"Tofu dregs" projects

"Tofu dregs project" is what bereft parents called schools that crumbled like confectioners sugar in the May 12th earthquake in Sichuan Province of southwest China. Noting that about 700 schoolrooms in session collapsed while adjacent structures survived, many are blaming the government, alleging that corruption compromised building construction.

I thought back to the Mississippi River Bridge in Minneapolis, that used to carry Interstate 35W until one evening rush hour on August 1, 2007, when cracks in the cross girders that had won the edifice a rating of "structurally deficient" in 1990 finally did what cracks will do.

A 2001 study had noted also a lack of "redundancy" in the main truss system of the bridge. Redundancy is bad in public speaking and in British employment terminology, but very good in construction.

Which leads me to the only inspiring part of this post: John Augustus Roebling. You may not know his name but you know his work. The German-born architect designed the Brooklyn Bridge, whose construction began in 1870 and was completed in 1883. That's 13 years compared to the Mississippi River Bridge's lickety-split 3 or 4. But they didn't read us "three little pigs" in kindergarten for nothing.

You know what that crazy guy Roebling did? He deliberately designed the bridge and truss system to be six times stronger than he thought they needed to be, which is why the Gothic limestone and granite monument in work clothes that connects Manhattan to Brooklyn still stands, while many others built in the same day have vanished into vapor. Do you think they laughed at Roebling at the time?