{"id":9443,"date":"2014-05-02T06:36:59","date_gmt":"2014-05-02T06:36:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/?p=9443"},"modified":"2014-05-02T06:37:34","modified_gmt":"2014-05-02T06:37:34","slug":"baltimore-retaining-wall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2014\/05\/02\/baltimore-retaining-wall\/","title":{"rendered":"Baltimore retaining wall collapse &#8211; the remarkable video"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5>Baltimore Retaining Wall Collapse<\/h5>\n<p>The extraordinary collapse of a retaining wall between an urban street and a railway line within a cutting in Charles Town Baltimore has attracted a fair amount of attention this week.\u00a0 The collapse of the wall, and the consequent landslide, dropped several cars into the cutting.\u00a0 Remarkably, the collapse was caught on video, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=MrNluXrrHKY\">available on youtube:<\/a><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Baltimore Landslide\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/MrNluXrrHKY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>As someone noted on Twitter, the discussion between the people at the scene is quite interesting.\u00a0 I suspect that they might have been less close to the event if they had been aware of what was about to occur.<\/p>\n<p>The debris field created by the collapse in Baltimore is complex:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_9444\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2014\/05\/14_05-Baltimore-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9444\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9444\" alt=\"Baltimore\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2014\/05\/14_05-Baltimore-1.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"459\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2014\/05\/14_05-Baltimore-1.jpg 900w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2014\/05\/14_05-Baltimore-1-300x215.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-9444\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.abc2news.com\/news\/news-photo-gallery\/photos-baltimore-area-flooding\">abc2news<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">..<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Judging by the deposit, the retaining wall was a comparatively thin masonry structure with weak sediments (possibly, in part, fill) behind.\u00a0 The collapse occurred during heavy rainfall, which suggests that excess pore water pressures may have been a factor.\u00a0 It would be interesting to hear about the inspection regime on this structure and about the nature of the drainage system that was in place.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Two interesting aspects to highlight.\u00a0 First, if you watch the video the progressive development of the failure is evident.\u00a0 The car on the left develops an increasing tilt through time, which that on the right slowly subsides.\u00a0 This is a screenshot of the two cars at about 12 seconds from the start of the video:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2014\/05\/14_05-Baltimore-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-9445\" alt=\"Baltimore\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2014\/05\/14_05-Baltimore-2.jpg\" width=\"616\" height=\"486\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2014\/05\/14_05-Baltimore-2.jpg 616w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2014\/05\/14_05-Baltimore-2-300x236.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 616px) 100vw, 616px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">..<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">And these is the same two cars just before the collapse:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2014\/05\/14_05-Baltimore-3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-9446\" alt=\"Baltimore\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2014\/05\/14_05-Baltimore-3.jpg\" width=\"614\" height=\"479\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2014\/05\/14_05-Baltimore-3.jpg 614w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2014\/05\/14_05-Baltimore-3-300x234.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 614px) 100vw, 614px\" \/><\/a>..<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Second, the Google Street view image for the section of road that collapsed shows a very poorly maintained road surface with an interesting set of linear cracks running parallel to the retaining wall:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2014\/05\/14_05-Baltimore-4.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-9447\" alt=\"Baltimore\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2014\/05\/14_05-Baltimore-4.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"399\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2014\/05\/14_05-Baltimore-4.jpg 1528w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2014\/05\/14_05-Baltimore-4-300x187.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2014\/05\/14_05-Baltimore-4-1024x640.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">..<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">These linear cracks are not present to the east on the same street, even though the road surface is also poorly maintained.\u00a0 This section of course is not above the railway cutting:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2014\/05\/14_05-Baltimore-5.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-9448\" alt=\"Baltimore\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2014\/05\/14_05-Baltimore-5.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2014\/05\/14_05-Baltimore-5.jpg 1528w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2014\/05\/14_05-Baltimore-5-300x187.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2014\/05\/14_05-Baltimore-5-1024x640.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The collapse of a retaining wall in heavy rainfall in Baltimore was captured on video, which shows the progressive development of the failure<!-- AddThis Advanced 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--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":9444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,29],"tags":[469,959,963,161,48],"class_list":["post-9443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-landslide-report","category-landslide-video","tag-featured","tag-landslide-report","tag-landslide-video","tag-retaining-wall","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}