This is why the #VerrazanoBridge was closed yesterday during the high winds. pic.twitter.com/QrefTGHVom
— NYCFireWire (@NYCFireWire) December 1, 2020
NOPE. Nope, nope, nope. On the list of things I would never want to do, walking or driving on a massive suspension bridge like this one while it’s swaying in the wind is HIGH up there (golf swing). I almost had to take a Dramamine just watching this for 20 seconds. I barely made it through Rainbow Road on MarioKart 64 when I was 14. No chance I’m able to navigate this.
And I think the worst element isn’t even the actual swaying, it’s the SOUND of the swaying. Listening to that much steel ebb and flow with next level terrifying. This looks like a scene from Spielberg movie. I half expected Jigsaw from the Saw franchise to peddle his little tricycle right up to the camera and say, ‘I want to play a game.’
All of that said, I do realize* that bridges like this are supposed to have some ‘give’ to them. Especially in climates with extreme changes in temperature from summer to winter. So this bridge is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. What it’s NOT supposed to do is what the Tacoma Narrows Bridge did in 1940:
Just a wild/fascinating video. I could have done without the dog anecdote (I assume the dog survived), but otherwise a really interesting mini-documentary to watch. Which has led me down a Youtube blackhole of suspension bridge videos that I’ve been swirling in for the last hour. Might be time to take some vacation time.
*Plot twist I did not realize that and learned it in the comment section on that particular Tweet.
PS: Yesterday in my show prep there was a date in 1866 where construction began on the first underwater tunnel in Chicago. That type of stuff blows my mind. I couldn’t even begin to tell you how one would construct an underwater tunnel in 2020, an era of advanced technology, let alone a year after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox. I just assume aliens handled all major construction during the Industrial Revolution.




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