I ran across one of my favorite engineering videos recording the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, AKA Gallopin Gertie. I hadn’t seen this video since high school physics class.
- Construction Start:  Nov. 23, 1938
- Construction Finish:  July 1, 1940
- 4 months later it collapse on  Nov. 7, 1940 – Caused by resonance vibration due to steady 42mph wind speeds.

The footage from November 7, 1940 was shot by Barney Elliott and his business partner Harbine Monroe who owned a nearby camera store in Tacoma – http://www.camerashoptacoma.com/.

Search YouTube for some more great videos on this collapse. Here is another one with some good information Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse.

The next bridge at this location was built with Stiffening Trusses instead of solid girders.

Tags: Tacoma Narrows

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 10:28 pm and is filed under Featured Projects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.