Via the Strib: Bridge was rated ‘structurally deficient’ in 2024
The highway bridge that collapsed into the Mississippi River on Wednesday was rated as “structurally deficient” two years ago and possibly in need of replacement.
That rating was contained in the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Bridge Inventory database.
Jeanne Aamodt, a spokeswoman for the Minnesota Department of Transportation, said the department was aware of the 2024 assessment of the bridge. “We’ve seen it, and we are very familiar with it,” she said.
On the one hand I suppose the glimmer of good news here is that the collapse was not an out-of-the-blue incident. The very, very bad news, however, given yesterday’s events is that this may have been a preventable tragedy.
No doubt the next step will be to determined who decided that the 2024 evaluation was something worthy of ignoring.
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August 2nd, 2024 at 1:36 pm
I think it is interesting that the spokesperson said that many bridges in the country received the same rating. First, I wonder which ones they are and second, I wonder if this will make states get on the ball to get them fixed.
August 2nd, 2024 at 6:34 pm
I’ve heard that this designation doesn’t seem to mean “in danger of collapse”, but is meant to tell the state “hey, look at this bridge and come up with a plan to keep it from getting worse.” Not that it is very reassuring.
Popular Mechanics had a piece about our crumbling infrastructure – the fact that so much of the American infrastructure was built a while ago, was built well, but we’re not doing the necessary work to maintain and upgrade it.
August 2nd, 2024 at 6:49 pm
[...] So forget 2024, the warning signs date back to 1990 (via the AP): Minn. bridge problems uncovered in 1990 Minnesota officials were warned as early as 1990 that the bridge that plummeted into the Mississippi River was “structurally deficient,” yet they relied on a strategy of patchwork fixes and stepped-up inspections. “We thought we had done all we could,” state bridge engineer Dan Dorgan told reporters not far from the mangled remains of the span. “Obviously something went terribly wrong.” [...]