Resilient

…Let’s close the year by celebrating people, places, and objects that endure.
—WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge

This year will mark the 80th year that the Golden Gate Bridge has been open to the public. Thought by many to be “the bridge that could not be built”, it stands today as a monument to the imagination and determination of a group of engineers and tradesmen who worked together to create an Art Deco masterpiece which serves the transportation needs of millions of people a year.

Let’s Talk About Being Resilient

The GGB is 1.7 miles in length and weighs 887,00 tons. Walk out on the sidewalk and you can feel the vibrations from the vehicles on the roadway. There is a palpable energy—an audible hum—during extreme windy conditions. Strong gusty winds can shake the two-inch diameter suspender cables back-and-forth right before your eyes.

As the wind speed approaches 45 mph the wind thru the suspenders at the towers begins to sound like a pipe organ.

Charles Ellis designed the Golden Gate Bridge to be resilient. If the bridge did not move, it could not withstand the forces of Nature that could very well combine to destroy it.

The two Main Towers are 746 feet tall and can deflect 12.5 inches from side-to-side, 22 inches toward their respective shores, and 18 inches toward midspan.

At midspan the bridge can deflect 27.7 feet side-to-side, rise upward 5.8 feet, and downward 10.8 feet.

Bend like a willow, or snap like an oak. Thankfully for us the men who built the Golden Gate Bridge were flexible people.