Seems that without the traffic load, it should be reasonably safe for barges to pass underneath it.

I dunno. Doesn't look that bad to me.

The great Strange Sounds website (and free daily sub) speculates that this is the New Madrid fault acting up, but that's pretty far from this bridge. Knowing how things (don't) work in this country now, it's prolly simply how hundreds of bridges are getting nationwide as the feds spend trillions on everything but what we really want and (crucially, critically) need.

Agreed. I'm not a steel erector, but that looks like a pretty easy fix to me.

it's prolly simply how hundreds of bridges are getting nationwide as the feds spend trillions on everything but what we really want and (crucially, critically) need.

National infrastructure is crumbling at a rate faster than it can be rebuilt. If the Feds would quit spending on things such as the Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska, we might all be better off.

When we drove trucks to Florida we would squeeze as much fuel onto the truck as possible since the excise was so high. They would just settle quarterly with the IFTA. I was out there a couple of time pumping the injectors when it would suck air. One time my co-driver ran out in the middle of an intersection. A cop pulled up. He told him, "What do you want me to do? It's out of fuel." We had to call for a service truck to bring out fuel. That cost extra. We always paid for fuel with cash since there was a 6 cent per gallon discount. ;)

Agreed. I'm not a steel erector, but that looks like a pretty easy fix to me.

A little glue and some duct tape... good as new!

Doesn't look that bad to me.

It is hard to tell just from a picture. Much depends on where the crack is in relation to the load carrying capacity of the bridge.

One time on near south side of Chicago, I-90/94 had a raised section of the local lanes that dropped about a foot. I do not recall the exact details of why that section of roadway fell.

But that was why we cleaned and painted bridge bearings periodically on Illinois State Highways. Those bearings moved with the expansion and contraction of the bridge deck throughout the year. Dirt and salt would accumulate around and in the joints of the steel rockers. If they could not move freely there was the possibility of a collapse occurring.

We did that on a periodic maintenance schedule After a while they were using a power washer to clean surfaces and they would spray the concrete with anti-spalling compound which was 50-50 mix of linseed oil and mineral spirits. The linseed would soak into the concrete to protect it from salt and the mineral spirits would evaporate. The paint used was aluminum based and had a tin of aluminum paste that was mixed into the gallon of paint to be painted on the rockers. ;)

The Memphis area is well within the New Madrid fault zone. In 1811-12 during the last quakes Memphis was an Indian only village. But they were hit hard as was Arkansas across the river. The New Madrid fault is not like any faults in California as our quakes here are over much wider areas. I expect the next quake to wipe out 90% of the commercial and government buildings in my county 1 hour and 15 minutes drive from Memphis plus a majority of the homes. I have plans to move. We are in the early stages of the Grand Solar Minimum during which the earth is accumulating for nuclear particles as cosmic rays from distant stars due to the decline in solar magnetism during a GSM. Volcanoes seem to be energized of late. We have about 89 active volcanoes on the surface of the earth with about half of those capable of sending ash into the upper atmosphere thus cooling our weather wreaking havoc on agriculture. We are lucky that none of these volcanoes are huge and in the tropics which could give us a year without a summer like we has in 1816.

I expect lots of earthquakes in a few years. Quakes that will devastate Japan, China, California, Washington-Oregon and the New Madrid fault plus other areas in the ring of fire including South America and the Anzus countries.

I would like to move a couple hundred mikes east of here on the other side of Nashville. All wooden buildings will be safe in that area..

It can be done in days. Structural welding these days along with the ease in which they can align that beam should make this a 3 day job to 5 day job at most.

The crack that needs immediate attention is the one preventing right minded people from attacking the left and destroying it. The amount of funding that is made to order for the weirdest minority in the history of life on planet earth and demanded be paid by those in complete opposition to the deviants could build new bridges everywhere across America. But no, we have to fund sex changes, trannie agendas, abortions, and wars across the planet. Not me !

Civil Engineers tell us that we have an infrastructure deficit of $4.59 trillion. Biden wants to spend $153 billion which will put us further behind by the time he gets it spent. And he wants to destroy $20 billion in highways because they are racist and separate poor people from mugging white people.

Impressive. Dijew ever get dizzy up there?

Dijew ever get dizzy up there?

Nah. None of it was up in the air. We had to crawl under the bridges and clean and scrape the crud and dirt away from the rockers. Then we had that aluminized paint to paint the rockers with so the steel would not corrode and rot away.

After a few years of doing that they decided the concrete footings for the rockers needed to be treated with anti-spalling compound to keep the concrete from crumbling due to its exposure to rock salt. We had to pull a hose under the bridge to power wash the footings. It was a lot of added work too. ;)

How many different occupations have you worked?

How many different occupations have you worked?

I worked in the florist business as a young man. One of the shops, all of the designers, the book keeper and owner were all gay. I never had so much fun until I went to work at a shop with female designers.

But after I started to work for State of Illinois on highways after 1980, I was in the Brothers Tavern for a couple of beers after work. This guy came on the afternoon news who had just found his long lost brother. It was one of the designers from the gay florist. I stood up on the rungs of the bar stool, pointed at the TV and shouted, "THAT GUY'S A FAGGOT!"

Everyone in the place was asking how I knew. I told them, "Because we worked together. It was the same shop but we had different jobs."

We did snow plowing in winter also. One time they called me in 3 hours early for 18 hour shift. I had to stop to nap a couple of times toward the end of that one. You had your hard hat with the thermal liner. You would pull over and put out the lights and swing your legs across onto the passenger seat with plow controls between your legs and nod off. When you wake up and the windshield is covered with snow, you know you have been sleeping.

After I left the State, I started to drive trucks OTR and did that even after I moved to Missouri. First gig was a dedicated run to Florida every week. It paid $750/wk in CASH!

Then I went over to IWX in Springfield. You had to start out doing the relay out to Kingman, Arizona. It was a midnight leave every week. They had that race track near Lebanon and the roaring cars would keep me awake in the evening. It was hard to stay awake, but I did it.

Sometimes we would drop and hook and head back east. But once in a while they would send us into California to drop a trailer and pick one up. In winter it would snow going across Altamont Pass in California. I smoked the brakes coming down that hill on I-15 a couple of times. At one point I was driving coast to coast, both team and solo. When we went northwest for Washington state produce, the whole trip would take three days. I brought along sandwiches in electric cooler and fruit to save money on truck stop food.

Once I was bringing a load of Mexican produce from Yuma, Arizona. I was heading to Indian Casino in New Mexico to take my break. I was on 2- lane road in New Mexico. It was just about dusk. I come around a cuurve and the headlights fell on a brown object in the road. It was an ELK!I hit the brakes and moved as far right as I could without dropping steer tire of pavement. I just missed hitting it.

So I put out a broadcast on CB that there were Elk out here. Another driver comes back and says, "Elk! I haven't seen Elk in a long time." I told him, "You don't want to see these Elk. They're too close to the road. I almost hit one."

Another time I picked up load of Idaho potatoes in Pocatello. Quickest way out of the state was to go thru mountains into Wyoming. I got on 2- lane road. There was a washout along a river. They had it down to one lane and you had to drive on gravel.

When I got down to the flats in Wyoming I got tired. I found a wide spot and pulled over and took a nap for a few hours. I came out in Rock Springs.

We didn't have GPS so you had to be able to read a map. Some guys could not find their way around if they got off the beaten path. ;)

And why did you identify him as a 'faggot' to those people -- to show how macho you were, or because you 'never had so much fun' working for them?