This Bridge Should Have Been Closed Years Before It Collapsed

Why Fern Hollow Bridge collapsed

This is a crazy case study of how common sense can fall through the cracks of strained budgets and rigid oversight from federal, state, and city staff. And the lessons that came out of it aren’t just relevant to people who work on bridges. It's a story of how numerous small mistakes by individuals can collectively lead to a tragedy.

Practical Engineering is a YouTube channel about infrastructure and the human-made world around us. It is hosted, written, and produced by Grady Hillhouse. We have new videos posted regularly, so please subscribe for updates. If you enjoyed the video, hit that ‘like’ button, give us a comment, or watch another of our videos!

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This is not engineering advice. Everything here is for informational and entertainment purposes only. Contact an engineer licensed to practice in your area if you need professional advice or services. All non-licensed clips used for fair use commentary, criticism, and educational purposes.

SPECIAL THANKS
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This video is sponsored by Henson.
Stock video and imagery provided by Getty Images, and Associated Press.
Tonic and Energy by Elexive is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License
Video by Grady Hillhouse
Edited by Wesley Crump
Produced by Ralph Crewe
Graphics by Nebula Studios

[PracticalEngineeringChannel]

🌉What do you think is the solution to this failure?

[HaddaClu]

As a Pittsburgher I couldnt be more proud of our local journalists who covered this whole affair. Unfortunately the state has decided to make all bridge inspection reports "classified" for "security reasons"

[notahotshot]

"Cables are added as a temporary..."

There is nothing more permanent than a temporary fix.

[gsuberland]

Your point about nobody having a complete view hits very close to home for me. I work in security (ex pentester, now researcher) and the sheer number of times I've seen that same pattern of "the people with a clear view have no autonomy; the people with a limited view have the authority" as a limiting factor in problem identification and remediation is staggering.

[advena]

What's a bit infuriating to me is that if my personal vehicle fails an inspection, (which can be caused by relatively minor things like having a turn signal out, or a slightly old windshield wiper blade) I cannot legally drive it untill the issue is resolved. But when it comes the the government inspecting itself, suddenly the issues become "recomendations" which can be ignored indefinitely!

[ThisIsInput]

I lived in Corpus Christi when you covered the blunder of the Harbor Bridge Project, now I live in Pittsburgh when you cover the Fern Hollow Bridge. I'm scared to move to another city with a bridge now.

[OceanandStars]

This is one of the things I love about engineering. Anyone can look at the collapse and say "old parts broke." But an engineer can point to each tiny little piece of the puzzle and tell you how, why, when, and to what extent it contributed to the collapse.

[codyhufstetler]

"All the NTSB recommendations feel a little bit like band-aids if the real source of the problem was that no one person in this whole machine had both a full appreciation of the bridge's condition, AND the authority to do something about it."

This rings painfully true for me even in the private sector

[samus]

Been watching for years and your writing is always so legit. No one could have said it better. This exact thing happens in so many industries: (18:46) "Maintaining infrastructure is thankless work (...) they’re not rewarding in the same way that designing and building new stuff can be. No one holds a big press conference and cuts a big ribbon at the end of a bridge inspection or a structural retrofit. Building a new structure isn't just an achievement in its own right; it’s a commitment to take good care of it for its entire design life, and then to rehabilitate, or replace, or even close it when it’s no longer safe for the public. And I think this is the perfect case study to show that there’s more we could do to encourage and celebrate that kind of work as well." Thanks, Grady!

[joeyager]

I worked as a machine designer for over 45 years. One of the "laws" of engineering I discovered was: "Those with the most knowledge have the least authority. Conversely, those with the least knowledge have all the authority." It was maddening.

[coreytheiss]

Thank you Grady for writing real closed captions instead of relying on YouTube's auto-transcript. Your efforts are noticed and appreciated!

[MushookieMan]

Having no bureaucratic mechanism to trigger repairs after massive flaws are found is typical bureaucracy

[ellairax]

They call Pittsburgh the “city of bridges”. And some of the bridges you will see around here are truly terrifying. The fact that more of these haven’t gone down is a miracle

[siberx]

Imagine how frustrating it must have been to the inspectors writing up their reports year after year on this bridge, seeing nothing done, and finally seeing the bridge collapse.

[HiFiGuy]

Ah, Pittsburgh.

When the Greenfield Bridge was falling apart, they built a bridge under the bridge that stood for a dozen years to catch the debris from falling onto the highway below.

[Pigzit]

I live within a mile of Fern Hollow Bridge, and cross it nearly every day. That day I had missed the collapse by less than an hour. The bridge collapsing the day the President came to talk about the need for new infrastructure in our city is the deepest irony I've ever experienced in my life! With how slow construction seems to progress in this city, I was blown away by how fast the new bridge came up. Thank you for covering this!!

[mouseluva]

I'm in healthcare architecture and it is very true that a retrofit of an existing facility is a lot less glamourous than a brand new one. No one is going to have a big ribbon cut party for the new fire escape ramp we've designed for an existing hospital ward, but if there's ever a fire the staff can now evacuate patients safely in their beds instead of trying to get non-mobile, vulnerable people down the steps.
Very interesting video, I find your deep dives on failed case studies very useful :)

[tedferkin]

I've been in local government, so many times money found for a new infrastructure project. Yet I used to get told to shut up when I talked about maintenance. Therefore all the resulting facilities would have to be pulled down well before their time, because they are just left to rot rather than maintained.

[erictaylor]

11:40 The skills of that bus driver were amazing. To keep your head straight enough to keep the bus under control in that situation was fantastic.

[MustangsTrainsMowers]

I drove over the Minnesota 35W bridge about 10 days before it failed. I was in my 1994 F250HD which had a very stiff suspension. I noticed going from bridge section to bridge section abrupt change in angle like it hit a bump. My truck was going slightly up and down as it crossed that bridge. A bridge engineer working for MnDOT repeatedly warned MnDOT management that that bridge was going to fail, and they didn’t listen. The blueprints for the bridge called for 1” thick connector plates. The plates installed were 1/2”. 13 people died because of incompetence, over 100 more were injured.