The Tacoma Narrows Bridge is a pair of twin suspension bridges that span the Tacoma Narrows strait of Puget Sound in Pierce County, Washington. The bridges connect the city of Tacoma with the Kitsap Peninsula and carry State Route 16 over the strait. Historically, the name "Tacoma Narrows Bridge" has applied to the original bridge, nicknamed "Galloping Gertie", which opened in July 1940 but collapsed possibly because of aeroelastic flutter four months later, as well as to the successor of that bridge, which opened in 1950 and still stands today as the westbound lanes of the present-day two-bridge complex.
Pierce County is a county in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2020 census, the population was 921,130, up from 795,225 in 2010, making it the second-most populous county in Washington, behind King County, and the 59th-most populous in the United States. The county seat and largest city is Tacoma. Formed out of Thurston County on December 22, 1852, by the legislature of Oregon Territory, it was named for U.S. President Franklin Pierce. Pierce County is in the Seattle metropolitan area.
Des Moines is a city in King County, Washington, United States. The population was 32,888 as of the 2020 census. The city is located on the east shore of Puget Sound, near the center of the Seattle metropolitan area. It is bordered by the suburbs of Federal Way to the south, Kent to the east, SeaTac to the northeast, Burien to the north, and Normandy Park to the northwest.
Gig Harbor is the name of both a bay on Puget Sound and a city on its shore in Pierce County, Washington. The population was 12,029 at the 2020 census.
Tacoma is the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. A port city, it is situated along Washington's Puget Sound, 32 miles (51 km) southwest of Seattle, 36 miles (58 km) southwest of Bellevue, 31 miles (50 km) northeast of the state capital, Olympia, 58 miles (93 km) northwest of Mount Rainier National Park, and 80 miles (130 km) east of Olympic National Park. The city's population was 219,346 at the time of the 2020 census. Tacoma is the second-largest city in the Puget Sound area and the third-most populous in the state. Tacoma also serves as the center of business activity for the South Sound region, which has a population of about 1 million.
Chesil Beach in Dorset, England is one of three major shingle beach structures in Britain. Its name is derived from the word chessil, meaning "gravel" or "shingle". It runs for a length of 29 kilometres (18 mi) from West Bay to the Isle of Portland and in places is up to 15 metres (50 ft) high and 200 metres (660 ft) wide. Behind the beach is the Fleet, a shallow tidal lagoon. Both are part of the Jurassic Coast and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and together form an SSSI and Ramsar Site. Owners of the land designated as Chesil & The Fleet SSSI include the Crown Estate, the Ministry of Defence and the National Trust.
Poole Harbour is a large natural harbour in Dorset, southern England, with the town of Poole on its shores. The harbour is a drowned valley (ria) formed at the end of the last ice age and is the estuary of several rivers, the largest being the Frome. The harbour has a long history of human settlement stretching to pre-Roman times. The harbour is extremely shallow, with one main dredged channel through the harbour, from the mouth to Holes Bay.
The 1940 Tacoma Narrows Bridge, the first bridge at this location, was a suspension bridge in the U.S. state of Washington that spanned the Tacoma Narrows strait of Puget Sound between Tacoma and the Kitsap Peninsula. It opened to traffic on July 1, 1940, and dramatically collapsed into Puget Sound on November 7 of the same year. The bridge's collapse has been described as "spectacular" and in subsequent decades "has attracted the attention of engineers, physicists, and mathematicians". Throughout its short existence, it was the world's third-longest suspension bridge by main span, behind the Golden Gate Bridge and the George Washington Bridge.
Washington State Ferries (WSF) is a public ferry system in the U.S. state of Washington. It is a division of the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) and operates 10 routes serving 20 terminals within Puget Sound and in the San Juan Islands. The routes are designated as part of the state highway system. WSF maintains a fleet of 21 vessels that are able to carry passengers and vehicles.
State Route 16 (SR 16) is a 27.16-mile-long (43.71 km) state highway in the U.S. state of Washington, connecting Pierce and Kitsap counties. The highway, signed as east–west, begins at an interchange with Interstate 5 (I-5) in Tacoma and travels through the city as a freeway towards the Tacoma Narrows. SR 16 crosses the narrows onto the Kitsap Peninsula on the partially tolled Tacoma Narrows Bridge and continues through Gig Harbor and Port Orchard before the freeway ends in Gorst. The designation ends at an intersection with SR 3 southwest of the beginning of its freeway through Bremerton and Poulsbo. SR 16 is designated as a Strategic Highway Network (STRAHNET) corridor within the National Highway System as the main thoroughfare connecting Tacoma to Naval Base Kitsap and a part of the Highways of Statewide Significance program.
A catastrophic failure is a sudden and total failure from which recovery is impossible. Catastrophic failures often lead to cascading systems failure. The term is most commonly used for structural failures, but has often been extended to many other disciplines in which total and irrecoverable loss occurs, such as a head crash occurrence on a hard disk drive.
Point Defiance Park in Tacoma, Washington, United States, is a large urban park. The 760-acre (3.1 km2) park includes Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium, the Rose Garden, Rhododendron Garden, beaches, trails, a boardwalk, a boathouse, a Washington State Ferries ferry dock for the Point Defiance-Tahlequah route to Vashon Island, Fort Nisqually, an off-leash dog park, and most notably about 400 acres of old-growth forest. It receives more than three million visitors every year. Point Defiance Park is maintained and operated by Metro Parks Tacoma.
The Vincent Thomas Bridge is a 1,500-foot-long (460 m) suspension bridge, crossing Los Angeles Harbor in Los Angeles, California, linking San Pedro with Terminal Island. It is the only suspension bridge in the Greater Los Angeles area. The bridge is part of State Route 47, which is also known as the Seaside Freeway. The bridge opened in 1963 and is named for California Assemblyman Vincent Thomas of San Pedro, who championed its construction. Its chief engineer was William (Jim) Jurkovich who was instrumental in bringing pre-stress concrete bridge design to California. It was the first welded suspension bridge in the United States and is now the fourth-longest suspension bridge in California and the 76th-longest span in the world. The clear height of the navigation channel is approximately 185 feet (56 m); it is the only suspension bridge in the world supported entirely on piles.
The Washington State Department of Transportation is a governmental agency that constructs, maintains, and regulates the use of transportation infrastructure in the U.S. state of Washington. Established in 1905, it is led by a secretary and overseen by the governor. WSDOT is responsible for more than 20,000 lane-miles of roadway, nearly 3,000 vehicular bridges and 524 other structures. This infrastructure includes rail lines, state highways, state ferries and state airports.
Metro Parks Tacoma is a municipal corporation that oversees parks and recreation services in and around the city of Tacoma, Washington, United States.
6th Avenue is a major east–west street in Tacoma, Washington, United States. It runs for 5.7 miles (9.2 km) across the city, connecting Tacoma Community College to the North End and downtown. 6th Avenue defines the directional north/south prefixes for streets.
The Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation was an American corporation which built escort carriers, destroyers, cargo ships and auxiliaries for the United States Navy and merchant marine during World War II in two yards in Puget Sound, Washington. It was the largest producer of destroyers (45) on the West Coast and the largest producer of escort carriers of various classes (56) of any United States yard active during World War II.
The Puget Sound region is a coastal area of the Pacific Northwest in the U.S. state of Washington, including Puget Sound, the Puget Sound lowlands, and the surrounding region roughly west of the Cascade Range and east of the Olympic Mountains. It is characterized by a complex array of saltwater bays, islands, and peninsulas carved out by prehistoric glaciers.
The 1950 Tacoma Narrows Bridge is a suspension bridge in the U.S. state of Washington that carries the westbound lanes of Washington State Route 16 across the Tacoma Narrows strait, between the city of Tacoma and the Kitsap Peninsula. Opened on October 14, 1950, it was built in the same location as the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which collapsed due to a windstorm on November 7, 1940. It is the older of the twin bridges that make up the Tacoma Narrows Bridge crossing of the Tacoma Narrows, and carried both directions of traffic across the strait until 2007. At the time of its construction, the bridge was, like its predecessor, the third-longest suspension bridge in the world in terms of main span length, behind the Golden Gate Bridge and George Washington Bridge; it is now the 46th-longest suspension bridge in the world.
Aaron Rosser Titlow was a Washington state lawyer and politician. Titlow served as a prosecuting attorney for Pierce County from 1896 to 1898 and was the Democratic National Committeeman from the state of Washington from 1920 to 1923. As of 2020, he's best remembered for Titlow Beach, a popular 75-acre (30 ha) waterfront public park in Tacoma which was purchased from Titlow's family in 1928 by Metro Parks Tacoma.
