"It's More Like A Thunk"!

Two months ago, while gazing out the windows on the top floor of the Columbia County Mental Health Center at 325 Columbia Street, I decided that a picture of a passing truck 2 floors below in the distance might fit nicely in a future HUDseen article concerning the topic of our controversial and unwelcome truck route.  I took two pictures of trucks headed east on the truck route, the first being one of ADM's oddly shaped grain trucks headed to the plant in Greenport and the other of yet another tractor trailer just passing through Hudson to get somewhere else.  Both of them had several wheels and lots of rubber on the road.

This morning, while seated a few feet from those same east-facing windows in the waiting area, I suddenly felt the unmistakable sensation of my body shaking.  Not a lot of shaking, and only for a second or two, but certainly the floor below me and the chair I was sitting in were moving.  I immediately stood and went to the window to see if a truck had just passed the building.  Sure enough, an ADM grain truck (it's more than a truck, really) was in about the same spot and moving in the same direction as the one I had taken a picture of 2 months before, today's truck also having just passed within no more than 15 feet of the building.  Unlike me, the two or three other people seated in the room did not seem startled at all.  I had to ask the receptionist about what I had just felt. 

Notice the cracks on the parking lot surface

She almost laughed when I asked her if she had just felt the building shake.  She paused for a second as if to recall the shaking that had not phased her.  "Yes, I felt it, too.  It was another truck passing by -- we feel it when certain trucks pass, especially the heavy ones."

"Does it concern you at all?" I asked.

"No.  Buildings are designed to handle vibrations, like those from earthquakes.  We really felt the recent earthquake up here."

"How often do you think you feel the passing trucks shaking the building?" I asked.

"Probably twice a day, sometimes more."

Later on, I asked another employee if they felt the building shake regularly.  She told me, without nearly laughing, "Oh, yeah! We feel it every day."

"Does it concern you?"  I asked.

"No, not really," she replied.  "Though sometimes it's more than just a shake.  It's more like a thunk, and it's a little startling."

Another septic truck causing more damage!
Once this street starts to fail, it fails fast
and ugly!

Does DPW have a plan?  Does the 
county care?  The smoother the street is, 
the fewer vibrations trucks create --  
"Especially from the heavy ones!"

I've never heard of any Columbia County Supervisors from outside Hudson complain that Hudson's truck route has got to be rerouted before 325 Columbia needs to be razed or it comes down on its own, have you?  Of course not, because that might bring the truck route through their town instead!

One wonders if the County DPW has hired a structural engineer to check the integrity of 325 Columbia's foundation to see how it is faring from all the shaking and thunking that the steady stream of passing super-heavy vehicles continually cause by the minute, hour, day, week, month, year and for the past decades.  

If I owned a large building where hundreds of tractor trailers and other heavy, multi-wheeled vehicles passed close by every day, I would be just as concerned with the perceptible vibrations caused by passing vehicles as with the much more numerous imperceptible vibrations.  And I would want to do something about the problem, not just wait and hope.

The street is sinking and separating from the curb  
before our eyes.  What vehicles could possibly be 
 doing such serious damage?   It's so very attractive 
and looks so safe, like DPW has got things
under control, right?   
(Eastbound Columbia at 6th)