Chairs, Lies and a Corrupt and Stupid Corporate Media.

fox5atlanta - $200K bond, arson charged for I-85 bridge collapse suspect.  Three homeless people have been arrested for this crime. It is claimed they set fire to a chair on top of shopping cart, or at least one report said so. Unless they had dynamite I want to know how a fire takes down a concrete and steal overpass. Turns out there were materials stored under the bridge by the state DOT; but, they have claimed that these materials were not combustible. Huh? Either they were combustable or a chair catching fire can take down a whole freeway in which case we better rethink how bridges are built or begin worrying about terrorists buying chairs.

Yahoo - Vibe - Three Suspects Believed To Be Homeless Arrested For Atlanta I-85 Bridge Fire. 

These people are being charged with intentionally setting this fire. This must be the three smartest homeless people in the world that they figured out how to take down a freeway with a chair and construction material that doesn't catch fire. Clearly they set a fire, how cold was it. Homeless people frequently set fires in metal trash cans when it is cold out. Shopping carts will work to as they are metal and the fire doesn't spread far. It shouldn't spread at all under a bridge.

I have fires jump bridges. I have seen fires burn across freeways. I have seen fires burn under freeways. I have never seen a fire take down a concrete freeway till now. I want you to think about this. Highways are built to stand fires. Cars and trucks catch on fire. Trucks carrying gasoline catch on fire; but, they don't take down concrete overpasses.

We are being lied to. A chair set on fire did not take down that freeway. At least not by itself. The things stored under that freeway made a much bigger, hotter and longer lasting fire. Here is a line from the vibe story, "Georgia Department of Transportation Commissioner Russell R. McMurry explained that the materials under the bridge were designated for cabling and fire optics, but aren’t flammable." If the materials that were stored there are not flammable then they must still be there. Right? Here is another line from the article, "Eleby left before the fire started but suggested it wasn’t close to the construction materials that helped spread the fire. He was additionally charged with arson and given a $20,000 bond." How stupid is the person that wrote this article? How could the materials helped spread the fire when they aren't flammable?

Lets try this, how could this be prevented from happening again. Can we really be sure that homeless people will never try and warm themselves with fire again? Can we make sure that there is never a fire on a highway or under one again? My guess to these answers is NO. Can we not store stuff under highways that could spread fire? That we can do, at least we can get DOTs to not store such things under highways they own. 

Who is at fault? The state DOT.  You know why they did it? To save money. It is called a staging area. Sometimes DOT's even rent out space below the freeways and sometimes those areas are used for storage facilities. Sometimes they are used for private storage facilities. Maybe we should look into that and what is stored in those facilities, it may include chairs.