Of bridges and public safety

[e_juliana]

Reading the coverage of 35W's collapse into the Mississippi on Tuesday, one thing has struck me: Governor Tim Pawlenty is sounding an awful lot like Andrew Speaker, the now-infamous TB patient. I amy be reading too much in-bewtween the lines, but his consistent message has sounded to me like "we knew there was danger, but we didn't think it was dangerous enough to fix before 2020." Kinda sounds like "the CDC told me I had TB, but they never explicitly told me not to travel," doesn't it?

And yeah, it's easy to armchair quarterback over here, but I don't hear either of these men taking responsibility - either for their actions (in Speaker's case) or for what happened on their watch (in Pawlenty's case). Pawlenty has followed a strict program of "No New Taxes", which has helped him get re-elected. I can't help but think that this has contributed to tight state budgets, which means that things like transportation and infrastructure get pushed down the list of priorities, because they're not as sexy as a new Guthrie. I'm also very aware that the federal government hasn't had the money to give to repair the federal highway system, because why? Oh, that's right - we're in a quagmire of a war that was a bad idea to begin with.

About the bridge: It was rated at 50% and deemed "structurally deficient" in 2005, though it was noted that there was no fatigue cracking, and therefore it was not deemed necessary to replace the bridge prematurely. In 2006, it was noted that there were fatigue cracks.

Here's what chaps me the most - apparently, there was no redundancy built into the bridge. That kind of design has no redundancy, and there's a lot more bridges with that design scattered across the midwest. I don't get that. I seriously don't get that. Just because the midwest isn't on the Ring of Fire doesn't mean that there's never earthquakes - to use one example of random geological happenings. What if an F5 tornado ripped through?

Seriously - can anyone explain why you'd build a bridge with no redundant support structure??

Other thoughts:

It's certainly not the only time a bridge has collapsed, nor is it the most deadly time. It is being pointed to as a symbol of our country's aging infrastructure, and I think that's a good comparison. It's going to cost a lot of money and take a lot of time to repair the infrastructure of our highways and bridges. I sincerely don't envy any politician or head engineer stuck with that.

A photoset from someone who lives/lived as close to the bridge as possible.

Comments

[going-not-gone.livejournal.com]

Nodding like a bobblehead here.

As one of the small percentage who actually benefited from this Administration's tax cuts? I'd rather pay taxes and have my infrastructure maintained, thank you.

[kat-food.livejournal.com]

The bridge was built in 1967. Not sure about redundancy, but from listening to news reports it sounds like things like fatigue stress were not considered when building bridges back then. And, it was felt, not needed. So you can't blame the current government for a bridge built in 1967. Why it was not updated and why the administration chose the cheaper option of just "monitoring" it, instead of adding supports well... I think the phrase "cheaper option" is your answer.

I have serious issues with the argument that the war in Iraq is taking away from our infrastructure. It is very dangerous to assume that the money for THAT would have been money appropriated to infrastructure spending, and then that that money would have somehow filtered down to that specific bridge. Just as it would be inappropriate to say that the money raised in taxes for the new stadium could have been spent on infrastructure. Yes, it could - but then how do you know that the I35W bridge would be the one they'd repair? Right now they're spending money on redoing Highway 62. Hindsight is 20/20.

In my opinion, the fault lies in a bunch of people who either failed to see the signs, or saw the signs, mistakenly felt they weren't a big deal, and opted for the cheaper option of just "inspecting" it. The fault lies with all of us, though, for having fucked up priorities and voting for politicians who promise no new taxes and tout "sexy" issues (like stadiums).

There WAS a guy from MNDOT who said something like "we thought we'd done everything. Obviously, we made a mistake." That was nice to hear.

[e-juliana.livejournal.com]

I took a lazy shortcut (my bad), but the fact does remain that massive amounts of money are going to the conflict, which is taking away from all the rest of the federal government's responsibilities/funding/etc. I'm not saying that infrastructure would get all the money if the war wasn't being fought, but infrastructure (was) way down on everyone's list. It's just not sexy. However, if there was more room in the various budgets, perhaps it would have gotten more in general.

I'm not expressing myself very clearly. Sorry.

[j0nas3.livejournal.com]

I remember the Schoharie Creek bridge. The NY Thruway is Interstate 90, and I remember reading about it back then, and for nearly a year later we had to take a huge detour down south to another bridge. I was talking about it with my brother the other day, in fact. I did not know that 10 people died, though. :-o