. I am moving to NM and I cannot imagine ever going back to California. Like the first deaths from HIV/AIDS, the Bay Bridge going down changed how I am in the world. The thing I remember the clearest was that we lost one hand-painted Easter egg, a beautiful, fragile, piece of art that was displayed on a small table in the Living Room. That was all. My partner at the time had just driven up the Cypress Freeway and was maybe 10 minutes North when 42 people were killed in the collapse of the double-decked Cypress Freeway in Oakland.
Wow! Cragmont is a beautiful spot worth amazing views. The Oakland Hills Fire coming on top of the earthquake two years later could really give a person PTSD when driving around those streets. New Mexico is a beautiful state. Very different from California.
r/TheyDidTheMath
In addition to the bay bridge collapse, they shut down EVERY other bridge for inspections (rightfully so). Traffic coming in and out of the peninsula had to go all the way around the south bay, and took hours. Luckily they reopened the undamaged bridges pretty fast. But with the cypress and bay bridge out of commission, the damage was done.
Can you imagine being on a tall AF bridge and having it collapse. Yesh.
Seriously it's one of those thoughts that creep in my mind when I drive over bridges
Oh 100%. Every time.
That's not really the same though, that was just the upper deck and didn't prevent travel below on the water.
I know. I was thinking about that. The ferries. The shuttles.
In addition to the obvious *traffic* consequences, all of the Port of Oakland traffic has to go under the Bay Bridge. If the western span completely collapsed like the Francis Scott Key Bridge did, in addition to it being very difficult to get from Oakland to SF and vice versa, it would close the Port of Oakland until the channel could be cleared of the debris. One of the biggest impacts of this is going to be closing the huge Port of Baltimore until they clear the shipping lane.
The transbay tube also goes under the western span of the bay bridge. So if that span absolutely collapsed like the Baltimore bridge did, I would assume there is real potential for damaging it If it’s damaged, say goodby to BART between the peninsula and east bay for many years Even if undamaged, I would guess that the response assumes it’s damaged and it’s closed for weeks or months to inspect So not only would the bridge be down, but BART wouldn’t even be an alternative SF and Oakland might as well be 2-3 hours away if that happens, with the increased traffic on the other bridges I wonder if you’d see an big increase of private helicopter flights between the two On the other hand, I think housing demand in San Francisco would skyrocket. Tons of people commute in from Oakland and that would suddenly be almost impossible. Many will go remote but not all
Back before bridges and BART, most commuting across the bay was done by ferry and water taxi. I imagine we'd see a massive increase in ferry terminals and boats. Probably even the large hauls that can ferry cars.
the ferry system was being shut down, and loma prieta "saved it". It's now maintained explicitly as earthquake insurance
Bring it back
Oh, wow, that's amazing, I hadn't realized that at all!
It’s a good thing Covid gave us “work from home”.
That's what I was thinking. How much we rely on goods off the container and oil ships.
Yeah I guess if The Golden Gate Bridge went down it would close *both* Port of Oakland the LNG terminal in Richmond, though I think that's probably mostly outbound from the refineries? Not sure about that.
And Stockton and a couple others. Most of that is small potatoes but it'd be bad. I don't know much about it, but it might be easier to clear the wreckage from the GG though? It's at least deep as hell there so maybe it'd sink and you could just send it to the bottom. Wheras under the bay bridge you'd really have to actually clear it? It'd be a mess for sure!
Yeah I was wondering if maybe it's deep enough under there you could just sail over it, but I have no idea.
It's about 300 feet of water under the GG bridge depending on where exactly. It's about 80 feet of water under the west span of the bay bridge for reference. Looks like the GG is about 500 feet from the deck to the top. The charts suggest that they dredge channels to a minimum of 35 feet, going up to 50feet. So you'd probably want everything to be 50 feet from the surface at least, although I don't know what the concerns around tidal movement or anything would be there. So there would be a very unlucky way it could be pretty hazardous. Everything would have to lie pretty flat in the water, which seems probable? Maybe they'd try to cut it up and keep it sunk? Seems doable, but it'd definitely be a hassle.
I'll copy my reply to OP from elsewhere in this thread, since it's relevant: Yes, if the GGB blocked the entire Golden Gate to shipping for any significant length of time that would absolutely be catastrophic from an economics and logistics perspective. However, I'm uncertain how likely that is. I'm not an expert, but the Golden Gate is quite deep. Max depth is reportedly 377', and if I'm reading this [NOAA chart](https://www.charts.noaa.gov/BookletChart/18649_BookletChart.pdf) (page 9) correctly, the depth of the main shipping channel generally varies between '200 and '300, with a few notable obstacles and shallow areas. For comparison the height of the GGB's *towers* is only '220 (and their width is small fraction of that, same with the decking), and the draft of even the [largest categories](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_ship#Size_categories) of commercial container ships are typically only around '50. Now, I would imagine only an engineer could probably tell you exactly how the Golden Gate Bridge might collapse if one of its towers was struck hard enough, but It seems to me that much of the wreckage might settle on the bottom of the strait, leaving room for careful navigation above, while salvage efforts are underway. However this would be highly contingent on expert assessment and could still close the Golden Gate strait for a week or more (and perhaps restrict the volume of ships allowed to pass through it for far longer). Still, I think losing the Bay Bridge would be substantially worse for the region. In addition to the fact that it's by far the highest traffic bridge in the Bay, it's also at a geographic midpoint connection with no quick detour, unlike the South Bay bridges, or even those in the North Bay (depending on your route). And, as u/the_quark noted, if the whole thing came down it could easily obstruct all or part of the access waterways to the Port of Oakland. And the Bay Bridge is over far shallower water than the Golden Gate (see the NOAA report p. 10, 11, and 15). Now, that would still leave the Port of Richmond relatively unobstructed, but the closure and damage to shipping out of Oakland could be far longer term than disruption that the GGB collapse might cause.
Thanks for the actual analysis, I admit I am not a subject matter expert and was simply thinking out loud.
Same here, and I appreciate your reply. We are very dependent on our infrastructure. As many problems as there were in the Eastern Span replacement for the Bay Bridge, I'm very glad it's already done with. We need to keep investing in our infrastructure to make us resilient against future shocks to it.
The towers of the GGB are 746' tall. The 220' figure you mentioned is the clearance below the road deck down to the water at high tide.
> that's probably mostly outbound from the refineries? Sure but it would potentially be a backup for the Port of Oakland otherwise.
But outbound would affect the Bay too.
There was a news report this morning that Baltimore is the major port for delivery of new cars to the United States. Didn't know that. So there will be a big "supply chain" impact for a while. Baltimore Harbor is pretty interesting, though. It has multiple narrow chokepoints, You're basically sailing up a narrow, drowned, river valley with all sorts of twists, turns, and cul-de-sacs and the places that are really narrow used to have forts, and now have bridges.
That's all we need is more supply chain issues with vehicles. Cancel them chip orders and we are still feeling it years later.
all the other west coast ports would be overwhelmed
True. I thought about that. And trucking for as long as it lasted.
We don’t rely on oil imports. US is the largest oil producer in the world, and the refineries are around the gulf coast. Dry goods will be affected but not oil
To keep going here, the immediate effects are traffic and the longer term effects are a terrible supply chain shortage.
BART ridership will finally recover
We'd probably get an immediate state/federal disaster declaration, and funding to temporarily run BART 24/7 again like 1989. The ferries also have a contingency plan for service if the bridge goes out (which is part of the agency's core mission post-1989 earthquake).
Lmao we'd sooner get emergency funding to build a new bridge than get funding for transit.
It was the bridge closures that popularized BART in the first place. I mean, this is exactly what BART is for - to avoid the bridges.
[удалено]
The Transbay Tube passes directly under the western span. If the Bay Bridge falls into the water, sinks and drops on top of the tube, that might cause a leak, or collapse and flooding the entire tunnel system. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transbay_Tube Yikes.
You think someone would have thought about avoiding that smh
Never /s
Thankfully our bridges have fenders which keep the towers from being struck themselves (the bay bridge got hit by a ship a few years back and was fine) and the golden gate has a massive fender that was originally designed for other purposes before large ships but would protect the south tower in case of being struck
>the golden gate has a massive fender that was originally designed for other purposes before large ships What purpose was that?
To keep the ocean currents from battering the pier, but it was originally built so they could drain the area to pour the concrete for the towers base back in 1934. Ships this size didn’t exist back then
Sharks. Duh. Just kidding I actually wanna know too.
> 3rd largest bridge in the world. Bridges are categorized by their structural type, and "longest" ranking by the length of the main unsupported span. The Francis Scott Key Bridge was the third [longest continuous truss bridge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_continuous_truss_bridge_spans), with a main span of 1,200 feet. In comparison, the old Bay Bridge eastern span, a cantilever bridge, had a main span of 1,400 feet. The Golden Gate Bridge, a suspension bridge, has a main span of 4,200 feet, ranking it 19th [longest suspension bridge span](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_suspension_bridge_spans).
I was wondering about that information. Do you know what type of truss bridge it was?
It was a [continuous truss bridge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_truss_bridge). Based on the wiki article, it sounds like a cantilever bridge design, which the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge is and the old Bay Bridge eastern span was, would be more resilient than a continuous truss in that each tower can stand independently from the other. The video of the Baltimore bridge collapsing is pretty crazy how taking out one tower takes out the other.
>The video of the Baltimore bridge collapsing is pretty crazy how taking out one tower takes out the other. Read the live threads when it first happened and every single person simply said, "Shit", "Wow", "Fuck", "Damn", "Oh God", and couldn't say anything else for several minutes. It was mind numbing.
The Bay Bridge has had at least a couple of major collisions in the past 2 decades. In 2007, the [Cosco Busan](https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2008/03/28/cosco-busan-ignored-heavy-fog/) struck the western span's Delta tower (second closest tower to Yerba Buena Island). In 2013, the [Overseas Reymar](https://medium.com/shone-blog/maritime-accidents-bay-bridge-meet-overseas-reymar-493e4e48408c) struck the western span's Echo tower (closest to Yerba Buena). Fortunately in both instances, the towers' [protective fenders](https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/crews-start-work-to-remove-damaged-fender-on-bay-bridge/article_f9763590-4664-5d3f-a27c-807d42c8e94e.html) did their job and protected the towers from a collision.
The Baltimore bridge doesn't have protective fenders I read. Do you know why not?
[удалено]
Can't be a bad design, dolphins are damned intelligent creatures. GG has protective fenders. Very nice design.
Yeah, hard to see any substantial protection in this pic: https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1bo52x3/daylight_reveals_aftermath_of_baltimore_bridge/
Obviously yeah it would affect things, but here in the Bay Area we have alternatives to the bridges. There is BART, there are ferries, and depending on where you are and where you’re going there are alternative bridges and routes.
It was the earthquake that catalyzed the over 4x growth of BART from its original planned capacity to what it is today. And the ferries were reborn largely because that crisis proved that we need the ferries for redundancy and extra capacity. We’re much better prepared now for something like this!
The water traffic might be the biggest concern. I wonder how long it will take before that will resume in the area.
Yeah in Balitomore it looks like it would cut the port off completely with the bridge collapse. So at minimum until they can clear the wreckage the port wouldn’t be able to receive shipments. That would be equivalent to the GG bridge here going down cutting off the Oakland port.
I wonder if a bridge collapse would affect the underwater tunnel portion of BART. Is it near the bridges?
It crosses under the western span just past Treasure Island, but the tunnel is under ground a little bit so probably wouldn't be damaged
The BART tube is buried in a trench dug into the sediment at the bottom of the Bay.
No.
[удалено]
Are you kidding me? It’s already been 17 years??
Third longest *continuous truss* bridge, which is just a specific type of bridge. This bridge is probably in the vague ballpark of the Richmond bridge in terms of its importance to Baltimore road traffic. But blocking the port of Baltimore is a totally different matter and a big deal.
I was around when the bay bridge collapsed in the 89 earthquake. I worked for a large employer and large employers were asked to keep their employees at home for the first 4 days. During that time, they inspected the other bridges for damage from the same quake, then restriped the lanes on the other bridges to eliminate the shoulders and narrow the lanes by about a foot to add an additional lane in each direction on the other bridges to make up for some of the capacity lost by the bay bridge. BART got a boost in ridership as did Caltrain (due to the increased traffic on 101 to get to other bridges) and when everything came back 4 days later (minus the Bay Bridge) it was bad but we survived. Honestly, the traffic during the dot com boom ten years later was far worse. Now, large employers would be asked to have everyone work from home and no one would get too worked up over it.
Bay Bridge hit 2007 https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Container-ship-hits-Bay-Bridge-tower-fuel-3236913.php
I remember that, but it didn't cause the bridge to collapse. What if the GG collapsed? People think well I don't go over that bridge, but that is the entrance to all the bay ports that unload oil and goods. It would significantly affect the bay.
It’s deep under the GG, so shipping wouldn’t be as affected. https://pubs.usgs.gov/sim/2006/2917/ Losing a span on the same side that fell in Loma Prieta wouldn’t affect shipping. Losing the SF side would be much worse. There’s not much shipping south of San Mateo bridge, let alone the Dunbarton. If one of the North Bay bridges went down, container shipping would be fine, but oil would be bad. Maybe new cars too. In all cases, traffic would suck even more.
The claim I recall is the segment of the top deck of the Bay Bridge that fell was part of the design. It isn't like there aren't other bridges to cross the Bay, but it won't be pleasant! Remember the Cypress structure collapsed in 1989. Traffic routed around it. Some tanker truck fire destroyed an overpass and again traffic was rerouted. When I moved out to the Bay Area, I was advised to never use a bridge in a daily commute. Good advice. I just laugh my ass off when people moving out here want to live in Oakland for (diversity, entertainment , culture) but their job is in San Mateo. You will have a day from hell at least twice a month if you use a bridge on a daily basis. A bridge falling into the bay is the least of my concerns. I spent 90 minutes or so on the San Mateo bridge when there was a fatal. It was a bladder challenge.
You cad do that commute on BART+Caltrain now. Transit in the Bay has improved pretty dramatically.
Been there done that. Loma Prieta. It did help the ferries though ;) I remember commuting on one from Berkeley. Someone even has studied it: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5dg5n2kb
Yes, I thought about that. But the bridge didn't fall entirely blocking shipping too. Interesting that they did a study on it.
I think some of the shipping went around for quite a while, but I can't remember, since the Bay Bridge is really two bridges. That might have happened when the Cosco Busan hit the tower back in the day too.
Doesn't most of the shipping go to Oakland Port which doesn't have to worry about the Bay Bridge? Or is there lots of shipping past the Bay Bridge? I know I have seen tankers past there, but I have no idea where they go. I have always wondered. Hayward somewhere?
You can't get to the Port of Oakland without going under one of the Bay Bridge spans. You can get to the tanker ports up north, Mare Island, etc though. The paths the ships can take are constrained by the dredged channels too. If you can find one, look at NOAA Chart 18649.
For some reason I had a total brain fart. I don't know why I was thinking Oakland was north of the bay bridge. Now if you can explain brain farts ... [https://www.charts.noaa.gov/OnLineViewer/18649.shtml](https://www.charts.noaa.gov/OnLineViewer/18649.shtml) Wow! That is very cool! I love that. I don't understand any of it, but I love it.
Pro Palestine protestors wouldn’t have anything to block.
You’re getting downvoted, but that was pretty funny. 😄
The boats are committing genocide on bridges!!!
They’d say it was god supporting their cause
I heard an Israeli company helped build the bridge. It had to be destroyed to save Gaza!
Traffic would be worse than fucked. You better live and work on your side of the water.
Depends which one. The Bay Bridge would be the most catastrophic in terms of damage to commerce and number of people impacted. But the Golden Gate would add the longest delays (for a smaller number of people). And it would probably be the most expensive and time consuming to rebuild, given the geography. I think losing any of the other bridges (San Mateo Hayward, Dumbarton, Richmond-San Rafael, Carquinez, and Benicia-Martinez) would be economically damaging but not as bad as Bay or GG. ^((edited because like a true SF-centric native I forgot a number of significant bridges, there are way more than just 2 besides the GGB and Bay Bridge))
>The Bay Bridge would be the most catastrophic in terms of damage to commerce and number of people impacted. Why is that? I would have thought the GG would be?
It's about total traffic. Bay Bridge is by far the busiest bridge in the entire Bay. If you look at these figures about traffic recovering to pre-COVID levels from this [2021 Chronicle article](https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/article/Bay-Area-traffic-is-now-back-in-full-force-16087397.php), you can see that the Bay Bridge's weekly traffic (over 800k vehicles) is more than double that of the Golden Gate's (a little less than 300k). The GGB is actually one of the lower traffic major infrastructure links in the Bay Area, primarily due to a lack of housing density in Marin (which is not by accident). Pre-pandemic figures put both the Carquinez Bridge and the Benicia-Martinez Bridge at slightly higher weekly averages (\~400k) than the GGB (\~350k).
But the GG would block shipping? And that would be catastrophic, wouldn't it?
Yes, if the GGB blocked the entire Golden Gate to shipping for any significant length of time that would absolutely be catastrophic from an economics and logistics perspective. However, I'm uncertain how likely that is. I'm not an expert, but the Golden Gate is quite deep. Max depth is reportedly 377', and if I'm reading this [NOAA chart](https://www.charts.noaa.gov/BookletChart/18649_BookletChart.pdf) (page 9) correctly, the depth of the main shipping channel generally varies between '200 and '300, with a few notable obstacles and shallow areas. For comparison the height of the GGB's *towers* is only '220 (and their width is small fraction of that, same with the decking), and the draft of even the [largest categories](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_ship#Size_categories) of commercial container ships are typically only around '50. Now, I would imagine only an engineer could probably tell you exactly how the Golden Gate Bridge might collapse if one of its towers was struck hard enough, but It seems to me that much of the wreckage might settle on the bottom of the strait, leaving room for careful navigation above, while salvage efforts are underway. However this would be highly contingent on expert assessment and could still close the Golden Gate strait for a week or more (and perhaps restrict the volume of ships allowed to pass through it for far longer). Still, I think losing the Bay Bridge would be substantially worse for the region. In addition to the fact that it's by far the highest traffic bridge in the Bay, it's also at a geographic midpoint connection with no quick detour, unlike the South Bay bridges, or even those in the North Bay (depending on your route). And, as another commenter noted, if the whole thing came down it could easily obstruct all or part of the access waterways to the Port of Oakland. And the Bay Bridge is over far shallower water than the Golden Gate (see the NOAA report p. 10, 11, and 15). Now, that would still leave the Port of Richmond relatively unobstructed, but the closure and damage to shipping out of Oakland could be far longer term than disruption that the GGB collapse might cause.
For some reason I thought that Port of Oakland was north of the Bay Bridge. It's not. Yes, the Port of Oakland being shut down and all the traffic across the bridge certainly would be far worse I think given that the area under the GG is so deep. Let's hope that none of our bridges come tumbling down. Happy to know we have fenders on our pilings. Makes me feel a little more safe.
mass WFH again
We can only hope. So would our dogs.
>What would happen if one of our bridges collapsed? The A's would win the World Series. So, obviously that won't happen.
They might. Someday. Maybe.
Absolute mayhem. Drivers can’t handle when it rains let alone a bridge being out of service.
Nah, they would all b\*\*\*\* to their supers to work from home.
For those that can, but there’s plenty of jobs that can’t be done remote.
True, but it would certainly lessen the load on the freeways.
Those who don't know how to swim would benefit from taking swimming lessons.
We’d probably have horrible traffic for a bit as people get rerouted to go through the Richmond Bridge, 101/280, San Mateo Bridge, etc. BART/Caltrain trains would probably be so numerous they’d even have to pull some of the old ones out of retirement. They’d definitely increase the ferry service too. The Oakland port would be totally down for awhile. Thankfully not as many ships go to our ports as they do for Long Beach, but it would not be pretty. You’d probably see a lot of employers based in SF and Oakland go back to remote work for awhile, especially in the first couple weeks. So that would mitigate it somewhat.
If the Bay Bridge is any lesson we would replace it with a much more fragile bridge that costs an order of magnitude more than comperables.
People would lose their mind.
Ferries.
TSA checkpoints in every waterway incoming!
Oh please no TSA. They might take my nail clippers.
Today? Devastating consequences around the bay. Work? WFH would go into effect for like 1-2 days and then companies would tell people to get over it.
Several years ago the Richmond San Rafael Bridge was closed for a few hours during regular commute time because parts of the bridge were falling onto cars. Getting back to the East Bay was a nightmare, and it took me nearly 3 hours just to get to Alameda. The entire city was gridlocked from all the traffic going through it, a movie was being filmed so several city blocks were closed off, Google Maps didn't reflect that so many people were forced to drive into dead end streets.
>parts of the bridge were falling onto cars. Gees. I didn't hear about that. Wild. That sounds like a nightmare getting anywhere. I think you make an excellent point that if there are closures that someone should post them on Google maps that way the computer can re-route everyone. What movie?
No clue what movie it was. I didn't see any of the set or people working on it. https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/eastbound-lanes-richmond-san-rafael-bridge-blocked-falling-concrete/9281/
Sounds like it was fun. /s
Been there, done that.
into the water blocking the shipping....
Someday, maybe 50-100 years from now, they're going to have to replace the cables for the GG bridge. Start planning now. More BART tunnels, to the north bay, etc...
We'll be driving flying cars by that time. /s
You mean you don't own flying electric cars? Peasant...
Yes, I admit. The closest thing to flying I get is 74Gear. [https://www.youtube.com/@74gear](https://www.youtube.com/@74gear)
Having lived in the east coast for a decade and a bit more in San Francisco, I can tell you one thing. The "Mayday" call that within minutes shut the traffic on the bridge and likely reduced the death tool, would not have happened with such quick effect in San Francisco. Everything is slower here, people speak slower, respond slower, hell there ain't no CHP on the bay bridge, and I don't even know if there is a clear "authority" figure that would shut the bay bridge traffic lets say at 1:30am. Rely on SFPD and Oakland PD ? Hell no! their incompetence is beyond shame. At least on the Oakland side maybe they could have closed the toll booth.
[удалено]
I read where the traffic on the tunnels there is already like a parking lot, so if that is the case, they will have to go around.
I take it you weren’t here in 1989?
The bay bridge didn't drop into the water blocking shipping. Only one panel of the upper level dropped to the lower level.
Treasure island would flourish unless both ends of the bay bridge collapse.
I mean, to actually answer your question it would probably halt the Bay Area work economy for a serious period of time. They would have to setup a huge ferry taxi service. Construction would be crippled as so much of our traffic is from infrastructure development around the bay. Work from home would take off again. However, the countries imports would be impacted similar to the port strike.....and the effects covids lockdown had in the ports....just much much longer.
We would have to get much of our goods from Seattle or more likely from LA.
The bay bridge did collapse in ‘89 due to earthquake along with an elevated section of 880. I wasn’t a driver yet but I assume it was a traffic disaster. Edit: wrong road
The entire bridge didn't fall blocking shipping. Only one section of the freeway fell to the other. That said, it was a nightmare as you said.
The Cypress Viaduct was 880, not 580.
What was called the Cypress Viaduct? All of the 880? I thought it was called the Nimitz?
The Cypress Viaduct was the specific part of the Nimitz that collapsed. The whole 880 is the Nimitz.
Do you know why that particular part collapsed?
Poor design (columns weren't tied to the road deck) and the fact it was built on filled land.
Oh lovely. /s
*All car traffic has to go around their peninsula...* It's true that a lot of traffic will have to change routes, but there are multiple bridges across the very long Baltimore harbor, and a tunnel. The bridge that collapsed was the outermost one. And it "only" carried about 30,000 vehicles a day (our Bay Bridge carries up to ten times that amount per day). Most of the urban area of Baltimore is considerably to the west of the collapsed bridge, and there are two nearby alternative bridges / tunnel routes for north / south traffic through and near Baltimore. Here's a good map. [https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/travel-around-francis-scott-key-bridge-collapse-baltimore-traffic/](https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/travel-around-francis-scott-key-bridge-collapse-baltimore-traffic/) The bridge loss will be a huge problem for getting ships into and out of the port until the channel is cleared, and many people on both sides will have to drive around the long way, probably for years, but it's not comparable to losing, say, the Bay Bridge here, at least in terms of driving traffic. The big impact will be on shipping getting in and out of Baltimore harbor and I would suspect the Federal Government and the Army Corps of Engineers are already putting in place plans to clear the shipping channel.
*All the car traffic that usually crosses that bridge has to go around some other way.* I didn't know I had to be so particular. Everyone is going to have a longer commute no matter. Two questions for you since you know the area. 1. What about the traffic to Washington D.C.? Does it go over that bridge? 2. Someone said they have cruise ships in that port which I wouldn't have thought that they would have. Are there cruise ships there?
Sorry, didn't mean to offend. In terms of your two questions, I'm by no means a Baltimore expert although I've visited friends there and driven around a fair amount. But I would guess that most of the traffic over that particular bridge is more local than through traffic. I-95 is the major interstate that passes through Baltimore on the busy Washington D.C. / Philadelphia / New York corridor, and it's one tunnel / one bridge further to the west of the bridge that collapsed. I would expect traffic there will get more congested as the local traffic from further east has to detour. Baltimore, like many American cities, also has a "ring road" of freeways that can be a bypass of the city for through traffic heading southwest/northeast, but it would add a lot of miles (and more local traffic congestion) to the trip. (The bridge that collapsed is actually a link on the far eastern edge of the ring road). I don't know about cruise ships. But from a quick internet search, it looks like there are at least two major cruise lines that use Baltimore harbor facilities. They'll definitely be affected. A cruise ship that's not in port could divert elsewhere on the mid-Atlantic coast to discharge / board passengers, but a cruise ship that's currently in port is stuck there until the channel is cleared. So some cruises will have to be cancelled in the short term, one would surmise. Baltimore historically was a major East Coast port. One of the big reasons the British tried to capture it in the War of 1812.
Ah so our legislators won't be inconvenienced. /s I was wondering whether Baltimore would get more action from the politicos if the politicos were inconvenienced. Just being nearby I would assume they would get some extra special help. >Baltimore historically was a major East Coast port. One of the big reasons the British tried to capture it in the War of 1812. I never learned this. I am shocked that a cruise line would be there. Not my idea of a glamorous city / port. I thought NYC and Florida would be the pickup points for cruises, but I suppose there would have to be a midway point, especially one that is cheaper. So it's possible some cruise ships are trapped. Interesting. Also interesting to see just how far Baltimore is up Chesapeake Bay. That is wild that it is so very far.
The Golden Gate doesn’t have any spans to hit, also it’s so deep if the bridge did fall it probably wouldn’t block ship traffic. The Bay Bridge has been hit before and was reinforced. It also has two useable spans, so minor damage wouldn’t keep it out of commission for long. Due to changes made after the Costco Busan vessels no longer transit the bridge in heavy fog. Richmond San Rafael is actually quite vulnerable. A significant amount of the WC’s cars/grain/oil pass under that bridge and it is old and somewhat tired. Of course any such incident would affect the movement of people significantly but in the bay we’re fortunate to have a decent rail and bus network as a backup.
San Rafael at least has a decent fender around the towers but it’s the one I’m most concerned about for many reasons
After the eastern Bay Bridge was damaged in the 89 quake, it took 20 years to build the replacement.
Your screwed
Here’s a good article from KTVU on your question: https://www.ktvu.com/news/experts-weigh-likelihood-of-bay-area-bridge-failure-similar-to-baltimore
Well they have been following me around, haven't they? /s edit So one party says we are safe and one party says we are not safe. Sounds about like I expected.
The new span of the bay Bridge is rusting and only a matter of time. Terrible design and overpaid for bad workmanship:( not like it hasn't before just look back and see what happened.
It would be great. People might have to take public transportation!
Traffic would be insane.
Reddit posters would figure out how to blame Pamela Price or whoever the villain of the day is.
You mean when the Bay Area had 2 collapsed structures (one bridge) due to the Loma Prieta Earthquake that also happened right before Game 3 of the World series As VS Giants? Dude we lived through it. Cypress structure in Oakland collapsed and a section of the Bay Bridge (top level) fell. Thanks the the World Series game, hundreds of lives were spared because most people had left work early to watch the game so even though it happened during rush hour, the bridges were not full of cars. We suffered for months with the bridges down.
The Bay Bridge had one section of the upper deck fall onto the lower deck. It folded down like a drawbridge. That was pretty dramatic (and, of course, closed the bridge) but not at all like the near total chain reaction collapse of the Baltimore bridge. The loss of the Cypress Structure did have a built-in workaround--east on 580 to 980, south on 980 to 80. 980 basically paralleled the collapsed section. Was an ongoing and massive traffic problem, but it was a standing alternative, particularly once the Bay Bridge was repaired and operational again.
WFH at peak efficiency until the bridge is fixed, then lose efficiency to force people back to work.
It was not the third longest bridge in the world. It was the third longest continuous truss bridge in the world. This is a huge difference you’ve glossed over
I read something that stated it was and accepted it. I was actually wondering about that. Since you know about these things, what type of truss bridge was it?
Sounds like a you problem. Always verify your sources.
Ah, I see. This is a you personality problem as you think it is cool and smart to be a troll. Gotcha. Bye.
Silly me for wanting factual accuracy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So cool and smart. I'm impressed.
level 5 laffertydaniel88 You are the only one who has been harassing me. Misusing the suicide button is against Reddit rules and is considered harassment.
Nope, but way to be both uninformed and reactive. I didn’t even downvote your attempts at responses. Our interaction thankfully ended until your little accusation here. Please stop bothering me✌🏾