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