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I was scared the evening of 28 June 1983. I know because that was the day a bridge over the Mianus River in Connecticut collapsed. It's no Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse, but the notion that bridges might just fall apart, for no apparent reason, hit hard at my faith that things were built to work. The collapse was because of a design oversight, metal pins holding sections of the bridge together rusting, undetected.
Today, an explosion at the construction site for the Nicoll Highway MRT Station killed one worker. Three are missing. Three were injured but were released from hospital. Five lanes of the highway were damaged, and the region looks like a small meteor hit. It's not believed to be sabotage, simply an accident, the first one like that which Singapore has had in its subway construction projects. It's still scary.
Still, I can't help turning to the logistic problem. The highway collapse closes both that road and the Merdeka bridge across the Kallang River, a major artery into the main city. There's not very good alternative routes. MRT construction is thrown off as well. I feel a little sick that part of my mind is interested in how to carry on regardless.
In the final exam today -- and I'll write about that later, no doubt -- I noticed something odd. Every student received two blank blue books. Every student turned in at least one, often two books tied together. No student asked for an extra blank book. Yet more than one student returned two blank books. How? The only guess I can make is students hoarding blanks from earlier exams and turning them in today. But why return a book taken just in case it might be needed? It's not as though the university is in danger of running out. Clearly, blue books breed themselves.
Trivia: Some Maginot Line fortresses ended the Battle of France with more ammunition and supplies than they had when the battle began. Source: The Maginot Line: Myth and Reality, Anthony Kemp.
Currently Reading: Military Errors of World War II, Kenneth Macksey.
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A bridge disaster I once saw...
Date: 2004-04-20 09:13 am (UTC)The current web edition of The Straits Times Interactive (http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/) has a picture of the collapsed road...although not many details, because the Wednesday edition is supposed to have them. It sounds like they still haven't determined exactly why the structure failed.
Still, I can't help turning to the logistic problem. The highway collapse closes both that road and the Merdeka bridge across the Kallang River, a major artery into the main city. There's not very good alternative routes. MRT construction is thrown off as well. I feel a little sick that part of my mind is interested in how to carry on regardless.
I was going to mention a couple examples I can think of of major construction projects that failed and caused logistic problems like this, but it occurred to me that the ones I've seen myself generally failed because of natural disasters. There may not be a real comparison.
I did see a major bridge on I-70 spanning a Mississippi tributary river, that was washed away in the Midwest floods of Spring, 1994. I didn't see it happen, but I did see the results that May, in the sense that I saw the washed out wreck of the bridge a hundred or two hundred feet downstream from its original anchor spot. Vivid memories of that bridge included the twisted metal remains of the bridge itself, and the 'brownness' of the the whole area - dead and dying trees because of the flood, silt spread over miles...and of course, a (then) harmless tiny river flowing under all of it.
What astounded me about the I-70 bridge was how quickly engineers were able to construct a multi-lane temporary bridge to replace the span; it was that, or all of I-70's traffic had to be completely rerouted. I can only imagine there will be an amazingly fast response to build a new section for the Nicoll highway.
If there is any good to come of this, it is that disasters like this are never ignored. The engineers will be working hard to figure out what went wrong, to assure it is a lot less likely to happen again. I only wish it didn't take disasters to realize that these problems are there.
In the final exam today -- and I'll write about that later, no doubt -- I noticed something odd. Every student received two blank blue books...Yet more than one student returned two blank books. How? The only guess I can make is students hoarding blanks from earlier exams and turning them in today.
Were there multiple exam sessions for your class? It isn't beyond the realm of possibility, I suppose, that some students cheated and wrote answers to questions in advance, if they knew from a previous section what the questions were, and there are no identifying unique traits that label a 'blue book' as having come from a particular exam session.
Otherwise, why they were fond of a blue exam book they got in the session before, only to use it in yours, is beyond me. Sentimentality?
-Skyler
Re: A bridge disaster I once saw...
Date: 2004-04-21 07:22 am (UTC)Current estimates on the highway are that it'll be out of service for months at least. Traffic today was diverted a good ways ahead and people were given the choice of a rather smaller bridge or another main highway -- which is also an ERP highway. That's Electronic Road Pricing, sort of an EZ-Pass type toll road. Since nature adores the chance to compound indignities, the only available detour forces drivers to pass through two ERP stations.
As for the exam -- there's only the one session for my exams, and so far as I know for any class exams. But students must be hoarding blank books from earlier exams they take; one student (exactly one) in my class has a blue book with different format to the front cover.
There are several ``decentralized venues,'' so that persons who are not too ill to take the exam, but might infect others, can with arrangement with health services take the exam with other potentially infectious persons. So there is -- I am not making this up -- a room to go to if you need to take an exam, but have chicken pox.
Funny you mention.
Date: 2004-04-20 10:15 am (UTC)I admit to wondering why this is such a common theme of thought and dreams. I bring it up now because I had one just last night, and the car ended up plunging into water. Not terribly pleasant to dream about.
Re: Funny you mention.
Date: 2004-04-21 07:45 am (UTC)I used to have fears of falling off a bridge, but mostly while driving over the Driscol Bridge (or its Route 9 twin) over the Raritan River. These bridges were very steep, very thin things with no shoulders and only very short balustrades instead of concrete barriers on the outsides. While the posted speed limit was 40 mph, 65 was the actual speed. Though it's great fun to see yourself lifting up into the air with Staten Island off in the distance, it's not hard to imagine a moment of recklessness sending one careening off and into the river.
Apparently one winter morning decades ago a light layer of black ice covered them -- my grandmother was one of many people who made it through nevertheless, one person at a time going up the long climb to the peak of the bridge, slowly and completely alone so she could skid backwards safely. When a car disappeared over the top, the next car would start, trusting that there wasn't a 500-car pileup on the far side. I'd have called in snowbound myself.
They're replacing those bridges, though, with ones that are just as narrow but have much taller and more firm-looking guard rails, and don't rise nearly as steeply. They're not as much fun either.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-21 02:18 am (UTC)I've had a sort of low-level dissatisfaction for some time now with the idea that we have to feel the losses of strangers as acutely as though they were friends. It's not a natural response, and I don't think it's a healthy one to try to force either. Trying to feel true empathy for complete strangers usually fails, and leaves one feeling guilty or inadequate for one's inability.
The Blue Book Mystery:
I might suggest that the students have a sense of humour, and have chosen to exercise it in a collusive fashion.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-21 07:34 am (UTC)I've had a sort of low-level dissatisfaction for some time now with the idea that we have to feel the losses of strangers as acutely as though they were friends.
I'm not worried that I don't feel as acutely as I would if friends or loved ones were killed, wounded, or missing -- I'd be worried about that if I were. But there is a normal level of empathy that should be a bit more than seeing it as a SimCity challenge.
At least the local news have avoided a particularly odious practice of using computer animations to simulate the movements of people in the accidents. They've done this for various other catastrophes, like an explosion at an advertising print shop, and the combination of low-detail pictures with catastrophe -- picture a Lego person running around with his arms and legs on fire -- is gruesome.