Wrap-up of Tennessee flood damage
Friday, May 28, 2010
Two years ago, flash floods wiped out historic bridges
in
Iowa
and
Missouri. Then
flooding in March of this year caused havoc in Rhode Island. While those events
were bad enough, the May 1-2 flood in Tennessee has taken
the cake for destruction.
Described as an "unprecedented" flood in Nashville history,
the deluge wiped out several historic truss
bridges in Central Tennessee:
- Centerville Bridge, Hickman County, a 1913 two-span Pratt through truss: Completely destroyed
- Old TN 100 Bridge, Davidson County, a relocated 1889 Parker through truss: Completely destroyed
- Hurricane Mills Bridge, Humphreys County, a 1911 Pratt through truss: Completely destroyed
- Tanksley Bridge, Humphreys County, a 1904 two-span Camelback through truss: One span completely destroyed
- Kettle Mill Bridge, Maury County, a 1904 Pennsylvania through truss: Approach span destroyed.
The main span survived (barely), but a Pratt pony truss approach was wiped out, even though the bridge
sits on very tall Lally columns. The sheer amount of water that passed through here must have seemed biblical.
I have an ugly feeling that there are other bridges to add to the list...
Comments (5)
Wrap-up of Tennessee flood damage
Posted June 3, 2010, by Chalon Harper (camowolf95 [at] live [dot] com)
I am sad to see this happen. Maybe we can learn something of how the Scots made the Firth of Forth bridge,and how they built it against gale force winds and nature. One could hope future bridges could be made to withstand such horrific damage. This is the Forth Rail Bridge.
Wrap-up of Tennessee flood damage
Posted May 29, 2010, by Robert Elder (robertelder1 [at] gmail [dot] com)
This is another reason why I do not support the idea of only saving one bridge per type per state. Having at least two to three of each kind serves as insurance against a natural disaster. In this instance, Tennessee had two examples of a unique version of a Parker truss. One survived this devastating flood.
Wrap-up of Tennessee flood damage
Posted May 29, 2010, by Madison
Its really sad to read this. Sadly, I think this means that there are some UCEBs on the way..
Wrap-up of Tennessee flood damage
Posted May 29, 2010, by Jason Smith (JDSmith77 [at] gmx [dot] net)
Unbelieveable! And I thought the flooding in Iowa two years ago was biblical. I guess I was wrong. Given the fact that TN has probably the lowest number of HBs in the country, I hope and pray that there is a way to salvage the remaining HBs that were affected by/ survived the floods. Let's keep out fingers crossed.
JS
Wrap-up of Tennessee flood damage
Posted May 28, 2010, by Craig Philpott (cphilpott [at] puc [dot] edu)
The loss of these bridges is a tragedy that is completely overshadowed by the loss of life and property from these floods. Historical losses such as these are usually not restored and all that will remain are stone and concrete piers in the creek beds.
