Professors Astaneh and Bea Featured in Article on Freeway Collapse

In the September/October 2007 issue of the California Magazine, in an article : "Bureaucratic Maze: Collapsed freeway is just the beginning", Eric Simons talks with Professors Astaneh and Bea, both researchers at and two of the founding faculty of the multi-disciplinary Center for Catastrophic Risk Management (CCRM) (http://risk.berkeley.edu/) about their respective work on Mac Arthur Maze Fire Collapse (2007) and the Katrina catastrophe (2005).

 

Here are excerpts from the article: "Abolhassan Astaneh won't drive over the repaired portion of the MacArthur Maze until Caltrans proves it's safe. The Berkeley professor of structural engineering has investigated disasters all over the world, including the collapse of the World Trade Center, and says that most of what you read about the successful reconstruction of the freeway interchange at the eastern end of the Bay Bridge is plain wrong."

 

"Astaneh and his colleagues from the Center for Catastrophic Risk Management have investigated more than 600 disasters, including the Exxon Valdez, the 1994 Northridge earthquake, the crash of the Concorde jet near Paris, and Hurricane Katrina. And they say they've found a common theme: hubris beforehand, hubris afterward, and a lot of things not working in between."

 

The full article is at :
http://alumni.berkeley.edu/california/200709/praxismaze.asp