[confoundcofound]

I’m neither an engineer nor an architect, so this may come off as incredibly naive, but why wouldn’t layers of reinforcement — eg a retaining wall or guardrail — some distance out and around the main pillars help mitigate this kind of risk?

[pandaman]

It would. Places, where rivers freeze, manage to build bridges that do not get crushed by the moving ice using this technology.

[Tuna-Fish]

The amount of force involved is much greater than involved with moving ice.