Thursday, August 02, 2007
Interstate Bridge Collapses During Rush Hour!
I was flipping channels last night and came across the footage of the I-35W bridge that collapsed during rush hour. It was horrible, the broke looked like it just snapped into pieces. Authorities say that traffic was bumper to bumper at the time the bridge collapsed sending cars 60 feet below into the Mississippi River. Governor Tim Pawlenty said that the bridge was inspected by the Dept. of Transportation in 2005 and 2006 and noted no major problems; well there is one now. The state of Minnesota could have a massive civil law suit on their hands when all this is over, interstate bridges don't just fall down every day. The bridge has no piers just a 458 ft. long steel arch holding it up, they didn't want to disrupt the flow of the river. My problem is that it seems unlikely that a bridge as important to traffic and used so often would not have shown signs of any kind of deterioration in 2005 or 2006. Massive structures like this take years to age and to me it seems that the aging would have been noticeable last year. As of right now there are at least seven states where the majority of the highway bridges do not meet standards, New York being the highest with 63%. Can you imagine if a bridge collapsed in New York during rush hour? It also occurred to me that states probably can't afford projects this big and would need funding through the Federal Govt., do does that mean that they didn't ask for the funding to try and fix the problems or has the govt. just not given them the funding?
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4 comments:
This is a huge problem that could possibly kill thousands of more lives if not corrected and taken into extreme consideration. The government needs to stop making money a big issue and start considering peoples lives. Money is a material object that doesn't go with us when we die. People's lives are at risk here, and I am so upset that the goverment is using the idea of spending money on repairing these bridges and comparing it to someones life. This is not a game.
I saw a report that issues were sited as far back as 1990. I haven't been able to confirm those reports though. I thought the government did give the state money for transportation maintainance. I need to look into it more I think.
I know the corrosion of the bridge was noticeable but why didn't anyone fix the problem before hand. Alot of the disasters that have been occurring seem prevenatble to me.
There is not a problem until a travesty occurs seems to be the motto of our government. With bridges collapsing, levees in New Orleans and even the NASA space shuttle disaster. The NASA space shuttles have been flying all the time with the same problems that destroyed Columbia. Basically, fiscally don't pay for something until you have to fix it.
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