How the Golden Gate Bridge averted Disaster

Added: 2026-05-16

[00:00:00]This is the bridge that rolled six-foot waves through its deck in a 1951 windstorm. The Golden Gate Bridge, built in 1937, was the longest suspension bridge of its time. But how did a bridge that was designed to bend up to 21 ft during hurricane force winds end up pitching 11 ft during a storm that was half of its strength? Well, it had to do with a controversial theory, a sister bridge that collapsed and an engineer that tried to warn them. Let's go back to 1929. That's when the consulting engineer Leon Moyes convinced chief engineer Joseph Strauss to scrap his original design and build on what Moyes called deflection theory. The idea, a longer, thinner, more flexible deck would bend with the wind instead of fighting against it. The result was a 4,200 ft main span across the Golden Gate Straight, 746 ft high towers, and a deck designed to flex 21 ft in 90 mph winds. It was elegant, and it was a marvel. 3 years later, the same theory killed the bridge. On November 7th, 1940, Moyesf's Tacoma Narrow's Bridge twisted itself apart in 42 mph winds, and the only fatality was a Cocker Spaniel named Tubby. Russell Conn, the Golden Gates resident engineer, had watched his own bridges deck ripple like a cracking whip. He reported it to the federal investigators studying the Tacoma collapse. Years later, district politics would cost him his job before the storm would prove him right. Then came December 1st, 1951. A windstorm with gust up to 69 mph hit the straight.

[00:01:43]The roadway began to ripple, one side pitch higher than the other. Apparently, the street lights in the center of the bridge started hitting the cables above.

[00:01:51]In 2012, former chief engineer Daniel Moan said that the storm quote almost destroyed the Golden Gate Bridge end quote. On 2 p.m. on that day in 1951, officials closed the bridge, the first weather closure in its 14-year history.

[00:02:08]It reopened luckily at 6:00 p.m. From 1953 to 1954, the Golden Gate Bridge District added lateral and diagonal bracing under the deck, increasing its resistance to twisting by 35%. Today, that hidden steelwork beneath the deck is what holds the bridge steady against every storm that howls through the straight. Let me know, do you think other bridges in America should be retrofitted before the next big storm?

[00:02:34]Stay curious, my