HistoricDetroit.org
Every Michigan motorist knows what makes potholes happen. Not the devil, not karma, and certainly not substandard road construction and maintenance, oh no not that heavens to Betsy. It's the freeze-thaw cycle, as we're told over and over at this time of year. Freeze-thaw! What can you do? It's out of our hands!
HistoricDetroit.org
(But what about Canada? you might ask. You drove the 402 to London, Ont., and it was as smooth as glass? Look, is that Comet Kohoutek? Gotta run, meter needs a quarter, let's grab lunch soon!)
Anyway.
Freeze-thaw is what's being blamed for the collapse of the Packard plant's pedestrian bridge Wednesday. A spokesman for the plant's owner, Peruvian developer Fernando Palazuelo, also threw in some fancy talk:
"The best we can determine is that it was a preexisting structural issue, due to temperature fluctuations that caused the collapse."
"Preexisting structural issue" likely means "old as hell" and "hasn't been maintained since well before the invention of the seat belt."
If you survived third-grade science, you know how that works: Water gets in the cracks, water freezes, water expands, widening the cracks. Then ice melts and a weakened structure either lives to see another day, or melts in a swoon.
But seeing as how there are lots of these sorts of buildings around Detroit, we're wondering if this is a what-fresh-hell situation, because we have another temperature plunge, already in progress. We're looking at subzero overnight temperatures in the 10-day forecast, which will be followed, as they always are, by warmer ones.
So, our question: In addition to potholes, do we now have to worry about buildings falling down on our heads? Freeway bridges? Should we panic now, or later? Just asking.
