‘On a 95-degree day this summer, New York City’s Third Avenue Bridge, connecting the Bronx and Manhattan, got stuck in the open position for hours’ (How Extreme Heat Harms Planes, Trains, Water Mains and Other Crucial Infrastructure | Scientific American) As heat and flooding scorched and scoured the Midwest, a steel railroad bridge connecting Iowa with South Dakota collapsed under surging waters. (Bridge connecting Iowa and South Dakota collapses | kare11.com) In Lewiston, Maine, a bridge closed after the pavement buckled from fluctuating temperatures. (Lewiston bridge reopens after 'buckling' repaired on concrete surface)
As a kid we used to bike out to an old mill site. The bridge had been washed away some years before that. Guess it was climate change in 1955. In high rain or snow melt years, the rivers here flood. In dry years the rivers barely run. Gotta be careful to take the long view over centuries. Bridges from the 1920s are well beyond their life spans and construction then left a lot to be desired.
There is a swing bridge connecting the town of Harrison, NJ with Newark, and I recall as far back as the '60s that the bridge would jam in the closed position every summer–unless it was constantly flooded with water. As bizarre as it sounds, the County folks installed a fire house that constantly flooded the tight joint on that bridge every summer in order to keep it functional. It’s possible that the bridge was replaced after my days of dealing with it in the '60s & '70s, but I don’t know for sure.
But, some bridges from very long ago are still functional. The historic 232 year old Stony Brook Bridge, just South of Princeton, dates back to 1792, and it is still in use, with a constant stream of secondary highway traffic. It was recently refurbished, and the structural engineers who worked on it think that it may be good for another 100 years.
There’s a difference between “weather” and “climate change”.
A local flood and bridge washout because of a “Hundred Year” weather event is one thing but it’s a different story when Chesapeake Bay islands become abandoned because of the increased water levels due to “Climate Change”.
Sure it’s easy to ignore it if you’re not in the seafront and living in Iowa but can you adapt to to a new “seasonal rainfall” variation?
The way I see it is that it’s a lot easier to adjust your position when you see the locomotive coming down the track than to wait until the train’s 10 feet away.
.
4 Likes
I just see a train with money bags on it not a freight train. Then there was the report that the Atlantic was all of a sudden cooling, not warming which they can’t understand. But yeah electric cars will make the ocean drop.