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8ullfrog:
I sadly had my opinion confirmed, another worker has been recovered from the bridge debris, and he was in fact in the work vehicle.
The progress on the bridge cleanup seems glacial, but they are lifting 40-ton chunks of the bridge at a time. They were saying that the crane they use for that is rated for 100 tons, but that in structural engineering terms, you never want to push the envelope on such things.

The current ARMY plan for the area is to clear a temporary channel that will allow single lane traffic to the port, which will be run at night, while recovery and refloating will be attempted during the day. I was going to say that the events seem scheduled out pretty far, but May is sneaking up on us alarmingly quickly.

6pairsofshoes:
Despite re-routing several ships to other ports, there's still added costs that are hampering supply chains for vehicles, coal, tractors and all kinds of other goods.

Strangely, I couldn't find any updates in the NY Times about the recovery efforts or even the plans to open even a limited channel.  So I found a Baltimore station that says the temporary channel has limited width and draw, so 300 ft wide and 20 feet deep w/a vertical clearance of 135 feet.  But that eliminates the kind of container ship that killed the bridge in the first place.  They're working on a larger channel that they're trying to open by the end of April. 

I guess there's 2 bodies left to find?  It's pretty sad that most of these workers were immigrants who were just trying to make a better life for their families.  They were filling potholes on the deck surface, I guess, when the collapse occurred. 

The Harbor Tunnel doesn't allow containers of flammable gas, so people with RVs or industrial vehicles have to take a long way around to go north or south.

It's a major mess.  I'm curious about who will end up paying for this.  The shipping company that owns the Dali (no relationship to the surrealist painter) have filed a petition to limit their liability (they had 6 months to do this but managed to file it in 6 days).  If they're successful, all they'll have to pay for is the cost of the vessel & its freight, minus repair and salvage costs.  So, probably under $44 million.  That's ridiculous.  As far as the bridge goes, "oops! sorry about that..."

smokester:
I've been following the French election pretty much from the point that Macron threw his toys out of the pram. It seemed scary for a while, but now it just farcical.

I now understand that the left is made up of at least 4 coalitions, the centre is made up of at least 3, and the right also has 3 or possibly 2. Now some of those grouped coalitions, have to coalesce with other groups to ensure the remaining coalition cannot take power.

W   T   F?

smokester:

--- Quote from: christ on July 08, 2024, 05:51:37 AM ---We aren't far away from that in the UK, it is simply that here most of the various similar parties all pretend to be from one of the main two. The Conservative Party has at least three major factions (that in France/ Germany/ Italy/ etc. would be separate parties), and similarly the Labour Party (it is difficult to see how Corbynityes and Blairites can pretend to have the same ideology!). Party leaders here have to operate as if they were managing a coalition most of the time (hence Truss). Maybe the new Labour bloke (Sir Can't-make-his-mind-up Wossname) has a big enough faction in his party to make his leadership straightforward, but I wouldn't bet on it.

--- End quote ---

At least here the system is pretty much like it or lump it. It seems in France, if you don't like it: create another party that you do and drag enough voters away to ensure a seat or 2.  I can't understand how that helps. Mind you, that does smack of the Liberal Democrats' way of doing things and they are, ever so slightly, on the up.

smokester:

--- Quote from: christ on July 09, 2024, 03:14:29 PM ---Ask Nigel Garage. He has done it at least twice.
--- End quote ---

I would, but I can't speak his little-twit language.

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