Negligence in New York: The I-90 Schoharie Creek Bridge Collapse 

Hope everyone's week is good so far! Toss a Coin to your Researcher? www.patreon.com/BrickImmortar Here's my thoughts on the Miami Surfside Collapse: ru-vid.comUgwF1Rx-sdzpQRuV2rx4AaABCQ Here's the Minnesota Bridge Collapse from 2007: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xEPswDYbcnk.html

I’m still baffled as to why the consultants had any blame here- Because they didn’t call the right guy? State government clearly had the report, and they didn’t act on it when they had it. The consultants did their job - twice recommended the same urgent repairs and TWICE it was ignored by New York.

I am writing this as a testament to what I witnessed in the presence of my employer H.A Hart const. Co, during a maint check of construction equipmnent we were under the bridge observing the pilings dancing on the bedrock in the presence of a state engineer when trucks went over the bride at 65 mph the pilings would lift enough to put your fingers under the pilings .. the engineer knew this was dangerous ,but we don't know if it was related to higher ups obviously if it was nothing was done...

Thank you for your work on these videos. I recently found your channel and have subscribed! I am really interested in this topic and as someone who works with civil engineers on our projects it has really inspired me to better understand what they propose in our projects (i am a landscape architect myself). Even on much smaller projects i see over sights, alot of my work is in designing and permitting amenity centers and commercial sites and i sometimes can catch stormwater designs that dont work or have issues with it. Health, safety welfare is what i look for in reviewing plans! Keep up the good work man, you have a fan in me!

I grew up about a dozen miles from this location. I was 9 when this happened, so at the time didnt really know what was going on but i remember the way people were acting when it happened. The first few weeks were pretty crazy everyday with emergeny and construction vehicles all over the place. The bridge was one of those locations where people out of town wouldn't even realize they were on a bridge, untilyou were already on it, so some of the people who died that day were no doubt caught by surprise - even those from neighboring citys/towns, as they may have been familiar with the area, but just never noticed that was actually a bridge.

Wow. 10 minutes away.

How did they keep deleting the riprap thing? Did someone just mistake it for a joke or something?

Again, another lesson we have to learn!

All infrastructure requires maintenance, whether it’s made of steel, concrete, or loose stones like riprap.

I just missed this I was traveling back from UB to Kingston NY. I drove over it about 20 min before the collapse.. on the back I had to return to UB via route 20... I still think about it every time I travel over the new bridge...stay safe..

There's no greater feeling than finishing a Fascinating Horror video, feeling bored, and immediately seeing one of your videos in my recommended.

Those poor people, I cannot imagine how scared they must have been in their final moments as they got snatched away. I respect dedication of the recovery teams to bring some closure to the families, I detest the lack of conscientious of the people who failed to prevent this accident.

I really have to wonder WTF was up with the repeated removal of the note about fixing the riprap... Feels like there must have been some sort of "I know better" stubborn idiot in the upper levels that kept feeling personally insulted by the reports. Can't imagine why else multiple reports of "dump some more rock around the base" was ignored.

Repeat after me: Always drive piles into bedrock if you want what you are building to withstand the multiple structure-destroying effects of water.

Lets not forget the one important item missing from this entire story........This POS bridge was on a TOLL ROAD!! The owners of this "TOLL ROAD" are the ones at fault here. Contracting to the cheapest companies and refusing to pay up and build the bridge the right way. Not putting the base to bedrock and letting it sit on the river bed,...cheap, cheap, cheap.

Man, the poor guy whose body wasn't discovered for over 2 freaking years. I'm amazed I've never heard of this bridge collapse before now.

I remember this incident well. I was living in Western New York and had a good friend who had crossed the bridge about 40 minutes before it collapsed, coming home from a visit with his parents. New York State went into panic mode and inspected every bridge in the state over the next couple of months. There were a huge number of bridges closed throughout the state and it took years to finish all of the replacements. I moved out of New York in 1992 and many bridges were still closed. It is a horrible tragedy that people had to die for the state inspectors to finally do their job after so many years of neglect. R.I.P. to all who perished that day, while your deaths were senseless they were not in vain.

Most of us that get in a vehicle probably don't realize how many times we pass over these bridges and overpasses everyday never to think something this tragic could happen. It's scary to think how vulnerable we actually are.

It boggles my mind that one of the victims was found in the Hudson River.

The glorous leaders of NYS dont give 2 fukks about upstate new yorkers, only Albany and NYC matter to our leaders

This spread footing bridge foundation clearly relies on meticulous inspection and upkeep. If state inspections become lax, there will be trouble. I hope modern bridges use piles driven deep into the bedrock.

I begin to understand, why some people are comparing the infrastructure maintenance of the USA to third world countries. Unfortunately, we here in Germany are facing the similar problems. Politicians and authorities are rather dreaming of flying cabs and high-speed trains, but bridges, highways an public roads are crumbling.

Just plain Willfull neglect by NY state thruway " authority"! engineering firm notified them of the problem. The guy that kept omitting the rip rap repair over and over should have done jail time. Trust the experts! Fudge!

I was there. There were students from SUNY Cobleskill that perished in that disaster. All due to the corruption of the New York state thruway authority!

I was in high school in upstate NY when this happened, and this was all over the local news. A news crew just happened to be shooting a report on the high water levels and flooding upstream of this bridge when it collapsed. They heard the first collapse and ran over in time to capture more of it as it happened. IIRC, three of the cars weren't on the span when it collapsed, but drove into the void as they were unable to stop in time. The slope of the highway there is such that, until you're on top of it, you wouldn't notice the bridge is missing. The near and far sides create the illusion of a continuous road. After the collapse they used the two bridges to the north, which at the time were Route 5S and an abandoned railroad bridge, to carry the re-routed Thruway until a new bridge could be constructed. You can still see some of the scars on the land from the temporary bypass diversion leading from the highway to the bridges on the east side, if you look at Google satellite view. It looks like, since then, 5S has moved to use the old railroad bridge (which is much more robust given what it was designed for) and the old 5S bridge carries the Erie Canal bike path now.

I used to live on where the Mohawk and Hudson river meet, it’s crazy to me that the one women’s body made it all the way into the Hudson. She had to go over a giant waterfall (cohoes falls) and through multiple man-made dams and water control systems

The funny part, well not really funny, of this is that I passed over this bridge the day before it collapsed. My family and I were on a around NY camping trip. And when it flooded again in '06ish I was stuck on the thruway between this bridge and the Amsterdam exit for 2 days and 2 nights while the thruway (90) was underwater due to the Mohawk and the creek flooding. I'm glad I had camping gear and food in my SUV. I also was with a family who were going camping them selves. We had fun making a fire on the road and the state police asked if we wanted to be moved and we told him we were fine. We had food and shelter. The family and I fed 14 people mostly truck drivers who were stuck with us. The police brought more wood and extra food. We had fun and played games, football and watched a movie or two on a sheet that we had and a power point projector. I will do that again but will have to bring more beer!

The typical reaction is, It was someone's responsibility to recognize the problem but it was passed down the line until ignored. Any deficiency should Demand immediate notice to determine the importance. Even a minor safety discrepancy is a Major issue until someone who can take the blame signs off on it. How many disaster would be averted if someone was held Criminally liable? Whistleblower laws need to be applied to infrastructure flaws. The inspectors who report the flaws that are overlooked by administrators should not be the scapegoats.

This was only a few miles away from my home in Fonda, NY. All the traffic from the Thruway was funneled through my little village on our river bridge. The heavy traffic caused the deck of our bridge to separate from the support pillars and the Fonda-Fultonville Bridge was shut down. They even had County Sheriffs stationed on either side to make sure no one even walked across it. It had to be torn down and replaced. The Schoharie creek is still a killer. About 10 years ago there was another flood that tore away the roadway on Route 5S that parallels the Thruway, a man's truck was washed into the river and he was killed. I don't trust anything along that waterway when it rains a lot.

You've got such a calming voice and your information is fantastic. I'm glad I found this channel I don't know about you guys but I can't see why you'd choose to make a shallow footed and high maintenance bridge ever. Sure there were pipes in the ground, why not have the designer move the feet and add a third foot in the middle to allow said foot movement? I can't see it being cost effective to build bridges you have to keep dumping rocks at the base of

Having a hard time believing that the purpose and maintenance of riprap in bridge construction was not understood by civil engineers in the 1980s. Poor communication, corner-cutting, institutionalized incompetence- that I can believe.

I live near here but I didn’t know about this. Before my time. Interesting to learn local history.

35 years ago. Wow. I played basketball against Kristie Peck. Her and her mother were on way to a shower somewhere in Western New York that morning. Their car is the blue fury turned upside down and smashed. I don't know if they drove out for there on the bridge when it collapsed but they didn't see it until water subsided. So tragic, she was only 22 years old.

And none of the negligent officials did much if any prison time.

Interesting to see something on RU-vid about something that happened in your area (I live about 30-40 mins away from this bridge)

My husband Bob, worked for the NYS Thruway when this happened. On the Friday before , he had been promoted and this was his 1st assignment as a supervisor. One you never forget. I remember being in the Lake George area for a Rural Letters carrier meeting when Bob heard about this accident. Devastating for sure - So sad.

I used to picnic under the replacement bridge with my family. Nice beachy area, shade from the bridge, and water for us kids to splash around in. I didn’t know about the original collapse till years later.

I'm learning a heck of a lot about bridge engineering from these collapse videos, probably knowledge that I will never use but fascinating nonetheless! Thanks Sam. 👍

I'm loving your content! Thank you for these!

I really appreciate the way you cover these topics with both facts and compassion for the people lost in these tragedies 🙏🏽💗

In April of '87 I was working as a whitewater guide on the Cattaraugus Creek in Western New York. I remember the rains 🌧 and the high water that spring. I was on the river that Sunday. I came home and saw the news. I couldn't believe something like that could happen in New York State. On the New York State Thruway.

Preventable deaths at the hands of negligence are unacceptable. Granted changes were made, but it continues taking lives on an almost daily basis. The condo collapse in Miami is a horrible reminder of that. They knew the building was unsafe yet did nothing about it. Sure a multi-million dollar renovation was planned, but they were told it was structurally deficient years before this. And clear signs of imminent collapse were unheaded. Had they evacuated the building for even a day so a better assessment could take place, lives would've been saved. Obviously, you don't need a Master's in Engineering to know something isn't right when the pool guy tells you your building is falling apart. The property owner, or the management company, or both, should be in prison. There is no excuse when you have that much information and don't act on it. They have blood on their hands now.

Excellent video. I like how you make sure that lay people such as myself can understand the technical issues at hand, but at the same time don't dumb things down.

Why the contractors and subs were blamed for not bringing their findings to the project manager’s attention, is beyond me. Wouldn’t the proect manager be expected to read to reports submitted?

Doesn't sound like deregulation was the problem, it was the regulators themselves

I had heard of this but your version is superior to other stories about this. Your organization and presentation gave me more information without excessive length or loss of my interest.

Inspector: "Hey, we gotta repair this!" Technitian: "Nope." Inspector: "Hey, we gotta repair this!" Technitian: "Nope." Inspector: "Hey, we gotta repair this!" Technitian: "Nope." Bridge: *_collapses_* Everyone: *_suprised Pikachu face_*

I lived in Utica when this happened; it was our Army Reserve drill weekend. My SGT was from Amsterdam, NY and I can remember his wife calling to let him know what happened. RIP to the victims.

R.I.P. Why is the USA infrastructure on a third world level? And I mean not only the bridges.

Designs requiring rigorous dedication in their inspection and maintenance are acceptable on aircraft , but in civil engineering where maintenance is subject to budgetary constraints those ideas don't fly .

Dont care if I'm at work, when I see a new collapsed video I click

The maintenance of US infrastructure has been on the back burner for years with the senate holding back the pursestrings not wanting to spend the money. Remedial work only ever seems to be done after such incidents as this.

Gotta do a video on the old Sunshine Skyway Bridge collapse

Let me tell you about a cautionary tale when it comes to driving bridge pilings into sturdy bedrock. When I was watching this video at 4:58 I noticed that the pile caps on the Schorarie Creek Bridge were driven into the creek bottom and no pilings driven into bedrock. What happened in the construction of the Schorarie Creek Bridge happened on the southbound span of the old Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Florida when it was under construction. When the original 1954 Sunshine Skyway northbound span was built the pilings for the main piers were of steel and driven into bedrock. During construction of the 1971 Sunshine Skyway southbound span in 1969 the alarm was sounded when cracks were found in one of the main channel piers, Pier 1-S. The cause of the cracking was that the pilings - made of concrete and not steel - were driven into the soft bay bottom rather than into bedrock. The pier had to be repaired with steel pilings driven into bedrock, which is why Pier 1-S looks different than the three other main channel piers on the old Sunshine Skyway. The repair costed Florida taxpayers $3 million. Pier 2-S on the old Sunshine Skyway’s southbound span - the anchor pier that was knocked down when the Summit Venture rammed into it on 9 May 1980 - also had concrete pilings driven into the bay bottom. But there were no cracks or any other deformities noted during construction. I say this because in theory, had Pier 2-S had steel pilings driven into bedrock that anchor pier may not have been sheared off at its base upon impact. (The Summit Venture came to rest upon Pier 2-S of the northbound Sunshine Skyway span, that pier was sturdier thanks to steel pilings driven into bedrock). Now what do both the Schorarie Creek Bridge in New York State and the southbound span of the old Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Florida have in common? Corners got cut somewhere during construction, mainly to save money somewhere. Were soil boring studies done on Schorarie Creek to locate bedrock in which to drive the pilings down into? Compare to the southbound span of the old Sunshine Skyway where NO soil boring studies were done - instead, plans from the 1954 Sunshine Skyway span were used. Which leads us to the gold standard when it comes to bridge construction, especially over bodies of water such as Schorarie Creek or Tampa Bay: Do your soil boring studies to see how far deep is it to bedrock. Drive your bridge pilings from the pile cap down into bedrock to provide a firm footing for your bridge. Use steel pilings rather than concrete pilings.

Was the State of New York ever sued for their malpractices?

The amount of effort and detail in your videos is admirable. Wish I found this channel Sooner!

Terrible tragedy…. Remember that well. The bridge contractor was responsible. No rip rap at the base. The footing was repaired once before…. Studied this in engineering in 1992 NYS gave us all pertinent info. And reports

As to phone calls. Having inspected about 500 bridges on county and state roads in NJ I can tell you from experience that the phone call is critical. I have had bridges at least partially closed immediately because of our inspect. Some were restricted either as to weight or traffic lanes based on those inspections and phone calls. Also it should be noted that this bridge was constructed before the Interstate program and as such while on an interstate signed route was part of the great northeastern toll road projects that covered the greater northeast from Main to Illinois well prior to any talk of interstates. It is from some of these, most notably the NJ turnpike, that the Interstate design standards were drafted. Further the advances in highway/bridge engineer have made significant progress since that time. This is not excusing NY from not acting but merely to provide a better understanding of how things have happened.

The structure has reached its 3 decade shelf life, when it is of those, it should be maintained from time to time, or reinforcements needs to be placed for the infrastructure to be stable and safe in its near future completion/project.

Ironic that I-90 had bridges that collapsed on both ends of the country; New York and Washington State. The one in Washington State was a floating bridge and it sank completely.

A deadly, avoidable, comedy of errors.

Do a video on the Sunshine Skyway Bridge collapse in 1980

Again, this is so scary to think that we rely on these 'experts' every time we cross a bridge or walk into a building that everyone has done their job right and that I am safe. It's like I'm living in denial or else I would be paranoid of everything.

this is about 4 miles from my house. my father video taped the second part of the bridge falling down and the clean up.

You always want to believe you’ll survive, you would get out the window and swim to safety.

I was 17 at the time and never knew or heard of this tragedy 😔😢😪😞💔😕. MAY, THEY ALL REST IN PEACE 😇✝️🙏.

Now I know the history of the old bridge and it's location. It's sad people died because of irresponsible people.

How dreadful, the absolute NUMBER of people/companies/ agencies that had to "eff up" for this to happen. It's incredible that engineers might risk their reputations like this...the rest? Well, same reason, $$$.

What a sad and horrific tale for those that died. Even sadder knowing the loss of life could have possibly been prevented by so many different people who could have stepped in saying there was a problem with the bridge.

I work for a very old industrial pump manufacturer and I’ve seen station layout drawing for municiple, waste water, and spillway pumps dated in the 40’s and 50’s. Even back then they were considering 100 year water levels and some even considered 500 year water levels. There’s no way these same factors aren’t considered for bridges.

Bridge engineer here… a lot of recommendations we make are ignored by DOTs. If only y’all knew. How many bridges are in “poor” Condition before the recommendations for repairs are even taken by the DOTs

Funny coincidence. Just yesterday, I watched a piece about the Broadmeadow Viaduct (Dublin, ROI). This was a railway bridge running across the river estuary. A train driver spotted that the bridge was giving way but 'coasted' the train safely across then the bridge fell away leaving just the rails hanging in mid air. This too was caused by 'scour'. Anyone interested, google 'Broadmeadow Viaduct'. The pictures are amazing and so lucky that 100s were not killed.

I can't decide, listening to the absolute communication failure between entities, if this was caused by traditional negligence or gross incompetence.

Can you do one on the dippin dots explosions? Since some of my family works there… it’s not that big in the news since it’s happened twice already.

What happened to the pencil-heads that removed the REQUIRED repairs from the contracts, not just once, but twice?

The reading of the names was quite solemn and sad. Very respectful way to memorialize them.

😳😳 this one's close to home, no pun intended. the rivers around there can pack a punch when flooded, the roads get washed out and replaced pretty regularly, but obviously that doesn't justify what happened in the slightest. i didn't even know about this despite being local my whole life before now. huh.

A video from you and fascinating horror in one day. Im set.

U should do one on the big bayou canot bridge. Or, closer to my home, the silver bridge. And theres the good ol galloping girdie, tacoma narrows bridge

I can't believe these guys were underestimating the power of water. It looks like they learned from their misguided thoughts. You know they mined gold using water guns to dislodge material to include boulders, gold, etc. Water is powerful. I was enlightened by you video, terrifying but enlightening.

I LIVED SOME 5 MILES TOWARD SCHENECTADY OFF RT 5 IN ROTTERDAM JUNCTION....WENT UP TO SEE IT THE NEXT DAY....

I was a passenger in a big rig truck owned by Herkimer Cheese and passed over this bridge a couple hours before the collapse. I remember the frantic cb calls/phone messages to the truck driver later to see if he was safe. This was well before cell phones. We hadn't realized it collapsed until some time later and wondered why everyone kept calling and were so concerned. More so the driver - only a few people knew I tagged along on the run to NYC. My first near miss.

I missed being on that bridge by about 1/2 hour.

holy shit my mom grew up in amsterdam,immediately paused the video to ask her if she remembered this and she said yep, had been visiting family in amsterdam that day and they'd seen all the helicopters going by from the windows and they were all wondering what was going on. can't believe i've never heard abt this before this video though? i've been over that bridge's replacement many times in my life and never had any clue that this had happened before i was born. also scary to think my mom and her family had driven over the now-collapsed bridge so many times i'm very thankful that they weren't there at the time of collapse but my heart aches for everyone lost in the tragedy especially since it was so literally close to home

Also in 1987 was the collapse of the under-construction north addition to the grandstands of the University of Washington's Husky Stadium, which inspired the postcard "Gravity 1, UW 0". To my knowledge, no one was killed.

Thanks for your explanation. Upon watching, my first question was "why didn't they close the bridge"? It is not uncommon for engineers to partially close a bridge by reducing the number of lanes or rerouting traffic so that the safer bridge takes all the traffic temporarily. My guess is that nobody of official capacity thought this bridge was in any danger until it collapsed and yet anyone could have seen the water reaching the level where the load on the bridge would overwhelm the support. While there is certainly blame to go around, I place the largest blame on the state board that removed recommendations to replace the "riff raff" (?) and the highway supervisors who refused to close the bridge. 10 people died because of their decisions.

You can still see where the interstate was directed through a field onto NY5S and then back onto 90

Fixing things cost money. So, you blame the tech for a management decision.

I had never heard of this before but I’m not surprised. Schoharie is in a low plain and is prone to flooding. When hurricane Sandy came through 10+ years ago the water was over the top of many of the one story houses. It took years to rebuild the community.

I crossed that bridge a thousand times.

I went over that bridge headed home to Syracuse NY the day before it fell. I also went over the Green Island bridge the morning before it fell in at noon back in the late 70's. To this day I hate going over bridges

I was going over The Tappan Zee Bridge in New York about a year before they built the new one at around 4am on the Northbound side in the left hand lane. While going over the bridge I saw part of the roadway was missing in the far right lane. I immediately stopped my Car and drove backwards and put my car 30 feet from the missing roadway and put my hazard lights on. I called 911 telling them to stop the cars from going over the Northbound side of the Bridge because there is a section of roadway missing. I grabbed a flashlight and stood behind my car waving it to stop drivers from going over that section of the bridge. At 4am there was no traffic and I successfully stopped two cars who blocked the other two lanes. The State Troopers Showed up and I showed them the missing section.

How scary! Altho the bridge didn't "look" precarious...it was actually an accident waiting to happen. My deepest condolences, 33 years late, to the victim's families.🌷

I remember working at the former Amsterdam Memorial Hospital at the time when visitors came in telling us what had happened. Absolutely horrific. God rest the souls of those poor victims. So sad.

So, question, or discussion. Is there a problem with America? Or does it just seem that way because Great Britain, Australia and America are English speaking nations? Like, maybe these documentaries exist for every nation, they all have these problems but we don't see them because RU-vid won't show us results for foreign language content?

when the people tasked to make bridges dont know how to make bridges =)

NYSDOT: the inspector should have told us about the things we deleted in previous reports. Classic NY officials

I'll point out that old-school railroad stone piers last 100s of years after the line is abandoned. You can see the piers standing long after the bridge is gone. Back in the day, and with heavier loads, they went down very, very deep. Scour simply cannot get deep enough. I'm not saying "the old ways were better," just an interesting result of massive safety factors because we just didn't know how deep we needed to go.

Already another? Hell yeah

IK this is a year old - but my first thought was, “Wow. That’s what a creek is really supposed to look like!?. Not when it flooded, but before. Obviously I live somewhere hot, and creeks are not like that. They hardly ever have water. May the deceased and their families exist in an endlessness, splendid, happiness