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[Sir Tigger KC]

Well fairly recently anyway.  The picture is of a bridge over the River Parrett in Somerset.  Self explanatory really! 

[Kevin Wood]

That'll be "climate change", then.

[Stemo]

Thought this was gonna be an ad for Now TV.

[05omegav6]

That'll be "climate change", then.

If by 'climate' you mean 'local ecosystem' then yes

What is quite apparent in both pictures, (and no reference has been made anywhere that I have seen), to the fact that the designers felt the need to run a 5' bore through the butresses The river obviously never flooded previously then...

I wonder what happened to the previous bridge

[Varche]

That'll be "climate change", then.

If by 'climate' you mean 'local ecosystem' then yes

What is quite apparent in both pictures, (and no reference has been made anywhere that I have seen), to the fact that the designers felt the need to run a 5' bore through the butresses The river obviously never flooded previously then...

I wonder what happened to the previous bridge

Looks like the same one to me? Good posting Tigger

[tunnie]

Thought this was gonna be an ad for Now TV.

 

I thought that same, but not quite right.

'That was then, this is now' is our line

[05omegav6]

That'll be "climate change", then.

If by 'climate' you mean 'local ecosystem' then yes

What is quite apparent in both pictures, (and no reference has been made anywhere that I have seen), to the fact that the designers felt the need to run a 5' bore through the butresses The river obviously never flooded previously then...

I wonder what happened to the previous bridge

Looks like the same one to me? Good posting Tigger

That bridge IS the same bridge in both pictures...

Question is what happened to the previous bridge to justify the bores through the buttresses

[Searcher]

Well fairly recently anyway.  The picture is of a bridge over the River Parrett in Somerset.  Self explanatory really! 

Apparently,

This........

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/02/18/article-2561435-1B99D1D100000578-857_636x385.jpg

is how it looks now.

[05omegav6]

Be interesting to see a pic of the other side...

[biggriffin]

You need to look at the silt level,in both shots.Thats,why theve been printed.

[Kevin Wood]

You need to look at the silt level,in both shots.Thats,why theve been printed.

Indeed. Then consider the cross sectional area of water that can flow. I should think the capacity of that river is about a third of what it was, but no.. we know best.. it's rain of "biblical" proportions due to "climate change", etc.

[05omegav6]

Allow me to rephrase that...

Obviously the river has silted up. That could be due to flow speeds as much as anything, but...

1.Did the bridge that stood before the one shown get washed away?

2. Why did the engineers who designed/built the bridge shown include the two side bores? Perhaps the river used to flow alot faster, and flood regularly. In which case, why was the river neglected during periods of low flow and allowed to silt up?

 

[Marks DTM Calib]

Either way, increasing the cross sectional area of the conduits will only speed up the time it takes for the water to drain away once its got into them (they still need clearing though). At the end of the day, given the rainfall, the floods would still have happened put possibly not for such a long period.

The hard truth is thats ther is always going to be a cost/benefit sum to do......which will bring winners.....and losers.....

[chrisgixer]

Allow me to rephrase that...

Obviously the river has silted up. That could be due to flow speeds as much as anything, but...

1.Did the bridge that stood before the one shown get washed away?

2. Why did the engineers who designed/built the bridge shown include the two side bores? Perhaps the river used to flow alot faster, and flood regularly. In which case, why was the river neglected during periods of low flow and allowed to silt up?

 

1 what suggests that's not the original bridge Al?

2 interesting question.
On first seeing a photo of that bridge, (months ago now on sky news ) I wondered the same.
Only thing I can guess is, allowing flow once the river gets high enough to envelop the arch. Maybe taking pressure off the side walls.




Also, if if looking at searchers link,  in the pic from the 1960,s its interesting to see there are at least half a dozen "high tide" marks visible near the top of the bridge arch.

[chrisgixer]

Wikipedia suggests there was indeed a previous bridge, rebuilt to the current form due to the original three arches restricting barges coming up the river, and restricting river flow downstream.