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I-20 buckles in Atlanta

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Lnewqban

Mechanical
Nov 1, 2013
85

“There was a motorist, one individual on a motorcycle and one individual in a car, that were proceeding west-bound on I-20 when they saw the buckled road,..........But it was too late for them to avert it so they actually went up the broken-up concrete in an upward fashion — as if they were going up in a jump.”


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"Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art." - Leonardo da Vinci
 
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Time to turn off the concrete pump...


Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
 
Isn't the "Dukes of Hazzard" set in Georgia? Where's the General Lee?
 
I'm curious about whether the concrete hardened in the pipe, or if they were pumping against a closed end (valve or cap), or if maybe they got a Diesel explosion.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
 
What amazes me the most is they fixed the road in less than 24 hours. The construction workers here need to take a few lessons from those guys. We'd be a solid week probably.
 
What seems to happen here is that the municipality goes for the low bid, and the contractor uses it for 'fill-in' work, so one or maybe two guys will show up and work for a day, then nobody's there for a week or two, so every job takes at least a year.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
 
When I first saw the photo, I thought, 'frost heave'.

But according to the article:
DeKalb County police told CBS46 in Atlanta that a crew was replacing a 36 inch gas line in the area and were filling the outdated pipe with cement, which caused the pressure to build up, the pipe to burst and the roadway to buckle.

Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
 
Air can be a powerful, if pipes are not vented correctly....
 
Well, a concrete 'snorkel' can go up, what, 100 feet?
... later,
Nope, the Putzmeister 56Z-Meter has a vertical reach of 180 feet, 10 inches.

How much hydrostatic head is that in wet concrete? Anyone?

What's the normal burst pressure of a 36 inch gas pipe?





Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
 
The "outdated" pipe was being replaced, so there may not have been much wall strength left. Gas lines do break sometimes.
 
Roughly 200 psi

Either its filling an old pipe with concrete for abandonment, or horizontally boring of a new pipeline crossing when they hit a weak zone.

Regardless of what they were doing at the time, looks like ANOTHER PIPELINE COMPANY screw up. They should have had traffic control on the highway and eyes watching for these kinds of emergencies. Cars jumping off the broken concrete ramps. Shameful way to run a business.

Technology is stealing American jobs. Stop H1-Bs for robots.
 
Atlanta Gas Light said the damage was related to work from a contractor.

“We can confirm an Atlanta Gas Light contractor was performing work in the area to retire a casing,” company spokeswoman Laura Creekmur said.

Southern Company said a contractor was conducting the routine construction process of filling an empty, non-gas carrying underground pipe sleeve with a cement grout. They said overflow of cement led to the interstate buckling.
 
I have discovered the real reason. Why is this being covered up?

I-20_Mystery_Solved_qa5m2f.jpg
 
Both motorcycle and the car were found 15 ft from the buckle. I was imagining that they would be dead ,especially the motorcyclist, hitting that thing at highway speeds. They must have seen it and almost came to a stop. Maybe 10-15 mph when they hit it I would guess.
 
so the cars were going by just after the pip burst ?

or did the pipe burst and no one noticed the road damage ? and so no warnings posted ...

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?
 
The pile of dirt did not pop up instantaneously. It would have taken some minutes to develop.

As the picture shows, a vehicle would probably have run into it rather than ramped it.

No telling how high it was or if the vehicles hit the pile squarely. If you just hit it with 2 side wheels, you would somebody driving on the sidewalls like Joey Chitwood.

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anyone hear of the condition of the injured motorcyclist?

Dik
 
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