January 2005 Meeting Abstract
BAPG is pleased to announce that its next monthly dinner meeting will be held jointly with the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) on Wednesday, January 19, 2004 at the Four Points Sheraton Hotel located on Walden Avenue at the Walden Galleria Mall in Cheektowaga (see map and directions below). The evening's speaker will be Richard Bovee, P.E., of Clough, Harbour and Associates. His presentation will be “The Schoharie Creek Bridge Collapse.”
I’m sure many of you have heard of the Thruway Authority’s Schoharie Creek Bridge collapse at some point. If you haven’t, it was a tragedy that led to changes in the design, inspection, and maintenance of bridges.
On the morning of April 5, 1987, two spans of the Schoharie Creek Bridge in Amsterdam, fell into the flooded creek after a pier, which supported the spans, was undermined by scour. Five vehicles plunged into the creek and ten people died. The National Transportation Safety Board concluded that the bridge footings were vulnerable to scour, which is the removal of sediment caused by erosive action of flowing water. The collapse focused national attention on the vulnerability of bridges to failure from scour.
At our meeting, Richard Bovee, P.E., Chief Engineer at Clough, Harbour and Associates LLP, will offer a comprehensive review of the events that led to the collapse, and the design of the detour and replacement structure, and will also discuss various lessons that were learned in the process.
Richard B. Bovee is a P. E., licensed in 12 eastern states. He is a graduate of Northeastern University (BSCE 1968) and MIT (MSCE 1970). He performed co-op work with NYSDOT Materials Bureau and Haley and Aldrich and did graduate research at MIT in conjunction with Haley and Aldrich. He is currently completing 35 years with Clough Harbour & Associates and his responsibilities include Chief Engineer and Manager of Construction Engineering Services. He has daily involvement in project technical issues during design and construction and their appropriate resolution. He is responsible for presenting Technical Lessoned Learned programs to 15 design offices.
We hope you will be able to join us to learn more about this historic bridge disaster.
Stephanie Reynolds-Smith
BAPG Executive Vice-President