Champlain Bridge Demolition VIDEO: Crown Point Bridge Destroyed By Controlled Explosion

CROWN POINT, N.Y. (Associated Press) - Controlled explosions have brought down the Lake Champlain Bridge between New York and Vermont.

Snow fell and a small group of onlookers watched as the 2,184-foot-long span between Crown Point, N.Y., and Addison, Vt., was dropped into the water and ice at the narrow south end of the lake Monday morning.

There was a sharp concussion followed by billowing smoke as steel and concrete fell.

The 80-year-old bridge was closed Oct. 16 when engineers deemed it wasn't safe because of severe erosion to its concrete piers.

Idaho-based Advanced Explosives Demolition handled the detonation, using 800 pounds of explosives packed into more than 500 charges.

Debris will be removed by the spring, when construction is scheduled to begin on a new span expected to open in the summer of 2011.

WATCH:

Comments

[Jay Morgan]

06:08 AM on 12/29/2009

The real story here is the lack of maintenance on and neglect of this bridge.

The bridge was the only route available to thousands of New Yorkers and Vermonters traveling to work, shopping and medical appointments. In October of this year, an inspection found the piers to be very corroded and rotted away, and the bridge was closed immediately for safety purposes. This resulted in major inconvenience, economic loss and the inability of some to get to dialysis appointments and other medical necessities. The trip to the emergency room for some went from a half-hour to 1-1/2 hours.

If there had been routine inspections and maintenance, this bridge would still be serving the communities and there would be no need for a new, 80 million dollar bridge that won't be ready for some three years.

[Nolana]

08:55 AM on 12/29/2009

Exactly. Though the bridge was built with an 80-year lifespan, with a little more conscientious maintenance, it could have been made to last a few more years, at least until a new bridge was in place. Both states are culpable in this mess.

It's really frightening to think that on that day in October, cars and trucks had passed over the bridge in the morning, before the engineers and inspectors discovered the 5-foot-wide splits in the concrete pilings, prompting the span's closure. It was declared too unstable even for pedestrian traffic, and a nearby boat-launch was closed, for fear that the wash from small motorboats could cause the bridge to collapse.

I read a recent report that there are something like 1500+ bridges in New York State ALONE that are in as bad or worse condition than the Champlain Bridge before it was blown up, natch). Almost all of the bridges in VT were destroyed in the Flood on 1927, so most of our bridges are 80 years old. Freezing, thawing, road salt, and a massive increase in traffic have worn them down. How and when will they be replaced? Do we have to wait for them all to reach the point of collapse before anything is done? We're flirtin' with disaster.....

[peterg76]

01:43 AM on 12/29/2009

Yes, explosions tend to look alike. Yes, when buildings fall down and bridges fall down, they both fall in the same direction, namely down. An astonishing number of people really need the use of my old second-year structural engineering textbook. To knock some sense into them.

[alexolife]

06:08 AM on 12/29/2009

Incorrent. A bridge falls down because there is nothing under it. A building falls to the side because there is a building under it. If it didn't fall to the side, it didn't fall at all.

[peterg76]

11:07 AM on 12/29/2009

A building doesn't fall at all as long as it has a building under it.

[dsws]

06:53 AM on 12/29/2009

Fanned.

[emstrem]

01:28 AM on 12/29/2009

That's the 1st controlled demolition I've seen since those 3 towers were brought down in September of 2001, 2 under the guise of airplanes hitting them (and their jet fuel which don't burn that hot), & 1 from fires only....HUH?

[MajorKong]

07:25 AM on 12/29/2009

To pull off something like that would have required a level of planning, organization and competence far in excess of what the administration in question could have mustered.

[littleolwinemakerme]

08:55 AM on 12/29/2009

Defending Boosh or defending stoopid?

[longfeltwant]

11:51 PM on 12/28/2009

"They" only want you to think it was a carefully-planned demolition. If you look carefully, you can see that it was actually a terrorist act caused by a plane hitting the bridge.

Similarly, if you look carefully at the video of the World Trade Centers collapsing you can see that it was not actually caused by a plane, but by a carefully-planned demolition.

[dzagama]

12:02 AM on 12/29/2009

THERMITE PAINT!

[peterg76]

01:35 AM on 12/29/2009

The bridge was 80 years old. Those Vermont freedom fighters sure can plan ahead.

[JWB2012]

10:04 PM on 12/28/2009

This is the most hilarious and sad at the same time post I've seen.

[alexolife]

09:24 PM on 12/28/2009

WHOA! Steel into dust. Where have I seen this before?

[JWB2012]

09:45 PM on 12/28/2009

Great minds think alike! I was thinking the very same thing before I even got to this post.

[Bushdepression]

11:54 PM on 12/28/2009

http://www.ae911truth.org/
http://www.ae911truth.org/info/57
While conventional thermite is considered an incendiary, burning hot and fast at steel-melting 4500-degree temperatures, so-called "nano-thermite" or "super-thermite" mixtures can be explosive — as proudly noted in the Los Alamos announcement below (click to enlarge).
According to lead author Niels Harrit, a professor of chemistry at the University of Copenhagen, "These new findings confirm and extend the earlier finding of previously molten, iron-rich microspheres in the World Trade Center dust. They provide strong forensic evidence that the official explanation of the WTC's destruction is wrong. Office fires and jet fuel cannot produce these highly engineered, dangerous particles."

The Open Chemical Physics Journal, part of the Bentham Open family of peer-reviewed journals lauded by several Nobel Laureates, make all its articles available online free of charge. Another Bentham Open journal, The Open Civil Engineering Journal, published an earlier article by some of the same authors, Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction.

John Maynard Keynes once said
“When the facts change, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?”

[johnqsittinzen]

09:14 PM on 12/28/2009

That's great! Just great! Now how in the heck am I supposed to get to my job in Chimney Point, Vt from my house in Crown Point, NY?!!! For criminy's sake!

I gotta call my boss.

[smartalek]

03:14 AM on 12/29/2009

I'm pretty sure swimming is just like riding a bicycle; even if you haven't done it for years, you still have "muscle memory" that will have you doing it perfectly first time out.
I would invest in a good wet-suit tho.

[philmoslim]

08:51 PM on 12/28/2009

looks like wat happen on 5+4/11/01

[otop016]

07:11 AM on 12/29/2009

Wow...really clever way to disguise the date. No wonder I think all the 'Truthers' are g_ofba@lls (like the code)?

[1joy]

08:49 PM on 12/28/2009

Cool. The last video with the long range shot is great.

[jjkmack]

07:59 PM on 12/28/2009

Ever since Reagan, there has been an attitude promoted by conservatives that infrastructure need not be repaired during their lifetime. In other words conservatives are basically freeloaders who steal from their parents generation who paid for the bridges, and then steal from their children's generation who have to rebuild and clean up their messes.

[peterg76]

01:36 AM on 12/29/2009

They believe in taking, not creating.

[Sundialsvc4]

07:17 PM on 12/28/2009

It is a testament to the structural-engineering skill of the bridge's designers, 80 years ago, that the bridge could only be destroyed by carefully timed explosions; never by its intended use nor by forseeable hazards.

Likewise, it is a testament to the structural-engineering skills of the WTC towers that they, too, could never have been destroyed by an airplane impact ... an easily foreseeable hazard to the world's tallest buildings at the time of their construction.

'Nuff said.

[HateToImpose]

07:23 PM on 12/28/2009

Likewise, it's a testament to the structural engineering skills of the shipbuilders of the Titanic that it remained unsinkable, as promised, even when struck by an iceberg - an easily foreseeable hazard to an ocean liner at the time of its construction.

[Kevin Robles]

11:22 PM on 12/28/2009

Likewise, only a m0.r0n would say water can't be frozen, fire can't be extinguished, or a ship can't sink. Get the rhythm here?

[peterg76]

01:39 AM on 12/29/2009

The whole point was that the bridge *was* being destroyed by its use and the extremes of weather. It was just being destroyed very slowly. The demolition was so that the time of failure would be controlled, so that it wouldn't happen while people were crossing it.

[ManfromMarble]

07:02 PM on 12/28/2009

This bridge was the background, still standing, when UK reporters announced (live!) that it had fallen into it's own basement. Oops, that was WTC Bld 7. My bad.

[LMPE]

06:01 PM on 12/28/2009

Wile E. Coyote was hoping that Road Runner was running across the bridge, but of course ending up collapsing the bridge with himself on it!

[Warthog]

06:00 PM on 12/28/2009

Nice work. Put the bang where it counted without overkill. Only 800 pounds; very precise work.

[Sam Smith]

06:38 PM on 12/28/2009

Amsterdam has bridges 800 years old, guess they build with a longer plan here...;-Q

[Mr.Fitz]

12:06 AM on 12/29/2009

soon we'll be building them for four-year lifespans so the next administration can take the blame

[MMIIXX]

05:48 PM on 12/28/2009

Al-Qaida In The Arabian Peninsula Claims Responsibility For ................(fill in blank)