Just a few observations on the earthquake. I came back through Mexicalli on Sunday. Damage was very evident just south of town. There were buildings collapsed and small tent villages were set up. Many houses, all adobe, had severely cracked walls.
They were still fixing the roads. Most of the major damage was fixed. There were still spots with cracks, and sunken sections. There was one 1 inch ledge I dropped off of on the way up that was not fixed yet.
There is a toll road that by-passes the town going east. It had several over-passes that were damaged, one significantly. I didn't get the camera out fast enough and there was traffic making it hard to pull off. I will try to describe the damage.
This over-pass was built like ours ... to some degree. One end of the over-pass was "fixed" meaning it didn't float. The other end of the over-pass was built to float. In other words it was not structurally attached to the adjacent side and was allowed to move in an earthquake. Well, it moved all right. There was about a 2 foot separation/gap.
There were two columns on either end as well. Just to the outside of each column the bridge was cracked all the way through. It looks like the over-pass had bounced on top of the column and when it came down it cracked. The road was not flat on top. All of the over-passes were built exactly the same, and they all had the same damage to some degree.
