Galloping Gertie and the Canoe

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When Structure Ignores Process

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In the early 1940s, engineers constructed a suspension bridge across the Tacoma Narrows in Washington State. The design was elegant, modern, and efficient. At the time, it represented advanced engineering practice. Within four months of opening, the bridge collapsed.¹

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Before it failed, however, it behaved strangely. The bridge did not simply break under load or weather. It oscillated. Twisted. Bounced. Swayed. The motion was dramatic enough that the structure earned a nickname: Galloping Gertie. The bridge appeared to be responding to forces it had not been designed to accommodate.

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The bridge was designed as though the wind were an external factor—something to be endured rather than engaged. In practice, the wind became an active participant in the system. The structure did not fail because of a single storm or extraordinary event. It failed because of resonance: a repeated interaction between structure and environment that the design had not anticipated.²

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Long before the bridge was built, Indigenous peoples traveled those same waters in canoes. This was not a matter of technological limitation or romantic preference. Canoes were shaped by long observation of the currents, winds, and narrow passages of the Narrows. They were not optimized for speed or dominance. They were optimized for navigation and survival within a dynamic system.

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The difference between the bridge and the canoe is not one of sophistication versus simplicity. Both required intelligence. Both required design. The difference lies in how each relates to its environment.

 

The bridge imposed a static structure onto a moving system. The canoe emerged from sustained interaction with that system

 

This distinction highlights the difference between structure and process. Structure defines constraints. Process describes how those constraints are engaged over time. When structure ignores process, even well-intentioned designs can fail. Galloping Gertie was not evil, nor was it morally arrogant. It was designed to work under general conditions. It was simply certain that those conditions applied everywhere.

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The difference between the bridge and the canoe is not one of sophistication versus simplicity. Both required intelligence. Both required design.

​

The difference lies in how each relates to its environment. The bridge imposed a static structure onto a moving system. The canoe emerged from sustained interaction with that system.

​

This distinction highlights the difference between structure and process. Structure defines constraints. Process describes how those constraints are engaged over time. When structure ignores process, even well-intentioned designs can fail. Galloping Gertie was not evil, nor was it morally arrogant. It was designed to work in general conditions. It was simply certain that those conditions applied everywhere.

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Four months after completion, the bridge began to gallop and, as a result, tore itself apart. There was no sabotage, no storm of record, and no external enemy. The wind did what it always did. The structure could not adapt.

When the bridge was rebuilt, the design changed. Engineers incorporated lessons from observation, experience, and failure. The new structure acknowledged the ongoing process of the environment rather than treating it as a background variable. The replacement bridge still stands—not because engineering abandoned rigor, but because it accepted natural constraints.³

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This pattern is not limited to engineering. Many failures occur not because of malice, but because certainty replaces attention. When systems—whether physical, social, or institutional—are treated as static problems rather than living processes, they become brittle. They may function briefly, but they cannot adapt.

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The canoe did not conquer the Narrows. It navigated them. Galloping Gertie attempted to stand still in a moving world. The world did not change. The engineers did—by adapting to the constraints they had discovered.

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Sometimes the lesson is not that better answers are required. Sometimes the lesson is that before acting, it is necessary to ask what the system being entered already knows.

 

​Endnotes / Citations

1. Billah, K. Y., & Scanlan, R. H. (1991). Resonance, Tacoma Narrows Bridge failure, and undergraduate physics textbooks. American Journal of Physics, 59(2), 118–124.

2. Larsen, A. (2000). Aerodynamic aspects of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge failure. Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics, 82(1–3), 1–17.

3. Petroski, H. (1992). To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design. Vintage Books.