Large barge crashes into arkansas river bridge pillar
(twitter.com)
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Except that anyone who lives around the big rivers knows crazy barge shit is an annual thing and bridge caissons are generally built strong enough to absorb a barge impact.
The barges themselves are pretty flimsy to begin with. They're only a little bit thicker than dumpsters and weigh in at 500 tons for the biggest ones. As you can see in this picture, they crumple like cardboard boxes.
Idk, it’s really not that difficult to not hit something with your large ass boat
500 tons? Wow, I worked with plastic injector machines that weighed that much. They were huge, but inside (the smallest ones were 50 T)
The outer bumper makes them look stronger than they really are. They look like a big steel box but inside there's just a minimal amount of ribbing that is only supposed to take forces straight on. They're designed so that if they get loose in a flood and hit something, they'll crumple and sink.