
The Fall of Galloping Gertie - anarbadalov
https://www.damninteresting.com/the-fall-of-galloping-gertie/
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Pfhreak
The Tacoma Narrows Bridge disaster has been covered a million ways to date.

If you are looking for analysis (and grim humor) about engineering disasters
big and small, I strongly recommend checking out _Well There 's Your Problem_,
whose videos are here:
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPxHg4192hLDpTI2w7F9rPg/vid...](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPxHg4192hLDpTI2w7F9rPg/videos)

I'm not at all affiliated with it, but it's something that I found super
interesting. (Along with the authors other series where he uses Cities
Skylines to demonstrate city planning politics,
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwkSQD3vqK1S1NiHIxxF2...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwkSQD3vqK1S1NiHIxxF2g_Uy-
LbbcR84) and where he recreates Philadelphia in Cities Skylines starting back
in pre-colonial times and discussing the history, social environment, and
engineering along to the modern day,
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vln5Ri4Zpgo&list=PLwkSQD3vqK...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vln5Ri4Zpgo&list=PLwkSQD3vqK1Q4BP-
itzN6gMpJBTsfPucy) )

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RandallBrown
This article says that engineers failed to take into account resonance, but
that's not actually why the bridge failed. It was due to aeroelastic flutter.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroelasticity#Flutter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroelasticity#Flutter)

~~~
asfarley
Are you sure flutter isn’t a type of resonance? The Wikipedia article uses
terminology highly suggestive of resonance (positive feedback).

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NikolaeVarius
Article would have been better by linking the wikipedia page
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoma_Narrows_Bridge_(1940)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoma_Narrows_Bridge_\(1940\))

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blakesterz
This is from 2007, which is apparently the year they opened Sturdy Gertie's
new twin bridge. Sturdy Gertie replaced Galloping, after Galloping galloped
into the water.

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hadlock
I lived a mile from this bridge pretty much my whole life, I've never heard it
called Sturdy Gertie, it's always just been "the narrows bridge", not "the
narrows", "the narrows bridge".

Fun facts, the wreckage of the original bridge is in a couple hundred feet of
water, and a bunch of red-orange pacific giant octopuses live in the wreckage
as if they were a network of caves. I think I read somewhere that the concrete
pedestals that the towers sit upon, are nearly 200' tall. The part you can see
above the water is about as tall as the part below it.

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Gaelan
About three miles from the bridge here, never heard anything other than
“narrows bridge” (or just “the bridge”) either. Crazy seeing something so
close to home on HN!

