Welcome to the Historical Fiction Online forums: a friendly place to discuss, review and discover historical fiction.
If this is your first visit, please be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above.
You will have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed.
To start viewing posts, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Galloping Gertie

User avatar
Misfit
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 9581
Joined: August 2008
Location: Seattle, WA

Galloping Gertie

Post by Misfit » Wed December 8th, 2010, 1:15 am

I just found this on YouTube. The stuff of Puget Sound legends I doubt it gets much airtime on out of area TV stations. This is the first Tacoma Narrows bridge during a wild wind storm in 1940. It has since been rebuilt. At least twice...

Although the last time was just to add a new span for more traffic - that old one didn't fail. Yet.
At home with a good book and the cat...
...is the only place I want to be

User avatar
SonjaMarie
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 5688
Joined: August 2008
Location: Vashon, WA
Contact:

Post by SonjaMarie » Wed December 8th, 2010, 2:48 am

I've only been on the Narrows Bridge once in my life and so far that have been enough for me!

SM
The Lady Jane Grey Internet Museum
My Booksfree Queue

Original Join Date: Mar 2006
Previous Amount of Posts: 2,517
Books Read In 2014: 109 - June: 17 (May: 17)
Full List Here: http://www.historicalfictiononline.com/ ... p?p=114965

User avatar
Ariadne
Bibliophile
Posts: 1151
Joined: August 2008
Location: At the foothills of Mt. Level

Post by Ariadne » Wed December 8th, 2010, 2:59 am

I remember seeing that clip in high school physics class!

User avatar
Misfit
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 9581
Joined: August 2008
Location: Seattle, WA

Post by Misfit » Wed December 8th, 2010, 3:39 am

They showed this often in my school days. In film, mind you as other options were a thing of the future then :o :p
At home with a good book and the cat...
...is the only place I want to be

User avatar
Ariadne
Bibliophile
Posts: 1151
Joined: August 2008
Location: At the foothills of Mt. Level

Post by Ariadne » Wed December 8th, 2010, 3:44 am

Yep, film - and a very jumpy film it was too, probably more because of the projector than the medium. The weird thing is I don't remember it being in color.

User avatar
SonjaMarie
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 5688
Joined: August 2008
Location: Vashon, WA
Contact:

Post by SonjaMarie » Wed December 8th, 2010, 3:45 am

Amazingly the only casuality was a poor dog! :(

SM
The Lady Jane Grey Internet Museum
My Booksfree Queue

Original Join Date: Mar 2006
Previous Amount of Posts: 2,517
Books Read In 2014: 109 - June: 17 (May: 17)
Full List Here: http://www.historicalfictiononline.com/ ... p?p=114965

User avatar
MLE (Emily Cotton)
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 3566
Joined: August 2008
Interest in HF: started in childhood with the classics, which, IMHO are HF even if they were contemporary when written.
Favourite HF book: Prince of Foxes, by Samuel Shellabarger
Preferred HF: Currently prefer 1600 and earlier, but I'll read anything that keeps me turning the page.
Location: California Bay Area

Post by MLE (Emily Cotton) » Wed December 8th, 2010, 4:15 am

They showed that in my engineering classes-- an example of what happens if you don't space the supports to interrupt and damp the harmonic wave. That first version of the bridge had piers positioned exactly such that each wave was reflected back down the span, gathering energy as they went.

That film is used in every engineering class that I know of. The other is a collapsing three-storey walkway in a Kansas City hotel where some clever budget-cutter decided that the whole could rest on one bottom nut and spacers, instead of the three that the design called for. (said budget cutting multiplied across many hundreds of walkway hanging rods.)

User avatar
Telynor
Bibliophile
Posts: 1465
Joined: August 2008
Location: On the Banks of the Hudson

Post by Telynor » Wed December 8th, 2010, 11:32 pm

[quote=""MLE""]They showed that in my engineering classes-- an example of what happens if you don't space the supports to interrupt and damp the harmonic wave. That first version of the bridge had piers positioned exactly such that each wave was reflected back down the span, gathering energy as they went.

That film is used in every engineering class that I know of. The other is a collapsing three-storey walkway in a Kansas City hotel where some clever budget-cutter decided that the whole could rest on one bottom nut and spacers, instead of the three that the design called for. (said budget cutting multiplied across many hundreds of walkway hanging rods.)[/quote]

Is that Kansas City skywalk the one that killed so many people when it came down? I remember seeing the footage of that one and just being horrified. The Tacoma bridge one is a classic -- thank goodness that it did not result in human casulaties. The one that makes me nervous to go over is the big one in Michigan, that one gives me the willies.

User avatar
Misfit
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 9581
Joined: August 2008
Location: Seattle, WA

Post by Misfit » Wed December 8th, 2010, 11:43 pm

I always get the chills going over that one in high winds, as well as our floating bridges. They've had a few *incidents* in high winds as well.
At home with a good book and the cat...
...is the only place I want to be

User avatar
MLE (Emily Cotton)
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 3566
Joined: August 2008
Interest in HF: started in childhood with the classics, which, IMHO are HF even if they were contemporary when written.
Favourite HF book: Prince of Foxes, by Samuel Shellabarger
Preferred HF: Currently prefer 1600 and earlier, but I'll read anything that keeps me turning the page.
Location: California Bay Area

Post by MLE (Emily Cotton) » Wed December 8th, 2010, 11:50 pm

Yes, the pontoon bridge over Hood's Canal flipped in a storm, didn't it? I got to know that one pretty intimately in my Vietnam-war protesting days, trying to block the munitions freighters going out of Bangor. Ah, youth and stupidity.

Post Reply

Return to “Chat”