r/interestingasfuck • u/NathanCS741 • 1h ago
In 1987, 800,000 people celebrated the Golden Gate Bridge for its 50th anniversary. The weight of the crowd caused the bridge to sag 7 feet.
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u/PeeloPeem 40m ago
I was on it. We didn’t know it had basically flattened out. But as someone else pointed out, the bridge can hold a lot more than that anyway. Still, scary to read about the next day. Not quite as packed in as it looks in that shot. You could still move around and make your way across. Or half way and turn around.
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u/leftypoolrat 53m ago
We got within maybe a half mile of bridge and gave up. Crowd was insane (as you can see…)
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u/Ready_Area289 48m ago
I was there and among other things watched a very pregnant women trying to get off the bridge, Pretty sure it took a long time since we were packed in really well. Wasn't until after I found out how much the bridge sagged.
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u/Sethalas 50m ago
1 instance of panic, 1 domino effect.. I've read enough about stampedes.
No thank you.
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u/ZeroDayCipher 52m ago
At rough eyes glance I thought this was an ad for that one game where you shoot zombies on a bridge I’m always fucking seeing
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u/LowlySysadmin 20m ago
Yes, def me too (along with a couple of comments apparently).
My question is, where are they getting the money to pay for those ads? Surely nobody's paying to play that
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u/Extreme-Shopping74 1h ago
How bored do you have to be to think like "lets go on the middle of a bridge inbetween 800k other people and sufficate"
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u/Initial_Row_6400 59m ago
It was 1987…. We didn’t have cellphones, and people tended to leave the house to do things.
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u/Lazy-Main1782 51m ago
Also not much info is being shared. No one in Reddit telling people that this actually a bad idea.
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u/punosauruswrecked 52m ago
Even in the 80s you couldn't pay me enough to get me on a bridge with 800 thousand people. Risk of collapse aside, that just looks like an unpleasant place to be.
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u/Initial_Row_6400 50m ago
Do you have any idea what that bridge is designed to withstand? It can handle that and then some
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u/Kaylend 44m ago edited 38m ago
Fairly certain this event was the most it's ever handled.
A person may not weigh much compared to a car, but you can pack people in far more densely.
That being said, the weight was above what was expected for the bridge to handle with cars, but below any concern of failure.
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u/Sgt_carbonero 14m ago
So the bridge had just undergone replacement of the old concrete roadway to a much lighter one so there was zero risk.
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u/Jdevers77 10m ago
Yea. This is 100% true, but in the average person’s mind cars are far heavier than people so people on the bridge shoved in as tight as possible isn’t an issue. Most people don’t think “oh, so like 20 people can smash in where that one Corolla fits. Also, the median US citizen is 180 lb so 20 people weigh a lot more than the 2000lb Corolla, nevermind the gaps between the cars which are now full of people.”
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u/Viralclassic 46m ago
It’s wild to realize how agoraphobic the youths are
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u/Black_Cat_Just_That 3m ago
Nah, I'm gen x and prefer to live my life outside the house, just not surrounded by almost a million people. It's actually a lot more like claustrophobia than agoraphobia.
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u/Viralclassic 0m ago
You essentially defined agoraphobia.
I like being outside, just not around people•
u/FileDoesntExist 34m ago
No? It's just fundamentally dangerous. Aside from the bridge collapse I'd be way too concerned about crowd crush. Especially if someone creates a panic. There's no easy way to get out of that situation. And I like big concerts and holiday events where whole blocks are just parties.
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u/TestyBoy13 29m ago
The bridge can handle wayyyy more than 800k people before it breaks. It can withstand 5,700lbs per ft. So unless the 800k people all weighed 3 tons, it’s not budging.
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u/Toadforpresident 8m ago
I don't think any of the engineers that built it thought collapse was a danger.
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u/SevroAuShitTalker 54m ago
There are plenty of better things to do outside than standing in a packed crowd
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u/anthroapologetic 45m ago
Please tell us all the negatives of joining an event like this
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u/MostBoringStan 35m ago
Could die
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u/Toadforpresident 7m ago
You could say that leaving the house to drive anywhere. Always a risk any time you get in the car. Should we never leave home?
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u/Shoddy_Fish31 43m ago
I feel like “tended” is wrong, it should’ve been “tent”. But that’s just my opinion, oxford hear me out
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u/rishi255 40m ago
While we’re at it, I hate when people say “houses” for referring to multiple hice. Oxford hear me out.
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36m ago
[deleted]
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u/Initial_Row_6400 30m ago
Didn’t damage shit. Jesus yall are as dense as that crowd was
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24m ago
[deleted]
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u/Im2dronk 19m ago
Jesus you kids suck nowadays. Sense of community. Celebrating the accomplishments of your local govt. Maybe meet a cute girl. Fucking stay in your room and be miserable but get off the internet if your going to be this damn pathetic.
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u/VaryStaybullGeenyiss 18m ago
You have no idea how suspension bridges, or bridges in general, work. They're designed to flex with a load. Same as how skyscrapers are designed to flex with wind and earthquakes. And it's not like this crowd was marching in unison or something (which would maybe have some adverse effects).
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u/NiteWraith 11m ago
The bridge was not damaged, nothing was “overstrained”. The load of the crowd was well within tolerances, the bridge sagged because that is what suspension bridges are designed to do. They are flexible to handle load and weather. No one is offended, you’re just confidently wrong, which annoys people.
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u/Joemama0104 56m ago
The first commercially available cellphone was released in 1983
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u/Initial_Row_6400 55m ago
You know what the fuck I mean
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u/TheAerial 53m ago
Lmao I felt that haha.
Reddit can be exhausting as hell sometimes, we got what you meant 😂
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u/Forward-Newt-7242 58m ago
Yeah this is a super cool pic, but youd have had to pay me a significant amount to get me to go there
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u/Solomon_Grungy 50m ago
People used to go home for dinner then come back to listen to political speeches. Debates and such would last hours and people loved it because in like the 1800’s it was the only way to get caught up to speed on life.
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u/Hopeful-Eggplant7262 57m ago
Go touch grass
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u/QuickMasterpiece6127 51m ago
Instructions unclear… police asking me why I’m naked touching grass at neighborhood park… what do I tell them?
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u/RedaNassef 57m ago
The engineer's heart must have skipped a beat watching that bridge bend in real-time
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u/Ill_Yogurt_4659 54m ago
Must’ve been panic central in the middle
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u/samsaruhhh 37m ago
Actually it was just me shirtless covered in body glide and pina colada lotion, covered in glitter, sliding around people like a worm man
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u/Sgt_carbonero 16m ago
I was there. It got a little crazy when we reached the center and the people on the outside kept pushing in. I had my bike and had a plan to lean my bike up against the railing and get behind it if a crush came but it never did.
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u/Aware_Cheesecake_519 1h ago
And with the weight of the cars, it's going down even further.
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u/BoatyMicBoatFace_ 17m ago
According to Animagraphs on yt, the total sag in either direction at the center of the main span is 16.6 feet.
That 7 feet was quite safe.
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u/Stinky_Fartface 2m ago
But when it’s covered in cars wouldn’t that be heavier? Is sagging 7 feet that big of a deal or is that just the proper designed reaction?
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u/JoyousMisery 44m ago
Thought this was an ad for a tower defence mobile game at first