{"id":44542,"date":"2017-04-02T19:52:09","date_gmt":"2017-04-02T23:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=44542"},"modified":"2020-07-31T19:52:20","modified_gmt":"2020-07-31T23:52:20","slug":"the-new-and-unfortunate-normal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=44542","title":{"rendered":"The new and unfortunate normal"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A major and historical in the worst kind of way thing happened in Atlanta this past week, when an entire block of I-85, well, broke.\u00a0 A massive fire started underneath the bridge portion of I-85, and for whatever unfortunate reasons, the joints holding up a chunk of the interstate, basically fell off, leaving a sizable and impassable hole in the bridge, severing the stretch of highway that connects Montgomery, Alabama all the way to Richmond, Virginia, going northbound.<\/span><\/p>\n

The fallout is fairly substantial, and the repercussions of having an impassable chasm are massive.\u00a0 Anyone going northbound in, or through Atlanta will now have to reroute on either I-75 or just taking I-285 around the city.\u00a0 GA-400 isn\u2019t accessible going north anymore, because the hole is quite literally right before the exit to 400 North.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sure, I\u2019ve made plenty of jokes about how the hole basically reminds me of the bridge jump from Speed<\/em>, or how the fires were basically when Tyrion Lannister used wildfire to blow shit up, and the internet has once again made a mockery of Atlanta and it\u2019s apparent penchant for stupid shit like this.\u00a0 Fortunately, nobody was hurt and there were no casualties aside from thousands of pissed off commuters, otherwise such might be in bad taste.\u00a0 However, the reality of the situation is that this is going to be a massive and inconveniencing situation for all of Atlanta, and those who need to pass through Atlanta.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The initial plans for demolition, repair and reconstruction of the hole has been estimated to Thanksgiving: eight full fucking months<\/em>.\u00a0 Why this is the case is completely beyond me, but I can\u2019t say that I\u2019m the least bit surprised, having worked in the government for a spell.\u00a0 Bureaucrats and talking heads need to small talk their way to actual discussion, which is basically a blame game, and then there\u2019s the whole money game, where everyone is going to try and line their pockets as much as they can through this whole ordeal, and then maybe two months in, they\u2019ll actually make some announcements, and some work will actually get started.\u00a0 And then, they\u2019ll blab on about how it takes time for concrete to cure, safety tests to be conducted, and all sorts of rhetoric that means that with a Thanksgiving deadline in place, we can probably expect it to be done by MLK day, since nobody works over holidays.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the first things I thought about was the story of when a massive gaping sinkhole appeared in Japan.\u00a0 But someway, somehow, the Japanese were able to repair and fix the entire thing in the span of like a weekend, and by the following Monday morning, the entire sinkhole was repaired, and if nobody told you that a sinkhole had formed the previous weekend, one wouldn\u2019t be the wiser that there was a disaster just days prior.\u00a0 But the point remains, Japan can fix a gaping sinkhole in the span of days, while Atlanta is estimating over half of a year to repair a gap in the road that\u2019s probably an equivalent of size as the sinkhole in Japan, if not smaller.\u00a0 Something isn\u2019t right about this comparison.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s bad when we\u2019re basically told that this gaping hole in I-85 is the new normal, and that we need to accept that traversing the city is going to require a lot more travel time, planning, and that if we want to do anything near the region of despair, to expect a lot more grief.<\/span><\/p>\n

Get used to it, this is the new normal until shit finally gets done, basically.<\/span><\/p>\n

The thing is, I\u2019ve been kind of following this story as it\u2019s developed over the last few days.\u00a0 Naturally, when something like this occurs, the people want to know the how, something like this occurs. Reasons, or people to be held accountable, are what people like me want to know.\u00a0 Conspiracy theories arise, like how a fire can somehow destroy concrete, asphalt and metal.<\/span><\/p>\n

So far, what is established is that three people were arrested and accused of starting the fire that got out of control; to no surprise, they were basically homeless bums who gathered underneath the bridge allegedly to smoke crack cocaine.\u00a0 Somewhere along the incident, a fire started, raged out of control on some barrels underneath the bridge allegedly containing PVC materials, and then the next thing we all know, the bridge basically falls off, resulting in the giant gap in I-85.<\/span><\/p>\n

My initial take is that sure, it\u2019s understandable that people are upset at the homeless guys whose initial fire started the whole incident, but I\u2019m more intrigued and questioning about the barrels underneath the bridge that supposedly were the fuel that burned hot enough to deteriorate the support materials holding I-85 up above the ground.\u00a0 Like, PVC, does that shit really burn that hot?\u00a0 Furthermore, just what construction shortcuts were used to get the bridge suspended, but not strong enough to withstand fire in spite of its concrete, mortar and metal construction?<\/span><\/p>\n

Regardless of how much jail time some bums get, how pissed off commuters get, my eyes are trained in on the builders that appear to have built a shoddy bridge, and the people who allowed it to happen.\u00a0 Also, the geniuses who thought it was okay and acceptable to store alleged PVC and other junk materials in barrels out in public, like underneath bridges.\u00a0 It\u2019s easy to point fingers at the homeless guys and bums for starting the fire, but some crooked people who were paid to and expected to be responsible seem like the bigger problems in my opinion.<\/span><\/p>\n

This will be an interesting story to follow over the next few months, but I suspect that no matter what is ultimately revealed, it\u2019s going to be only a shred of the actual truth, with undoubtedly a number of excuses, scapegoats and fall men to arise, and lots of people in the background who will manage to take a terrible situation and turn it into profit.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A major and historical in the worst kind of way thing happened in Atlanta this past week, when an entire block of I-85, well, broke.\u00a0 A massive fire started underneath the bridge portion of I-85, and for whatever unfortunate reasons, the joints holding up a chunk of the interstate, basically fell off, leaving a sizable … Continue reading The new and unfortunate normal<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[51,112,143,10,49],"class_list":["post-44542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-cars","tag-crime","tag-ohatlanta","tag-traffic","tag-wtf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44542"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44544,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44542\/revisions\/44544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}