Community Chat

[Pandalady]

Thankfully, no one was injured or worse!  God is good!

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fire-causes-interstate-overpass-to-collapse-in-atlanta/ar-BBz5hWv?l...

[butterfly123]

@Pandalady

Horrible. 

Your words speak what is most important.

[Elom]

Having lived in the Macon area for many years and traveled this road to the mountains of TN, it is a miracle no casualties. Always lots of traffic no matter what time of day. I still have storage in Macon and my son was going to clean some of it out but doesn't look like that will happen soon. I wouldn't put him through that traffic nightmare. We will wait  and see. 

A true miracle many angels!

[Pandalady]

@butterfly123Thank you, sweet friend!

[seaBreeze]

Panda ...  I thought of you knowing you reside in ATL ~!   I saw this pic on Facebook two hours ago .... could not believe my eyes.  Prayers for all who were in harm's way.

[Pandalady]

@seaBreeze  Thank you, friend!  I also send out prayers!  Definitely prayers for the safety of those who will undoubtably be working many hours investigating this collapse.  The instability is there and risk of injury to those is great!

[Moonchilde]

I only just a few minutes ago saw this on FB from a friend who lives in an Atlanta suburb. She now telecommutes, but  traveled through that spot daily when she worked in-office. She said she just drove through there yesterday.

[gidgetgh]

I'm in Atlanta also.  We were watching it all live as it was going on.  For those in Atlanta, we were watching WSB.

They were flying over in the helicopter and the reporter said, they'll get the road open quickly.  I looked at my husband and said "no way.  I don't think that bridge is going to hold".  And it didn't.  When it fell, I literally screamed. I was concerned that the firefighters and others might be under there.

My sister lives over that way and was driving back into town from a meeting in Alabama.  I called her and told her not to come up 85, which is her normal route.  She had dropped off a co-worker in the western suburbs and checked the traffic before continuing on and saw that there were problems, but she didn't know why.

I'm reading this morning that additional sections of the highway might be compromised.  Traffic wise for this city, this is horrific.

[sidsmom]

"large spools of plastic utility conduits were being stored beneath the overpass"....and something flammable had to have been stored there, as well.

City Municipalities have sooooo many checks & balances.

I can imagine these plastic spools were being stored compliantly. 

I'm reading all these news reports w/ 'raised eyebrow'.

Why would a city store something that dangerous underneath

a major highway?  And how could it burn that hot for that short of time

before fire trucks got there?  

Usually when roadways are structurally compromised,

it's because of a fuel spill catching fire/staying hot

for a long period of time...or a semi crash, breaking the columns.

And it's unusual for those incidents to result in total collapse

of a large highway.  Weird.

Saw this on a private forum:

"Why storing conduit underneath overpass?  It’s a convenient location. Google is doing a major fiber optics upgrade in Atlanta."

[Pearlee]

@gidgetgh  Oh, I didn't know you are in Atlanta!

Being in the midwest, I've often driven through there going to and from Florida and I always dread the traffic.  And it's hard to follow the signs to stay on the right freeway (I-75) while so much traffic is moving so fast around me.  I've been through at all times of the day and night - even at 3:00pm in the morning - and there is still a lot of traffic.  And big semis.   Always dread it and using I-275 doesn't help much.