This. This is something that every business does. They will literally factor in the probability of people dying from their business, and what it will cost them in the end. Businesses give zero fucks about collateral damage as long as it’s still financially viable.
@@denimchicken104 Not just businesses but everyone! Life is a risk. I can die due to heart problems sitting in my chair all day or I can exercise and run ... and possibly get hit by a car that veers onto the sidewalk. Also, look at COVID today. People have to get on with life but smartly. Masks lessen the risk but in no way eliminate it. People with say "if it saves 1 life" in evaluating risk/rewards are naive dimwits.
@@UDumFck As you say, people /have/ to get on with their lives. If the choice is between wearing a mask and not wearing a mask, it's really a no brainer. If masks help to save lives, there is no reason not to wear them.
Nahnahnah. Totally an oversight. I mean what if people had been on that bridge during the tornado XD. I have no idea what they were faulting the designer for. The loss in profit at the time vs the cost it will take with modern technology to rebuild should be a pretty fair trade-off. We have other similar transportation options, they didn't, we can do it much faster than them, and we can get way more material for the "same" cost. The bridge builder made the right call.
How can this be considered an engineering failure? The bridge was taken down and rebuilt was used for over 100years. A tornado in an area that doesn’t get tornados blew it down. Maybe it couldn’t handle a 100 mph winds but it did what it was designed to do for well over a century.
I agree, tornados in this state are very uncommon and normal damage is minimal, I grew up being told as a kid, we can't have tornados, to many mountains lol. I've read and seen abt much worse "engineering failures".
If anything, it should be praised for being built so sturdy with supposedly outdated design and materials. Remember the Minnesota bridge collapse? That bridge was only built in the 60s.
I can imagine the engineers discussing possible causes of failure 100 years ago and have no doubt that since Pennsylvania had never experienced a 100 mph tornado or even winds of that speed in the state that this scenario was never considered. Using cast iron collars was therefore not a mistake that warrants such hype as expressed in this video.
It's easy to blame engineers from over a century ago in an oversight, when basically they had decades to replace the iron collars with proper modern anchor bolts and they didn't do it. Everyone is an expert afterwards, but in fact these experts didn't anticipate a direct tornado hit either.
@@hhiippiittyy Videos like this remind me of the video about the use of wrought iron rivets on the Titanic being partially to blame for the ship sinking. Both videos leave out the fact that heating and pounding steel rivets makes them more brittle then wrought iron rivets. There are thousands of structures from bridges, to ships to buildings constructed using wrought iron rivets and none of them have failed to date.
Exactly, and another thing we don't know is what else might have failed had the cast iron fasteners held. The foundations themselves could have failed.
bullettube, you can 'imagine' all you want, but if you were to actually study the history of bridge engineering, you would know that, yes, engineers back when this bridge was built DID include high winds in their calculations. This bridge would have withstood the tornado that hit it, except for the ongoing maintenance process at that exact time, which was gradually replacing the anchor bolts on the towers. The towers that fell over were the ones whose old anchors had been removed without the new ones being installed yet. Don't be fooled by the poor research and sensationalistic tactics of this video's author(s).
I was a mechanical engineer, and I have to say that this bridge was a huge success to have stood for over 100 years. I salute the engineers that designed and built it!
@@milktobo7418 right, long before the 100th birthday attention needed to be given to the design & material that stood up for so long and did it's job. people mention ancient structures but those will be giant blocks of hard stone, usually not materials that will wear out with movement or oxidate and corrode within a century.
Yes Random Videos Bridge was a success till time took its Toll . A shorter Bridge in Western , N.Y was Replaced in December of 2017 . The Portage Bridge was Built in 1875 and was originally Wrought Iron when it was Built for the Erie Railroad . It replaced a Wooden Bridge that Burnt . The Erie High Bridge was refitted with Steel several Times . In 2009 they knew its days were numbered The Locomotives were too heavy for it and a section could be seen dropping when a Train crossed . 1875 to 2017 is Impressive , 1880 to 2003 is Amazing .
@ You poor thing. It breaks my heart to see the results of catastrophic drug abuse during pregnancy. It's not your fault! Your mom should have known better.
Miss Take lmao so a bridge that stands for 100 years, get restored but gets hit by a tornado and this is considered a failure and an example as to why Chinese engineering is the best?😂 okay, keep smokin that opium.
They're engineers. They should know a 100 MPH wind hitting the top of a 300 foot high bridge would bring extreme stress due to the high winds, and leverage of the 300 feet
And when it went down, no one was on the bridge. When a structure fails and hurts no one after a century? Total success! Recast the support blocks with your happy stainless steel inserts, and engineer it for 200 mph winds. Good for a millennium.
@@paulspomer16 Agreed! Thinking that a structure will not eventually fail is in itself a failure. The more engineering and materials invested in a project the longer it should last. But when the engineering and materials cost more than simply rebuilding the structure after a century, it gets obvious that you might as well just rebuild the dang thing once a century.
@@paulspomer16 some tornadoes have 300 mph winds but do u know how many tornadoes Pennsylvania actually has a year.... It was a freak disaster its not tornado alley out here....
No matter what evidence of failure they have for it falling, absolutely no project like that could be accomplished that quickly and last that long in today's world. I say this bridge was a huge win
@@M3A7 I must have missed the part where they had her engineer and build a bridge. I never knew you had to be an expert in the field to give your opinion on something or take interest in something.
I grew up 30 miles away from there and walked across that span 33 years ago. This bridge was constructed in less time than it would take your average local road crew to patch a pothole. It carried vital supplies of coal and lumber across rugged wilderness terrain for 77 years and tourists for a further 15 years. I'm sorry that an engineer in 1893 failed to predict a direct hit from a tornado in northwestern Pennsylvania 110 years later. The RMS Titanic, also considered a modern wonder of the world, lasted fewer than five full days in service.
I too grew up like 30 miles from there... But across the lake. Also can we talk about the pronunciation they have in the video of "Kinzua?" I've always heard it as "Kin-zoo" not "Kin-zoo-a."
For real may I add to that the UK at the same nation that within a hundred years went from having an Empire Halfway Around the World to a little Alan the United States still has 50 states but yeah let's allow the UK people to beat us up
This was built in 90 days by 120 man and it lasted 100 years 'till a tornado going over 100 miles an hour destroyed it, with zero victims! This was not a failure! This structure was a great success when you take into account the Technology this man had available at that time!...A standing ovation to those great pioneers!!! 👌👍🙏👏🙌
So a routine inspection after a hundred years discovered that high winds could be dangerous to the bridge, so they stopped trains from crossing it. If anything this bridge represents a success, in both engineering and taking precautionary measures.
It was built then rebuilt to reinforce it, in a very short time. Worked for over century, carrying massive loads. Was hit by a mega Tornado. This video is the fail.
Agree! We have things at the power plant that fail months to a year after being commissioned with some very thought out engineering in the design. This was a well built bridge that unfortunately couldn't withstand something it wasn't designed to from the beginning.
I’d say the original engineers did it right. This seems like Lack of maintenance By future generations. All they had to do was replace those sleeves periodically.
I don’t like how this video kinda blames the original engineer because he didn’t think 100 years in the future and the bridge only lasted 100 years and not more. Give the dude some credit, it stood for 100 years, not 20.
@@jonathanday4553 It stood 100 years and only failed when a tornado hit it. Imagine you build a house and its standing for 100 years and a tornado knocks it down, I guess you utterly failed at building that house.
Houses in Australia withstand cyclones... Every single year they get hit by winds in excess of 140MPH from both directions with a ton of rain and debris, and rarely do they get destroyed, usually the windows, maybe your trash can. If any house gets taken out by a tornado, it's a shit cheaply built trailer Park Hill Billy house. If the person stays and rebuilds and it gets taken out again, definitely built by an idiot. If they rebuild yet again... I'm beginning to wonder how they managed to survive for as long as they did. If it happens twice in a short period of time, time to move on. Like those idiots that live at the base of volcanos... Some places are just not suitable for humans, nature is giving you signals but you keep ignoring, it's called natural selection. Anyway, after my long rant, my point is, if any house gets taken out by a tornado or cyclone or any other strong wind/rain condition, it was badly designed and built.
In fainess to the original designer and engineers who built this, I can't see this as a failure at all. A tornado hitting this bridge and bringing it down is abit like me getting hit in the head with a baseball bat and then someone claiming my legs failed when I went down...
Or like having survived for millions of years and spawning of countless species of dinosaurs and then being brought down by a massive asteroid. Stupid dinosaurs didn't see that coming.
Okay but let's just say they did proper anchor points prior. 100mph winds would still do significant damage. Because it's not just wind it's wind carrying trees and debris that would puncture/break many parts of that bridge. It would likely need to be closed/completely re engineered regardless.
You would be surprised as to what steel can withstand. Had they opted to replace all the cast anchor bolts with steel, it very well could still be standing to this day. Uplift is a thing, but the bridge itself has a lot of open area for the wind to just blow through. That is the “failure” the emphasize so much, not to much the bridge itself, but they way it was anchored down.
This is NOT an engineering failure. The bridge was built on time, with few fatalities, and lasted a century. Pennsylvania is not a tornado zone, so there was no reason to consider the effect of a tornado on the structure.
I did engineering in college, this still counts as a failure, It's still an impressive structure and it lasted for a hundred years, but the design oversight that caused it's failure is still something to learn from and apply to modern construction. The designer did not factor in the 100 year storm probability for freak weather, that's why bridges are generally overengineered, it's more expensive and takes longer to build, but the result is a bridge that will stay up even if the anticipated loads are exceeded. This isn't the only bridge to fail due to design oversight not factoring in wind loads.
I have friends who grew up around this bridge, it was a 100 year old steel bridge and collapsed after a 100mph tornado tore through it. It had already been closed for a year to have repairs done to it so saying it's miraculous no one died when it collapsed would be like an empty house burning down and saying I can't believe no one died in there.
@@James-sk4db It was closed for at least a decade before this happened. We would park our vehicles on the tracks at the beginning of where the lookout is now and walk out to the middle at 2-3 am on nice summer nights in the 90's. Great views !
So lemme get this straight: A bridge that lasted well beyond its initial design (twice) is a failure because it was destroyed by a tornado in a non-tornado-prone area, a neuroscientist is being portrayed as an expert on civil and metalurgical engineering, they test the tension of cast iron and portray that as the weak link even though they lead off by explaining that the bridge was made of wrought iron instead of cast iron for that exact reason, and then they tout that as the reason for the failure of the collar nuts... which were installed during the rebuilding, and were thus presumably steel? I would hope that discovery could at least tell an internally consistent narrative, let alone getting the facts correct.
The big problem was that the current engineers didn't find the weakness till it fell. Oops who would have guess the foundation pins would wear out in 100 years...
@@jwarmstrong I'm willing to bet some maintenance engineer in the last 20-30 years brought the subject of the 100 year old collar-nuts up, but the memo was buried by a guy in suit because of budget constraints.
I live 20 miles away from the bridge. That day I got a call from family that lives in the nearest town and we drove to as close as we could get. A cemetery with a view of the valley. There were over 100 people there passing binoculars around to see the disaster. Some were crying and I have to admit I teared up a bit. Our family went there a lot for picnics and sometimes just to walk across the bridge. It scared the crap out of me but I loved every minute of that terrifying walk. I miss that but they have put a lot of work into the surrounding area over the years and it is still a nice place to visit and have a picnic.
So an engineer, from almost 150 years ago, with his limited science and engineering available at the time, and limited materials, built a bridge that lasted over 100 years supporting HUGE loads from incredibly heavy trains generating ridiculous vibration, and only went down after a powerful tornado hit it, is a failure? Ya....what an asshole. All of us in the comment section would have done much better. More importantly, the geniuses that made this “documentary” would have done a much better job.
and the funny part is,I live in PA the coal mines and steel industry are pretty much gone at this point. the bridge had almost no use left and was already closed when it got destroyed by a tornado.
@@lukasdoofus2592 despite the coal mines and steel industry the bridge was also used by passenger trains. They stated in the video that passenger trains were diverted for safety reasons after they discovered how poor the bridge was. Even freight trains had stricter regulations to follow. So I don't get your point of the bridge not having much use left.
After 100 years without replacing those anchor bolts or collars, the failure is mostly a maintenance problem. They're exposed to much harsher conditions than the rest of the bridge.
What was most interesting to me was that the newer steel collars failed by splitting. They may have been partially split already by rust jacking from the older anchor bolts inside them. I would have expected the threads on the anchor bolts to have been stripped off by the collars.
I would say the bridge was actually a success for being built in so little time. It stood for Over a hundred years and did its job. And to be fair a tornado would probably break a lot of structures old or new
I bet those engineers that designed this would have been so proud that this bridge lasted as long as it did and that it took a tornado to take it out after that long of a lifespan. If proper inspections and maintenance were performed it would likely still be standing today. You can not blame the original engineers or builders for something that fails that long after it is out of their hands when long term corrosion combined with extreme weather are the cause of failure. You could say they should have used different anchoring bolts but there was close to a century in which they could have been replaced so if no one else predicted this with all the technological advancement in engineering along the way how were they supposed to predict this way back then!
100 years old, taken out by a tornado. Man who was interviewed: can't think about if a train was on it. Dude, it was a tornado. I can tell you the likey outcome even if it was on solid ground.
If a train had been on it, even if the bridge had stayed up, the train wouldn't have stayed on it for long. That high up in the air and taking a direct hit from an EF3 tornado? It would be on the floor of the valley pretty damn quick!
I grew up not far from the Knizua bridge. One of the tests of “manhood” was to stand in the middle of the bridge while a train was crossing. Of course now when I think back on this stunt I can’t believe I was that foolish. The engineer would blow his whistle from the time he saw us on the bridge until the train was past us. The bridge rattled an shook. It was most frightening but of course no one would admit to being sacred. Trust me we were shaking in our shoes. We held on to that railing for dear life. Another stunt we would pull off was carrying large boulders to the center of the bridge and drop them off the bridge attempting to land them in the Kinzua creek below. When the rocks hit the ground or the water the sound was like thunder. We loved that! By the way I am 81 years old and I still can’t believe I was that stupid, but at 14 years old and peer pressure looming I guess one can do stupid things.
Did I miss something? A 100 year old bridge, made without modern technology, failed when it was hit with a tornado. Additionally, there were no casualties. I'd call that pretty far from a failure or mistake
Me, looking down at the comments, wondering if other people think this video is as pointless as I do: 'Oh good'. Honestly, the thing stood for over 100 years, and took only 3 months to build. Nobody died. That's incredible. Almost anything that's held up in the air when pitted against a tornado is going to lose. When they said it failed, I thought they meant it collapsed under the weight of a train. Nah, it just got hit by a massive column of angry 100+ mph wind that came tearing down from the sky in a swirling, projectile-ridden cylinder of death.
I remember my family was on a road trip when we randomly stumbled upon The Kinzua bridge. It is crazy how they build this so long ago and it stood for 100 years! Like many people have said, I wouldn't call this a "failure" but rather just a tornado doing it's thing. You can't expect that 100 years ago they would be able to account for all the stuff engineers do today.
@@BassmentBrain this one is the same length, but not the same height en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puente_Romano,_M%C3%A9rida You're right Spain doesn't get tornados.
I’ve been here multiple times and let me tell you, this is a successful bridge. I don’t care what label this woman or anybody has to their name, they don’t understand how hard it was to do this and how hard it was to last 100 years.
One would think that the most important criteria is what one knows about the topic at hand. But for TV production, the most important question is this: "Do you look good on TV?" That trumps all.
Pennsylvania does not commonly get tornadoes, maybe 1 or 2 weak ones every few years where I live. The county the Kinzua Bridge was located in has only experienced 5 tornadoes in the past 70 years. The original engineers built the bridge in 3 months and it lasted for well over a century, and it collapsed after a natural disaster that is incredibly rare in Pennsylvania. I don’t consider this a failure at all.
A tornado killed my best friend there the day I graduated in 1985. It was the first tornado we had in my life. It killed him, his girlfriend and two others in town. Fucked me up for years.
I live near Bradford Pa and we do get one or two tornado warnings around the area every year. I personally saw one in Allegany State Park in ny in 2009. Very weak one, but so awesome to see and be able to record.
Dude, I dont think the bridge was a failure and so old and already in the middle of remedial repairs when it was hit by the Torndao after standing for so long but, five Tornados in 70 years? **Five?** Engineers are supposed to account for singular 100 year events, the most powerful storm to average once per 100 years in an area. Thats a lot stricter than something that happened every 15 years (on average).
Yeah, and they are made of solid stone and weren't hit directly very often and usually by weak gunfire like tank guns and then were repaired. This is a steel bridge that was hit by a tornado (don't have those in Germany) and was over 300 feet tall so yeah, it got knocked down in a section due to extreme leverage on the anchors. Build a 300-foot tall, self supported bridge and have a tornado hit it and then we will talk.
@@kannermw wow, how do really feel? That was great especially the part about the neutered men in Germany. My dad was a structural engineer. One night at the dinner table he was talking about his day at work. He said an architect asked him if he could design a tornado proof building. He told him he could as soon as someone told him the wind speeds in a tornado. Even in the early '70's no one knew the wind speeds in a tornado so I'll guarantee you they didn't in the 1880's. I doubt seriously anyone today could design a bridge of that height and length to survive a direct hit by a tornado. I have to give you a thumbs up on your post.
At 5:41 “The load frame measures the amount of force required to fracture the metal” The test shows the ductile difference, but they don’t give us the amount of force difference. I would like to know the numbers.
Aside from what everyone else pointed out, they also compared steel to cast iron despite the narrator clearly stating that the original structure was wrought iron. Maybe steel would still outperform wrought iron, but that's not what they tested.
That footage was used in another production on the history of steel and if I remember right something about the Titanic and the Edmund Fitzgerald. The Discovery Channel also did the History Channel. They are so cheap they will reuse that footage as many times they can get away with it because they want to pay these people only once.
The Collar Nuts where Much Stronger.. And I Agree with you.. They Needed addicional Support Down Low.. And its AMAZING too me that they where Able to Bend that Sheetmetal in the Lengths of these Towers.. WOW!!
The sections that remained standing did have new anchor bolts. They were installed when they closed the bridge in 2002 for the renovation. Check out the video at 3:14. Those boxes with the rods sticking out are the new anchor bolts. They also encased the old footers with new, additional concrete to shore them up. They reinforced and replaced some steel plate and bolts on the support columns, too. Unfortunately, the tornado came before they could complete the renovation, so the sections that they didn't yet get to went timber. I'm surprised the video didn't talk about this. I would highly recommend visiting this place if you get a chance. You can still walk out onto the remaining sections of the bridge and since they are leaving the steel on the valley floor, you can walk down to it and amongst it. They built a large visitor's center and it's now a PA state park. It's called the Kinzua Bridge State Park. It's free, and you can definitely make a day out of it. Just a heads up, if you plan on hiking to the valley floor, know that it's a fairly steep and fairly difficult hike. Bring some water and good shoes. Enjoy.
Perhaps they could not find an engineer which would say the things they wanted said. Maybe the diversity officer said they had to find a woman to comment and this was all they could come up with. Perhaps she has a "studies" degree on the side and that makes her an expert on everything. Expert: An "ex" is a has been, and a spurt is a drip under pressure.
they blame the guy who fixed it 100 years ago rather than the people actually taking care of it right now like it´s not just him who didn´t expect this
The bridge was a tourist attraction, there hadn't been a train over the bridge in decades. There weren't any tracks to the bridge when I was a kid in the 70s
That's where you're wrong it wasn't a tourist attraction and not riding Kane did rides on it every year every year they did rides on it you could pay $5 per person and ride all the way the line they did it during the summer every year until the bridge collapsed and then my family went and rebuilt the bridge extensions to where you can walk out and look down over the whole site because they left the metal and everything there
Then you must have dementia because that train was running in the 90s and the 2000s I wrote on it even in 2006 and seven when they would ride you out to the kinzua bridge and go to the train car so obviously you must not live around there
I'd like to point out as well that even when the bridge was closed, it had been a State Park (and still is) since 1965. Freight traffic stopped in 1959 and the bridge sat vacant for years until it was opened to the public (as a state park) in 1970. Any traffic on the bridge after that time was pretty much just foot traffic (with an occasional trip across for tourists in the 80's and early 90's on the Knox and Kane tourist RR) and once the engineers discovered the bridge was deteriorating, they closed it down to everyone and started working on repairing the deterioration. (Interestingly enough, all sections that remained standing had been reinforced by the repair team.) There's an amazing visitor's center there and you can walk out on the remaining span and view the valley. Not a fail. Sorry Discovery UK. No dice.
I have spent a lot of time in the area and remember taking a train over the bridge as a kid. It was, and is, amazing. What is unfortunate to me is that rather than rebuild a piece of history, they left it lay in a valley and spent all that money to turn it into a tourist attraction. It's a shame how quickly we dismiss the past.
Kinzue Bridge was build in 1882, collapsed in 2003, which means it lasted 121 years. It failed due to old age and a tornado. That is hardly a failure. Engineering has advanced since than; no doubt by today's standards such a bridge would be build differently. In 1882, this construction was state of the art, just like the Titanic and no one today would build a Titanic the same way.
If it was built today, it would have to be torn down in 30 years. Just compare today's washing machines 6 year lifespan, to yesterday's washing machines 30+ year lifespan.
@@jackandblaze5956 long lasting durable product yields less money to companies that prefer to have you buy new a product the moment a small failure in it occurs.
The failure was in no one in the 100 years since realizing the mistake and making note of it until after it had failed. The bridge performed to reasonable expectation as designed by the engineers 100 years prior.
At 3:00 the phrase ENGINEERING OVERSIGHT, seems like it should be ENGINEERING UNDERSIGHT! That no one was hurt might be traced to the fact that no one would want to be on the bridge when a 100mph tornado was in the area.
"Lasts over a century" "Tornado 🌪️ rips it apart" "Conclusion: must be the bridges fault" Thats like saying it's the builders fault for the Titanic sinking to an iceburg...because logic right
Well I mean it actually was the fault of the designers of the titanic cause they designed it to be unsinkable and made a mistake that caused it to sink the first time it sailed, this bridge lasted 100 years and only was destroyed by a tornado, something the original creators def did not design it to be able to survive.
@@deadpool6072 Very few modern ships or ships of that time could have survived the damage that Titanic received. Warships of similar size with fabrication shops, damage control teams, and enormous pumps have been been sunk with less underwater damage than Titanic. Titanic was never designed to have half of its hull stove by a rogue iceberg. That's not a design failure. That's a navigation failure
@@martinplas5343 To be fair. Even nowadays cruise ship made from alumunium instead of wrought Iron like Titanic. Look no further than Costa Concordia. The stone is just Yeeted the entire hull and instantly make the ship unrecoverable Edit : words
I lived in MT Hewlett most of my adult life and I've seen many high wind storms push the bridge in a wave...i completely dispute your findings. You forgot to mention monderday construction that was in place at that very week had the. Irons and tracks removed...so in fact it was not completely intact when hit by the tornado.(starting the blame game).
Some say her eyes are so far apart one eye can actually see back in time to the day this happened, just something I heard through the grapevine though don’t take it as fact
I lived in a town 15 minutes from the bridge. Went over it with my little brother and Grandmother on the Kane-Knox train several years ago. We went over that bridge about 5mph it was fascinating.
I was so impressed looking at that hugely tall and enormously long bridge ! …. built 100 years ago . I was impressed , although I was looking at it 100 years after its time , after I have had the opportunity to see other very impressive bridges that were built barely in our time.
120 guys in 90 days? Lasts a hundred years? I've worked on sites were the engineers don't turn up for opening at hotels in case they fall down half way through it!
I walked across this bridge back in 1994..It was still a majestic sight to see.I have photos looking down over the edge in the middle of the span..And I'll say it was impressive..I was sad to hear about its demise...
@@Novusod I will....It was a sight to see back in 1993...Ill make a slide show!.I have a pic of my friend Shane acting like he was jumping off the center of the trussel? Was a great day there.I almost cried knowing it was gone...I have some good shots of it from the land and on the viaduct itself...Keep watching my channel...If you haven't? Subscribe and watch my banter!...lol
90 days for that massive structure by 120 men in the 1800's, and it lasted over a 100 years. I'm immensely impressed! I wonder how the heck the logistics were handled during that build.
Agree ..bridge under restoration and today's structural engineering over looked a critical point...this goes on way to many times..they show up all professional looking ...but go home half empty ..base bolt anchors over looked... pretty dam stupied but they won't talk about their failure but blame engineering a hundred years ago..
Actually this was a known issue and crews were literally in the middle of fixing it when the tornado hit. Crews had been working on it for months already and had just packed up for the day when the storm rolled in. The bridge had been closed the year prior to specifically address the risk from high winds.
I've seen a tornado bend steel i-beams before. During the Super Outbreak of April 27th 2011 an EF-4 tornado came right through the heart of my hometown of Cullman AL. It destroyed a section of downtown. And in the aftermath we found that one building; totally destroyed, had its i-beams that had held the structure up bent in the tremendous wind. If you don't believe me they have one of the bent i-beams stood up for display as a memorial in my town at Heritage Park. You can come and see it with your own eyes. So saying something structurally failed because it got hit by a tornado is a ridiculously obvious statement to me. The tornado would have knocked over that bridge no matter how it had been constructed.
Yeah I agree with you Mother Nature tends to wind those battles quite often and still amazed it stand there for 100 years before getting knocked down by nature
Seeing the size of this great bridge really puts the size into perspective, the lehigh valley railroad built a trestle bridge in the 1870s on the line from horseheads to van etten ny, that was around 0.7 miles long which is about 3500 feet, the hight is unknown due to the deep gorge it crossed, which was some of the steepest grades in the northeast and quite the engineering for the time, it was torn down in the 50s due to the line being closed down, the engineering of that time was incredible for being able to build these monsters with little to no technology
Thats nothing. You should see the clowns from the Engineers Geoscientists Manitoba. Almost all fire sprinklered buildings in Manitoba do not comply with NFPA 13! Enter Manitoba at your own risk!
Would love to see that done today. It would take 3 to 5 years in planning alone.... Then put up with huge cranes and probably still not match up.... What an amazing bit of work those 120 men put on.... Stands for over 100 years ... Amazing
@@marvindebot3264 This show has several series that encompass everything from construction to A.I. to body augmentation so the experts on hand are the same ones featured every year. They are not all just construction experts.
Interesting to me that for over 100 years, no engineer saw the failure potential of iron couplers. Kudos to the original engineers and workers for constructing is such a short time and lasting so long.
The only oversight made was by every single inspector for the last 20 years. That bridge lasted for 100 years. I'd say it was built quite well at that time.
I'm from Ohio and my family has a cabin in the Appalachian Mountains. One year we went to see the tornado damage only a few years I believe after it happened. We did some tourist train too but I don't remember specifics. This video totally invoked the memories I had forgotten. It's a spectacular site - plus, that bridge working for 100 years in the 19th century is still amazing
Should we tell them about the largest Train disaster ever.? Inferior Steel caused many people to be burned alive crossing the steel bridge in a snowstorm. At least the Co. behind the error built the Ashtabula County Medical Center. Oh, and one manufacturer shot himself. Musician who penned the Music for "It is Well with my Soul" went back to get his wife trapped in a wooden train car. He burned to death with her. Disaster happened because of Greed......Ohio Landmark at the site. 🙏🙏🙏.
What’s the point of the experiment at 6:00 , they just said that they didn’t use cast iron they used wrought iron because cast iron is too brittle... they said that...
A disaster that a bridge failed after more than 100 years. I'm impressed with the quality of the bridge that stood that long. Titanic was a disaster. So was Costa Concordia.
Or maybe a Physiologist, to determine how the bridge felt when it fell, or a gender studies major so we won't use incorrect pronouns when addressing the bridge. Next up, a proctologist, who tells us everyone else in the video is full of shit.
Visited this bridge in 2002...wonderful experience...one of the grandest man-made structures I've ever seen; so thankful to have experienced it before the 🌪. On my walk back across the gorge I discovered major corrosion on the bottom section of the piers next to the creek and immediately thought... I wouldn't ride a train across this bridge for no amount of money!
Normally, this would have been a one hour episode on Discovery Channel TV. Along with 27 commercials and over forty minutes of pointless recaps. Absolutely fantastic Discovery Channel found a way to condense this down to less than eight minutes.
As someone who has lived in Pennsylvania all my life, I am quite confident that the bridge was just not maintained at all, and that's the reason it fell. Just like the rest of our pothole filled roads!
"Haha ya... This is definitely one of the biggest fails ever" *goes back to rollercoaster tycoon and sees people flying off the rails* "now this... Is perfection"
I was one of the last people to walk across the bridge before it was closed and then failed. And honestly, with how long it lasted, i wouldn't call that a failure, and i'm an electrical engineer. I'll take any chance i can to rip on Mechs and Civies
As I see it the failure was that the restoration company did not immediately address the attachment hardware. The 100 year old corroded nuts failed and allowed the towers to be lifted off their bases and they were a known problem. Maybe shoulda replaced the weak link first?
It's a whole tourist attraction now. Last time I was there, when it was up, 1982 was the year, you drove on a gravel road and there was a small parking area. Now it is paved and has a huge visitor area parking lot and building. It's definitely worth seeing in person if you are in Western Pennsylvania. You can even see the path of the tornado.
Despite the engineering failure, I consider this bridge a success of its time. Built in 90 days & lasted over a 100 years, I say this bridge has served its lifespan. And the fact that no one got killed in its last days is an ultimate success.
So let me get this straight, this bridge functioned within normal parameters except under 1 rare circumstance, of which they didn't possess much information of when it was being built? That doesn't really seem like an engineering oversight, but more likely a freak accident. That'd be like saying in 100 years that a category 7 hurricane knocked a bridge over. And then saying it's an engineering oversight when in reality the designer didn't know those wind speeds could exist.
This thing stood for 100 years and only failed when it was hit by a tornado, we have modern bridges that do much worse than that. I'd say this bridge was a success.
Built in 3 months
Lasts for 100 years
0 casualties
Calculated risk or no, I'd call this a successful bridge
This. This is something that every business does. They will literally factor in the probability of people dying from their business, and what it will cost them in the end. Businesses give zero fucks about collateral damage as long as it’s still financially viable.
@@denimchicken104 Not just businesses but everyone! Life is a risk. I can die due to heart problems sitting in my chair all day or I can exercise and run ... and possibly get hit by a car that veers onto the sidewalk. Also, look at COVID today. People have to get on with life but smartly. Masks lessen the risk but in no way eliminate it. People with say "if it saves 1 life" in evaluating risk/rewards are naive dimwits.
@@UDumFck As you say, people /have/ to get on with their lives. If the choice is between wearing a mask and not wearing a mask, it's really a no brainer. If masks help to save lives, there is no reason not to wear them.
@@inflatablewolfie Completely agree. We need to be smart about risk, not ignore it (or be a conspiracy nut).
Nahnahnah. Totally an oversight. I mean what if people had been on that bridge during the tornado XD.
I have no idea what they were faulting the designer for. The loss in profit at the time vs the cost it will take with modern technology to rebuild should be a pretty fair trade-off. We have other similar transportation options, they didn't, we can do it much faster than them, and we can get way more material for the "same" cost.
The bridge builder made the right call.
Built in 90 days and then works over a hundred years... nobody injured or killed in its last day... I consider this a success 👍
@Danger Bear the same thing happened in Seattle Washington on a monorail project.
Massively!
But it didn't factor out how many labour were used?
today you have tons of crapy.managments like lean, six sigma,... And there is bigger potential to generate failures like this one or worst ;)
@@Passco666 Ah , I see you're an old Jack Welch guy with that six sigma comment. It worked for Jack. Fire ten percent every year.
How can this be considered an engineering failure? The bridge was taken down and rebuilt was used for over 100years. A tornado in an area that doesn’t get tornados blew it down. Maybe it couldn’t handle a 100 mph winds but it did what it was designed to do for well over a century.
Thank you 😤
They had to get us to watch somehow, and it worked, lol. But my thoughts exactly.
I agree, tornados in this state are very uncommon and normal damage is minimal, I grew up being told as a kid, we can't have tornados, to many mountains lol. I've read and seen abt much worse "engineering failures".
@@chrisherb8262 exactly it's not like the bridge failed look at galloping gerdy that's a failure
If anything, it should be praised for being built so sturdy with supposedly outdated design and materials. Remember the Minnesota bridge collapse? That bridge was only built in the 60s.
I can imagine the engineers discussing possible causes of failure 100 years ago and have no doubt that since Pennsylvania had never experienced a 100 mph tornado or even winds of that speed in the state that this scenario was never considered. Using cast iron collars was therefore not a mistake that warrants such hype as expressed in this video.
It's easy to blame engineers from over a century ago in an oversight, when basically they had decades to replace the iron collars with proper modern anchor bolts and they didn't do it. Everyone is an expert afterwards, but in fact these experts didn't anticipate a direct tornado hit either.
Programs like this are always too dramatic for their own good.
@@hhiippiittyy Videos like this remind me of the video about the use of wrought iron rivets on the Titanic being partially to blame for the ship sinking. Both videos leave out the fact that heating and pounding steel rivets makes them more brittle then wrought iron rivets. There are thousands of structures from bridges, to ships to buildings constructed using wrought iron rivets and none of them have failed to date.
Exactly, and another thing we don't know is what else might have failed had the cast iron fasteners held. The foundations themselves could have failed.
bullettube, you can 'imagine' all you want, but if you were to actually study the history of bridge engineering, you would know that, yes, engineers back when this bridge was built DID include high winds in their calculations. This bridge would have withstood the tornado that hit it, except for the ongoing maintenance process at that exact time, which was gradually replacing the anchor bolts on the towers. The towers that fell over were the ones whose old anchors had been removed without the new ones being installed yet. Don't be fooled by the poor research and sensationalistic tactics of this video's author(s).
I was a mechanical engineer, and I have to say that this bridge was a huge success to have stood for over 100 years. I salute the engineers that designed and built it!
The undoing was ownership not upgrading/retrofitting/replacing the bridge after it had gone past its design life. That is the real story.
Yeah, but are you a neuroscientist?
@@milktobo7418 right, long before the 100th birthday attention needed to be given to the design & material that stood up for so long and did it's job. people mention ancient structures but those will be giant blocks of hard stone, usually not materials that will wear out with movement or oxidate and corrode within a century.
Lol, the great pyramids of Giza have been around for thousands of years. Weak excuse.
Yeah the engineers that built it, do you mean the ones that only know how it works on paper?
the bridge stood for 100 years. i think thats not a disaster. Thats simply depreciation.
Yes Random Videos Bridge was a success till time took its Toll . A shorter Bridge in Western , N.Y was Replaced in December of 2017 . The Portage Bridge was Built in 1875 and was originally Wrought Iron when it was Built for the Erie Railroad . It replaced a Wooden Bridge that Burnt . The Erie High Bridge was refitted with Steel several Times . In 2009 they knew its days were numbered The Locomotives were too heavy for it and a section could be seen dropping when a Train crossed . 1875 to 2017 is Impressive , 1880 to 2003 is Amazing .
@ the CS/LS2 would like to have a word.
@ You poor thing. It breaks my heart to see the results of catastrophic drug abuse during pregnancy. It's not your fault! Your mom should have known better.
Miss Take lmao so a bridge that stands for 100 years, get restored but gets hit by a tornado and this is considered a failure and an example as to why Chinese engineering is the best?😂 okay, keep smokin that opium.
They're engineers. They should know a 100 MPH wind hitting the top of a 300 foot high bridge would bring extreme stress due to the high winds, and leverage of the 300 feet
Fail? It lasted OVER 100 YEARS and only “failed” after a TORNADO hit it?
Hardly a failure. By any reasonable standard a smashing success.
And when it went down, no one was on the bridge. When a structure fails and hurts no one after a century? Total success! Recast the support blocks with your happy stainless steel inserts, and engineer it for 200 mph winds. Good for a millennium.
@@geraldfrost4710 No way you could engineer that thing to withstand 200 MPH winds. Plus some tornadoes have winds up to 300 MPH
@@paulspomer16 Agreed! Thinking that a structure will not eventually fail is in itself a failure. The more engineering and materials invested in a project the longer it should last. But when the engineering and materials cost more than simply rebuilding the structure after a century, it gets obvious that you might as well just rebuild the dang thing once a century.
It's like calling the human body a failure because it's not bulletproof.
@@paulspomer16 some tornadoes have 300 mph winds but do u know how many tornadoes Pennsylvania actually has a year.... It was a freak disaster its not tornado alley out here....
No matter what evidence of failure they have for it falling, absolutely no project like that could be accomplished that quickly and last that long in today's world. I say this bridge was a huge win
Yep. Kids these days can’t even change a flat tire 😅
I’m really glad a Neuroscientist is telling me about an iron girder bridge
teknokracy Smart people, as we know, are mostly interchangeable.
@@somexp12 So you'd be cool with a lawyer doing open heart surgery on you?
@@M3A7 I must have missed the part where they had her engineer and build a bridge. I never knew you had to be an expert in the field to give your opinion on something or take interest in something.
@@lakaiskates8064 she doesn't have a qualified opinion but I'll accept her reading the cue cards.
And to tell us the bleeding obvious.
I grew up 30 miles away from there and walked across that span 33 years ago. This bridge was constructed in less time than it would take your average local road crew to patch a pothole. It carried vital supplies of coal and lumber across rugged wilderness terrain for 77 years and tourists for a further 15 years. I'm sorry that an engineer in 1893 failed to predict a direct hit from a tornado in northwestern Pennsylvania 110 years later. The RMS Titanic, also considered a modern wonder of the world, lasted fewer than five full days in service.
I too grew up like 30 miles from there... But across the lake.
Also can we talk about the pronunciation they have in the video of "Kinzua?" I've always heard it as "Kin-zoo" not "Kin-zoo-a."
The bridge was known to shake in high winds when it was new and trains could only cross it at 5mph. But maybe wind didn't get invented until 1894?
It wasn't the titanic it was the olympis
@@killermongo7128 i was going to just say debatable lol.
@@bigjohn3435 who knows honestly
So happy to see I'm not the only one who thinks this wasn't a failure at all, absolute ridiculous video
UK documentary criticizing US engineering. It all makes sense now lol.
For real may I add to that the UK at the same nation that within a hundred years went from having an Empire Halfway Around the World to a little Alan the United States still has 50 states but yeah let's allow the UK people to beat us up
VERY ridiculous...
I've been building bridges for over 40yrs now, that was a damn MASTERPIECE.....
Modern bridges will have a hard time standing up that......
@@eternalreign2313
Same sort of thing happened in England only the bridge was near new and from memory a train full of people fell with it
This was built in 90 days by 120 man and it lasted 100 years 'till a tornado going over 100 miles an hour destroyed it, with zero victims! This was not a failure! This structure was a great success when you take into account the Technology this man had available at that time!...A standing ovation to those great pioneers!!! 👌👍🙏👏🙌
100%
Exactly!....100 year old railroad bridge built in 90 days by 120 men is EPIC...modern engineering doesn’t guarantee anything over 30 years.
So a routine inspection after a hundred years discovered that high winds could be dangerous to the bridge, so they stopped trains from crossing it. If anything this bridge represents a success, in both engineering and taking precautionary measures.
Used for 100 years. Built in 3 months. Sounds like a success to me.
It was built then rebuilt to reinforce it, in a very short time. Worked for over century, carrying massive loads. Was hit by a mega Tornado. This video is the fail.
@@NCPino. Well, here you are to explain it to us. Thankx....🤷🏾♂️
Agree! We have things at the power plant that fail months to a year after being commissioned with some very thought out engineering in the design. This was a well built bridge that unfortunately couldn't withstand something it wasn't designed to from the beginning.
😂😂
@@andyknolls8735 66fc hff hff g.j fffh6fhfhhjhffg6fh66667667666565c6666x66566655566665556655565c566656666665656555566566666666c65j556h5g56cj55j5565hg65gc5j65ddgj
I’d say the original engineers did it right. This seems like Lack of maintenance By future generations. All they had to do was replace those sleeves periodically.
Not the sleeves, the anchors
Yup, they coud anchor it again. Wind just lifted the structure and slamed it to ground.
It fact structure of this kind is like a kite in the wind
Thank you, I was looking for Thai comment. Ppl should have maintain it over the years not the original engineer problem after awhile.
@@stephensarkany3577 He's holding a cracked anchor in the end clip though. Lol
@@GiuseppeGaetanoSabatelli maybe it broke because its over a 100 years old?
I like how one of the experts they brought on to talk about a historical/engineering related topic was a neuroscientist .
Can't wait to see what a materials scientist has to say about Alzheimers.
Yeah why would they do that. 🤦♂️
I was looking for this comment. Lol
excuse me...a girl neuroscientist..with that smartee sounding British accent no less. Nothing off topic there.
@@edwardpietrouski5039 blame lawyers
I don’t like how this video kinda blames the original engineer because he didn’t think 100 years in the future and the bridge only lasted 100 years and not more. Give the dude some credit, it stood for 100 years, not 20.
I live in Seattle. The West Seattle Bridge (built in 1984) is closed because it's falling apart. Go figure.
No. You give him enough credit, now let the professionals talk about our infrastructure.
@@jonathanday4553 It stood 100 years and only failed when a tornado hit it. Imagine you build a house and its standing for 100 years and a tornado knocks it down, I guess you utterly failed at building that house.
@@thefunnymofo7857 I thought that said horse at first
Laughs in Roman
How could the engineers overlook a tornado that would hit over 100 years later?
No surprising. They were probably DUMBOCRATS LOL
Why is the other reply hidden... youtube leftist censorship club?
@@lucasseal1 they're all hidden
Those morons what an over sight i can't even make a bridge last 200 years smh
They should have looked at the weather forecast.. So careless..
A house stands for 100 years, then gets destroyed by a tornado. Obviously, they took shortcuts in construction.
@A K Can you not detect sarcasm? You stupid?
Lee Ham no being able to detect sarcasm doesn’t make you stupid
@@ethanthompson9569 Yes, it does.
@@leeham6230 to be fair it is text
Houses in Australia withstand cyclones... Every single year they get hit by winds in excess of 140MPH from both directions with a ton of rain and debris, and rarely do they get destroyed, usually the windows, maybe your trash can.
If any house gets taken out by a tornado, it's a shit cheaply built trailer Park Hill Billy house. If the person stays and rebuilds and it gets taken out again, definitely built by an idiot. If they rebuild yet again... I'm beginning to wonder how they managed to survive for as long as they did. If it happens twice in a short period of time, time to move on.
Like those idiots that live at the base of volcanos... Some places are just not suitable for humans, nature is giving you signals but you keep ignoring, it's called natural selection.
Anyway, after my long rant, my point is, if any house gets taken out by a tornado or cyclone or any other strong wind/rain condition, it was badly designed and built.
Like others have said, it lasted for over 100 years. It was a success NOT a failure.
I love how the comments are more Informative than the actual "documentary"
In fainess to the original designer and engineers who built this, I can't see this as a failure at all. A tornado hitting this bridge and bringing it down is abit like me getting hit in the head with a baseball bat and then someone claiming my legs failed when I went down...
Or like having a bullet proof vest but getting a nuke fired at you.
Yes, all that when you're 100 years old too.
Or like having survived for millions of years and spawning of countless species of dinosaurs and then being brought down by a massive asteroid. Stupid dinosaurs didn't see that coming.
Can robotics legs be built to absorb baseball bat hits to head? Absorb, not dodge.
Ha ha, "Man dies at 100, did his mom build him wrong?" I can see this as a news headline
120 men built it in 90 days and it stood for 110 years until a tornado hit it. Hat's off to the real men of yester-year.
And today, it takes 5 years of politicking and "environmental impact studies" before the first shovel even hits the ground :/
I don't think they counted the workers ... 120 men is for Engineers only
@@aryamanjaswal3258 negative
@@aryamanjaswal3258 you don't need that many engineers for that and certainly not back then they didn't.
@@joelpaape8748 one engineer if that
Okay but let's just say they did proper anchor points prior. 100mph winds would still do significant damage. Because it's not just wind it's wind carrying trees and debris that would puncture/break many parts of that bridge. It would likely need to be closed/completely re engineered regardless.
It was a F1 tornado. 100mph wind at best.
You would be surprised as to what steel can withstand. Had they opted to replace all the cast anchor bolts with steel, it very well could still be standing to this day. Uplift is a thing, but the bridge itself has a lot of open area for the wind to just blow through. That is the “failure” the emphasize so much, not to much the bridge itself, but they way it was anchored down.
This is NOT an engineering failure. The bridge was built on time, with few fatalities, and lasted a century. Pennsylvania is not a tornado zone, so there was no reason to consider the effect of a tornado on the structure.
Tornadoes do happen here in PA & there was a F3 one near Beaver Falls, PA back in I think 1989
@@EdEddnEddyonline1 rarely ever do tornadoes occur to the extent they do in more prominently affected areas
@@EdEddnEddyonline1 they are usually rare and small most only travel a short distance
And the proof of the pudding is that the railroad trestle stood for 100 years!
I did engineering in college, this still counts as a failure, It's still an impressive structure and it lasted for a hundred years, but the design oversight that caused it's failure is still something to learn from and apply to modern construction. The designer did not factor in the 100 year storm probability for freak weather, that's why bridges are generally overengineered, it's more expensive and takes longer to build, but the result is a bridge that will stay up even if the anticipated loads are exceeded.
This isn't the only bridge to fail due to design oversight not factoring in wind loads.
I have friends who grew up around this bridge, it was a 100 year old steel bridge and collapsed after a 100mph tornado tore through it. It had already been closed for a year to have repairs done to it so saying it's miraculous no one died when it collapsed would be like an empty house burning down and saying I can't believe no one died in there.
Thanks. I so glad I decided to peruse the comments before wasting my time watching this 'clickbait'.
I dunno first time it was shut in 100 years and happens to be when it failed seems pretty miraculous.
@@James-sk4db
It was closed for at least a decade before this happened.
We would park our vehicles on the tracks at the beginning of where the lookout is now and walk out to the middle at 2-3 am on nice summer nights in the 90's.
Great views !
@@99centcoins42 Good thing you didn't do that during a tornado - you coulda' been killed!
@@terrylandess6072 the video says the same thing about it being closed for maintenance
So lemme get this straight: A bridge that lasted well beyond its initial design (twice) is a failure because it was destroyed by a tornado in a non-tornado-prone area, a neuroscientist is being portrayed as an expert on civil and metalurgical engineering, they test the tension of cast iron and portray that as the weak link even though they lead off by explaining that the bridge was made of wrought iron instead of cast iron for that exact reason, and then they tout that as the reason for the failure of the collar nuts... which were installed during the rebuilding, and were thus presumably steel? I would hope that discovery could at least tell an internally consistent narrative, let alone getting the facts correct.
The big problem was that the current engineers didn't find the weakness till it fell. Oops who would have guess the foundation pins would wear out in 100 years...
The bolts they were attached to broke not the nuts
@@jwarmstrong I'm willing to bet some maintenance engineer in the last 20-30 years brought the subject of the 100 year old collar-nuts up, but the memo was buried by a guy in suit because of budget constraints.
@@charlesdog9795 not that it would have mattered. I can't imagine anything surviving the forces a tornado would put on it.
This is just how UK television always portrays U.S. ingenuity.
I live 20 miles away from the bridge. That day I got a call from family that lives in the nearest town and we drove to as close as we could get. A cemetery with a view of the valley. There were over 100 people there passing binoculars around to see the disaster. Some were crying and I have to admit I teared up a bit. Our family went there a lot for picnics and sometimes just to walk across the bridge. It scared the crap out of me but I loved every minute of that terrifying walk. I miss that but they have put a lot of work into the surrounding area over the years and it is still a nice place to visit and have a picnic.
Good thing you weren't having a picnic on the bridge during that tornado!
My mom’s husband is from near there. He said they used to ride motorcycles across the bridge back in the day.
Something that lasts for over a century is NOT a failure. C'mon now, modern sports stadiums barely last for 30 years in decent shape
@U WinTV Not so. The bolt caps were not corroded back then.
So an engineer, from almost 150 years ago, with his limited science and engineering available at the time, and limited materials, built a bridge that lasted over 100 years supporting HUGE loads from incredibly heavy trains generating ridiculous vibration, and only went down after a powerful tornado hit it, is a failure? Ya....what an asshole. All of us in the comment section would have done much better. More importantly, the geniuses that made this “documentary” would have done a much better job.
and the funny part is,I live in PA the coal mines and steel industry are pretty much gone at this point. the bridge had almost no use left and was already closed when it got destroyed by a tornado.
@Mark Campos yeah it was supposedly being maintained.
Welcome to the Discovery channel - its worthless trash of a TV network.
I could’ve built it to last a good 250 years minimum. Also faster
@@lukasdoofus2592 despite the coal mines and steel industry the bridge was also used by passenger trains. They stated in the video that passenger trains were diverted for safety reasons after they discovered how poor the bridge was. Even freight trains had stricter regulations to follow. So I don't get your point of the bridge not having much use left.
After 100 years without replacing those anchor bolts or collars, the failure is mostly a maintenance problem. They're exposed to much harsher conditions than the rest of the bridge.
What was most interesting to me was that the newer steel collars failed by splitting. They may have been partially split already by rust jacking from the older anchor bolts inside them. I would have expected the threads on the anchor bolts to have been stripped off by the collars.
I'm also pretty confident a tornado would wreck that bridge with steel or iron anchor bolts
How ductile or otherwise the steel was also depends on temperature. I expected they made allowances.
100% correct.
Pretty sure Mr. Tornado would have knocked down that bridge regardless of what they did to make it better. lol.
I would say the bridge was actually a success for being built in so little time. It stood for Over a hundred years and did its job. And to be fair a tornado would probably break a lot of structures old or new
Next do a video on why the city of Pompeo failed due to that volcano blast. Can't believe the city planner made that mistake.
😂😂😂
Lmaooo
Shouldnt have put a city near a volcano, now should they. But really, I feel tornados are rare around that part of Pennsylvania anyways.
Well, you'll find cities close to "dormant" or slightly active volcanoes all over the world.
fucking brilliant 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
The bridge didn't fail. It got hit by a flipping tornado.
Carter Dreyer ikr!
Yes and no
Shawn Wesson yes. It was hit by a tornado.
@@sevenb4710 Bet he did not watch it.
Yeah. I’ll bet!
This video is more of a failure than the bridge itself.
Correct. We got bridges built in the 80's failing all over the country
Absofuckinglutely ..
How
@@brettorton2363 Their comparison test and original observation are contradictory! Cast vs Wrought!
1000% hands down yessss
I bet those engineers that designed this would have been so proud that this bridge lasted as long as it did and that it took a tornado to take it out after that long of a lifespan. If proper inspections and maintenance were performed it would likely still be standing today. You can not blame the original engineers or builders for something that fails that long after it is out of their hands when long term corrosion combined with extreme weather are the cause of failure. You could say they should have used different anchoring bolts but there was close to a century in which they could have been replaced so if no one else predicted this with all the technological advancement in engineering along the way how were they supposed to predict this way back then!
They build things now in 5 years and it doesn’t last 50 years so this was a amazing build
100 years old, taken out by a tornado.
Man who was interviewed: can't think about if a train was on it.
Dude, it was a tornado. I can tell you the likey outcome even if it was on solid ground.
If a train was on it, the uplift might not have been able break the anchor sleeves.
If a train had been on it, even if the bridge had stayed up, the train wouldn't have stayed on it for long. That high up in the air and taking a direct hit from an EF3 tornado? It would be on the floor of the valley pretty damn quick!
They should of interviewed the mail man, a gardener and the local stripper, while we’re at it.
Lol don't forget the janitor...
😂😂🤣🤣
🤣🤣🤣
😏The gardener is busy with the hoe.
So they couldn't make it anyway🥴
sure, why not, if they ALL HAD MULTIPLE DEGREES IN MULTIPLE FIELDS duh.
I grew up not far from the Knizua bridge. One of the tests of “manhood” was to stand in the middle of the bridge while a train was crossing. Of course now when I think back on this stunt I can’t believe I was that foolish. The engineer would blow his whistle from the time he saw us on the bridge until the train was past us.
The bridge rattled an shook. It was most frightening but of course no one would admit to being sacred. Trust me we were shaking in our shoes. We held on to that railing for dear life. Another stunt we would pull off was carrying large boulders to the center of the bridge and drop them off the bridge attempting to land them in the Kinzua creek below. When the rocks hit the ground or the water the sound was like thunder. We loved that! By the way I am 81 years old and I still can’t believe I was that stupid, but at 14 years old and peer pressure looming I guess one can do stupid things.
Did I miss something? A 100 year old bridge, made without modern technology, failed when it was hit with a tornado. Additionally, there were no casualties.
I'd call that pretty far from a failure or mistake
Me, looking down at the comments, wondering if other people think this video is as pointless as I do: 'Oh good'.
Honestly, the thing stood for over 100 years, and took only 3 months to build. Nobody died. That's incredible. Almost anything that's held up in the air when pitted against a tornado is going to lose. When they said it failed, I thought they meant it collapsed under the weight of a train. Nah, it just got hit by a massive column of angry 100+ mph wind that came tearing down from the sky in a swirling, projectile-ridden cylinder of death.
Kabuto Yakushi You're a colorful writer. Had to read it twice because it was so good. 👍🏻
I'm trying to figure out why a peppy neuroscientist is telling us about engineering history lol.
Because discovery channel is trying 2 become like t history channel, i.e. no actual history but sensational bs, pawn stars & ancient aliens
"Swirling, projectile-ridden cylinder of death": I might have called it a "cone of death," but your phrase is still very descriptive and colorful. 👍
and, 100 years later to boot!
I remember my family was on a road trip when we randomly stumbled upon The Kinzua bridge. It is crazy how they build this so long ago and it stood for 100 years! Like many people have said, I wouldn't call this a "failure" but rather just a tornado doing it's thing. You can't expect that 100 years ago they would be able to account for all the stuff engineers do today.
Why didn't modern day engineers spot the weak point and correct it?
@@jcjc4164 Possibly because it was a historic cite and they didn't want to touch it. Or maybe they just didn't think about it.
TBF there’s 2,000 year old Roman bridges still standing in Spain and Turkey.
@@xxxBradTxxx i don’t think they were anywhere near as big and tornados aren’t common in europe
@@BassmentBrain this one is the same length, but not the same height en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puente_Romano,_M%C3%A9rida
You're right Spain doesn't get tornados.
I am from Warren, Pa. and I walked on that bridge in the 1970's it was amazing.
I’ve been here multiple times and let me tell you, this is a successful bridge. I don’t care what label this woman or anybody has to their name, they don’t understand how hard it was to do this and how hard it was to last 100 years.
yea, a neuroscientist commenting on a civil engineering project?
@@zefrum3 She wasn|t even able to name the right century
She looks like a turtle..
Her nickname is hammerhead shark and she can see both sides of the argument. At the same time.
@@fatfreddyscoat7564 ha ha!
I can understand a physicist being in this video, but a neuroscientist???
They always gotta find some way to flex on us :(
Exactly, why a woman doing there.
She had boobs
One would think that the most important criteria is what one knows about the topic at hand. But for TV production, the most important question is this: "Do you look good on TV?" That trumps all.
Nobel Prize in Physics winner Amy Farrah Fowler would disagree
Pennsylvania does not commonly get tornadoes, maybe 1 or 2 weak ones every few years where I live. The county the Kinzua Bridge was located in has only experienced 5 tornadoes in the past 70 years. The original engineers built the bridge in 3 months and it lasted for well over a century, and it collapsed after a natural disaster that is incredibly rare in Pennsylvania. I don’t consider this a failure at all.
A tornado killed my best friend there the day I graduated in 1985. It was the first tornado we had in my life. It killed him, his girlfriend and two others in town. Fucked me up for years.
I live near Bradford Pa and we do get one or two tornado warnings around the area every year. I personally saw one in Allegany State Park in ny in 2009. Very weak one, but so awesome to see and be able to record.
Dude, I dont think the bridge was a failure and so old and already in the middle of remedial repairs when it was hit by the Torndao after standing for so long but, five Tornados in 70 years? **Five?** Engineers are supposed to account for singular 100 year events, the most powerful storm to average once per 100 years in an area. Thats a lot stricter than something that happened every 15 years (on average).
Yeah, and they are made of solid stone and weren't hit directly very often and usually by weak gunfire like tank guns and then were repaired. This is a steel bridge that was hit by a tornado (don't have those in Germany) and was over 300 feet tall so yeah, it got knocked down in a section due to extreme leverage on the anchors. Build a 300-foot tall, self supported bridge and have a tornado hit it and then we will talk.
@@kannermw wow, how do really feel? That was great especially the part about the neutered men in Germany. My dad was a structural engineer. One night at the dinner table he was talking about his day at work. He said an architect asked him if he could design a tornado proof building. He told him he could as soon as someone told him the wind speeds in a tornado. Even in the early '70's no one knew the wind speeds in a tornado so I'll guarantee you they didn't in the 1880's. I doubt seriously anyone today could design a bridge of that height and length to survive a direct hit by a tornado. I have to give you a thumbs up on your post.
At 5:41
“The load frame measures the amount of force required to fracture the metal”
The test shows the ductile difference, but they don’t give us the amount of force difference. I would like to know the numbers.
Aside from what everyone else pointed out, they also compared steel to cast iron despite the narrator clearly stating that the original structure was wrought iron. Maybe steel would still outperform wrought iron, but that's not what they tested.
That footage was used in another production on the history of steel and if I remember right something about the Titanic and the Edmund Fitzgerald.
The Discovery Channel also did the History Channel. They are so cheap they will reuse that footage as many times they can get away with it because they want to pay these people only once.
Yeah there is something wrong here.
Even if collars were not used and new anchor bolts were installed, the bridge surviving a tornado hit is questionable.
Most likely wouldn't have
The Collar Nuts where Much Stronger.. And I Agree with you.. They Needed addicional Support Down Low.. And its AMAZING too me that they where Able to Bend that Sheetmetal in the Lengths of these Towers.. WOW!!
The sections that remained standing did have new anchor bolts. They were installed when they closed the bridge in 2002 for the renovation. Check out the video at 3:14. Those boxes with the rods sticking out are the new anchor bolts. They also encased the old footers with new, additional concrete to shore them up. They reinforced and replaced some steel plate and bolts on the support columns, too. Unfortunately, the tornado came before they could complete the renovation, so the sections that they didn't yet get to went timber. I'm surprised the video didn't talk about this. I would highly recommend visiting this place if you get a chance. You can still walk out onto the remaining sections of the bridge and since they are leaving the steel on the valley floor, you can walk down to it and amongst it. They built a large visitor's center and it's now a PA state park. It's called the Kinzua Bridge State Park. It's free, and you can definitely make a day out of it. Just a heads up, if you plan on hiking to the valley floor, know that it's a fairly steep and fairly difficult hike. Bring some water and good shoes. Enjoy.
Why is a neuroscientist talking about engineering fails? WHY GOD WHY?
@surfitlive I would like to see civil engineering talking about Corona now.
Perhaps they could not find an engineer which would say the things they wanted said. Maybe the diversity officer said they had to find a woman to comment and this was all they could come up with. Perhaps she has a "studies" degree on the side and that makes her an expert on everything.
Expert: An "ex" is a has been, and a spurt is a drip under pressure.
@@fjfell5979 its the same thing with the feminists. But when the check arrives, where are they?
seems like a casting oversight to me
Diversity quota. Plot twist zhe was really a male.
they blame the guy who fixed it 100 years ago rather than the people actually taking care of it right now like it´s not just him who didn´t expect this
The bridge was a tourist attraction, there hadn't been a train over the bridge in decades. There weren't any tracks to the bridge when I was a kid in the 70s
They ran tourist trains over it until its closure in 2002.
That's where you're wrong it wasn't a tourist attraction and not riding Kane did rides on it every year every year they did rides on it you could pay $5 per person and ride all the way the line they did it during the summer every year until the bridge collapsed and then my family went and rebuilt the bridge extensions to where you can walk out and look down over the whole site because they left the metal and everything there
Then you must have dementia because that train was running in the 90s and the 2000s I wrote on it even in 2006 and seven when they would ride you out to the kinzua bridge and go to the train car so obviously you must not live around there
Hmm...I took a train across it in 1990 operated by the Knox and Kane railroad.
Lol. Really?
I'd like to point out as well that even when the bridge was closed, it had been a State Park (and still is) since 1965. Freight traffic stopped in 1959 and the bridge sat vacant for years until it was opened to the public (as a state park) in 1970. Any traffic on the bridge after that time was pretty much just foot traffic (with an occasional trip across for tourists in the 80's and early 90's on the Knox and Kane tourist RR) and once the engineers discovered the bridge was deteriorating, they closed it down to everyone and started working on repairing the deterioration. (Interestingly enough, all sections that remained standing had been reinforced by the repair team.) There's an amazing visitor's center there and you can walk out on the remaining span and view the valley. Not a fail. Sorry Discovery UK. No dice.
This explains why it was not repaired. Good info - thanks
I have spent a lot of time in the area and remember taking a train over the bridge as a kid. It was, and is, amazing. What is unfortunate to me is that rather than rebuild a piece of history, they left it lay in a valley and spent all that money to turn it into a tourist attraction. It's a shame how quickly we dismiss the past.
This was not a failure, bridge lasted over 100 years without collapsing, and it took a Tornado to bring it down.
Awesome work bridgebuilders!
I once had a yogurt failure when I found it tasting foul after being left in a volcano vent 3 years after it expired.
Kinzue Bridge was build in 1882, collapsed in 2003, which means it lasted 121 years. It failed due to old age and a tornado. That is hardly a failure. Engineering has advanced since than; no doubt by today's standards such a bridge would be build differently. In 1882, this construction was state of the art, just like the Titanic and no one today would build a Titanic the same way.
If it was built today, it would have to be torn down in 30 years. Just compare today's washing machines 6 year lifespan, to yesterday's washing machines 30+ year lifespan.
@@jackandblaze5956 long lasting durable product yields less money to companies that prefer to have you buy new a product the moment a small failure in it occurs.
The failure was in no one in the 100 years since realizing the mistake and making note of it until after it had failed. The bridge performed to reasonable expectation as designed by the engineers 100 years prior.
At 3:00 the phrase ENGINEERING OVERSIGHT, seems like it should be ENGINEERING UNDERSIGHT! That no one was hurt might be traced to the fact that no one would want to be on the bridge when a 100mph tornado was in the area.
wat's a neuroscientist doin' on this vid.
She studies how brainwaves can melt them steal beams bruh!
Asking the same question 😆
With those big eyes, she can probably see into the past
Was just gonna post this same question, lol
LMAO My thoughts exactly when I saw her title.
"Lasts over a century"
"Tornado 🌪️ rips it apart"
"Conclusion: must be the bridges fault"
Thats like saying it's the builders fault for the Titanic sinking to an iceburg...because logic right
Clickbait. Shame on Discovery UK.
New title:
How The 8th Wonder Of The World Succeeded For 100 Years Despite Engineering Oversight
Well I mean it actually was the fault of the designers of the titanic cause they designed it to be unsinkable and made a mistake that caused it to sink the first time it sailed, this bridge lasted 100 years and only was destroyed by a tornado, something the original creators def did not design it to be able to survive.
Except that it really is the builder's fault why Titanic is a total failure.
@@deadpool6072 Very few modern ships or ships of that time could have survived the damage that Titanic received. Warships of similar size with fabrication shops, damage control teams, and enormous pumps have been been sunk with less underwater damage than Titanic.
Titanic was never designed to have half of its hull stove by a rogue iceberg. That's not a design failure. That's a navigation failure
@@martinplas5343 To be fair. Even nowadays cruise ship made from alumunium instead of wrought Iron like Titanic.
Look no further than Costa Concordia. The stone is just Yeeted the entire hull and instantly make the ship unrecoverable
Edit : words
Ffs what a waste of time
The bridge was bought down by a tornado not an engineering oversite
I lived in MT Hewlett most of my adult life and I've seen many high wind storms push the bridge in a wave...i completely dispute your findings. You forgot to mention monderday construction that was in place at that very week had the. Irons and tracks removed...so in fact it was not completely intact when hit by the tornado.(starting the blame game).
0:47 Wtf has a neuroscientist and a physicist have to do with civil engineering?
Some say her eyes are so far apart one eye can actually see back in time to the day this happened, just something I heard through the grapevine though don’t take it as fact
jarrett maltry AHAHHAHAHAHAH FUCKING SAVAGE!!!!
there was no mention of what he minored in
So not one engineer in 100 years noticed this potential problem?
This bridge wasn’t in service since the 70s.
😂
That is the epic failure here.
Yeah but the "engineers" in this video noticed the problem. Notice how smart they are?
I lived in a town 15 minutes from the bridge. Went over it with my little brother and Grandmother on the Kane-Knox train several years ago. We went over that bridge about 5mph it was fascinating.
I was so impressed looking at that hugely tall and enormously long bridge ! …. built 100 years ago . I was impressed , although I was looking at it 100 years after its time , after I have had the opportunity to see other very impressive bridges that were built barely in our time.
Bring in a neuroscientist to talk about train bridges lol
"Diversity" ;)
I doubt they thought the bridge would last 100 years and a tornado in a valley like that seems a bit rare
120 guys in 90 days? Lasts a hundred years? I've worked on sites were the engineers don't turn up for opening at hotels in case they fall down half way through it!
I walked across this bridge back in 1994..It was still a majestic sight to see.I have photos looking down over the edge in the middle of the span..And I'll say it was impressive..I was sad to hear about its demise...
You should upload those photos somewhere.
@@Novusod I will....It was a sight to see back in 1993...Ill make a slide show!.I have a pic of my friend Shane acting like he was jumping off the center of the trussel? Was a great day there.I almost cried knowing it was gone...I have some good shots of it from the land and on the viaduct itself...Keep watching my channel...If you haven't? Subscribe and watch my banter!...lol
How did you know that a train wasn't going to cross the bridge while you were on it?
@@beringstraitrailway Because at that time it was closed for train travel..Only pedestrians could traverse the bridge
Fran Scott? Sensationalist, Producer, Fireworks engineer. Hardly reliable video..
90 days for that massive structure by 120 men in the 1800's, and it lasted over a 100 years. I'm immensely impressed!
I wonder how the heck the logistics were handled during that build.
They probably brought everything in on rails. It was a train bridge after all.
I would consider this more of a bridge inspector fail. The bridge anchor bolt could easily be core drilled out and replaced at any time.
Agree ..bridge under restoration and today's structural engineering over looked a critical point...this goes on way to many times..they show up all professional looking ...but go home half empty ..base bolt anchors over looked... pretty dam stupied but they won't talk about their failure but blame engineering a hundred years ago..
Actually this was a known issue and crews were literally in the middle of fixing it when the tornado hit. Crews had been working on it for months already and had just packed up for the day when the storm rolled in. The bridge had been closed the year prior to specifically address the risk from high winds.
I've seen a tornado bend steel i-beams before. During the Super Outbreak of April 27th 2011 an EF-4 tornado came right through the heart of my hometown of Cullman AL. It destroyed a section of downtown. And in the aftermath we found that one building; totally destroyed, had its i-beams that had held the structure up bent in the tremendous wind. If you don't believe me they have one of the bent i-beams stood up for display as a memorial in my town at Heritage Park. You can come and see it with your own eyes. So saying something structurally failed because it got hit by a tornado is a ridiculously obvious statement to me. The tornado would have knocked over that bridge no matter how it had been constructed.
I don't believe you.
Just here to have an argument with strangers because I'm a snotty know-it-all liberal millennial.
@@whiskeymonk4085 Okay.
160km winds spinning? I concure with you on that point.ive seen straw in Tornado go right thru a steel beam how? I have no idea
@@bigred1247 magic
Yeah I agree with you Mother Nature tends to wind those battles quite often and still amazed it stand there for 100 years before getting knocked down by nature
Seeing the size of this great bridge really puts the size into perspective, the lehigh valley railroad built a trestle bridge in the 1870s on the line from horseheads to van etten ny, that was around 0.7 miles long which is about 3500 feet, the hight is unknown due to the deep gorge it crossed, which was some of the steepest grades in the northeast and quite the engineering for the time, it was torn down in the 50s due to the line being closed down, the engineering of that time was incredible for being able to build these monsters with little to no technology
i'm convinced these aren't professionals and are literally payed actors, they're terrible lmao especially the guy at 3:05
Shay that look down and to the side, the grin, the small puff of breath out of his nose... how many times did he rehearse that line?? lol
Omg right when i saw that guy i knew it mustve beem 305 in the vid!
BuT thEy hadNT cOnSidEreD MOTher NAtUre
Hahaha go to this video at 6:20 this guy definitely is an actor paid to be in these ua-cam.com/video/dbCds0s0mpM/v-deo.html
Thats nothing. You should see the clowns from the Engineers Geoscientists Manitoba. Almost all fire sprinklered buildings in Manitoba do not comply with NFPA 13! Enter Manitoba at your own risk!
Would love to see that done today. It would take 3 to 5 years in planning alone.... Then put up with huge cranes and probably still not match up....
What an amazing bit of work those 120 men put on.... Stands for over 100 years ... Amazing
Don't forget another couple years for the environmental impact study. Who knows what cute little animals or endangered weeds could be affected?
And it would probably last 4 times longer...
100 years is NOT a long time for a bridge...
Narrator, expert, narrator, expert, narrator, expert.
“I need a bridge engineer or a neuroscientist to read this bit on a hundred year old bridge.”
If the show features a neuroscientists and not a bridge engineer then guess which one you get?
@@krashd Well to be fair they had both but the choice of the first is somewhat puzzling.
@@marvindebot3264 This show has several series that encompass everything from construction to A.I. to body augmentation so the experts on hand are the same ones featured every year. They are not all just construction experts.
Interesting to me that for over 100 years, no engineer saw the failure potential of iron couplers. Kudos to the original engineers and workers for constructing is such a short time and lasting so long.
This video should be retitled.
It's one of the engineering marvel of the century.
Old is gold.
The bridge stood for over 100 years, it still took modern train loads and a tornado to do it in.
That's an epic win in my book.
The only oversight made was by every single inspector for the last 20 years. That bridge lasted for 100 years. I'd say it was built quite well at that time.
I'm from Ohio and my family has a cabin in the Appalachian Mountains. One year we went to see the tornado damage only a few years I believe after it happened. We did some tourist train too but I don't remember specifics. This video totally invoked the memories I had forgotten. It's a spectacular site - plus, that bridge working for 100 years in the 19th century is still amazing
Should we tell them about the largest Train disaster ever.? Inferior Steel caused many people to be burned alive crossing the steel bridge in a snowstorm. At least the Co. behind the error built the Ashtabula County Medical Center. Oh, and one manufacturer shot himself. Musician who penned the Music for "It is Well with my Soul" went back to get his wife trapped in a wooden train car. He burned to death with her. Disaster happened because of Greed......Ohio Landmark at the site. 🙏🙏🙏.
What’s the point of the experiment at 6:00 , they just said that they didn’t use cast iron they used wrought iron because cast iron is too brittle... they said that...
I got confused at that too
A disaster that a bridge failed after more than 100 years.
I'm impressed with the quality of the bridge that stood that long.
Titanic was a disaster. So was Costa Concordia.
the real failure is that they just let it lay there
It’s a monument sorta thing
@Smarter Than You I disagree.... :)
@Smarter Than You Aw shucks! Ever since I got muh second head removed, they can't keep their hands off me!... :)
The bridge survived 100 years. The engineering team did their job.
they should have had a dog groomer as expert instead of neurosurgeon
Or maybe a Physiologist, to determine how the bridge felt when it fell, or a gender studies major so we won't use incorrect pronouns when addressing the bridge. Next up, a proctologist, who tells us everyone else in the video is full of shit.
I've met some very fascinating dog groomers who have interests beyond dogs so why would that be a bad thing?
Neuroscientist not surgeon:p
Visited this bridge in 2002...wonderful experience...one of the grandest man-made structures I've ever seen; so thankful to have experienced it before the 🌪. On my walk back across the gorge I discovered major corrosion on the bottom section of the piers next to the creek and immediately thought...
I wouldn't ride a train across this bridge for no amount of money!
Ever been to the Nicholson Bridge?? Another amazing piece of history
@@theSkavenger84 Yes
Normally, this would have been a one hour episode on Discovery Channel TV. Along with 27 commercials and over forty minutes of pointless recaps.
Absolutely fantastic Discovery Channel found a way to condense this down to less than eight minutes.
As someone who has lived in Pennsylvania all my life, I am quite confident that the bridge was just not maintained at all, and that's the reason it fell. Just like the rest of our pothole filled roads!
Note that painting the Golden Gate is a never-ending process.
"Haha ya... This is definitely one of the biggest fails ever" *goes back to rollercoaster tycoon and sees people flying off the rails* "now this... Is perfection"
Free on epic games !
That IS perfection.
Holy shit, educational youtubers have a higher production value than discovery channel shows.
I was one of the last people to walk across the bridge before it was closed and then failed.
And honestly, with how long it lasted, i wouldn't call that a failure, and i'm an electrical engineer. I'll take any chance i can to rip on Mechs and Civies
Did you note the female "expert" is a neuroscientist? Little bit out of her field here.
As I see it the failure was that the restoration company did not immediately address the attachment hardware. The 100 year old corroded nuts failed and allowed the towers to be lifted off their bases and they were a known problem. Maybe shoulda replaced the weak link first?
@@billmiller7138 absolutely. The original engineering was sound. The maintenance was poor.
It's a whole tourist attraction now. Last time I was there, when it was up, 1982 was the year, you drove on a gravel road and there was a small parking area. Now it is paved and has a huge visitor area parking lot and building. It's definitely worth seeing in person if you are in Western Pennsylvania. You can even see the path of the tornado.
Despite the engineering failure, I consider this bridge a success of its time. Built in 90 days & lasted over a 100 years, I say this bridge has served its lifespan. And the fact that no one got killed in its last days is an ultimate success.
How is a temporary solution a failure after 120 years?
No matter what video says; I’ve been there! It’s a marvel of human ingenuity! To build something that lasted that long back in the 1800s!
So let me get this straight, this bridge functioned within normal parameters except under 1 rare circumstance, of which they didn't possess much information of when it was being built? That doesn't really seem like an engineering oversight, but more likely a freak accident.
That'd be like saying in 100 years that a category 7 hurricane knocked a bridge over. And then saying it's an engineering oversight when in reality the designer didn't know those wind speeds could exist.
This thing stood for 100 years and only failed when it was hit by a tornado, we have modern bridges that do much worse than that. I'd say this bridge was a success.