Minneapolis Bridge Had Passed Inspections - New York Times

This Minneapolis bridge collapse is nuts. And this is the kind of little detail that just might make somebody think...

Minneapolis Bridge Had Passed Inspections - New York Times: "Additionally, officials said the bridge’s design had been considered outmoded for decades because a single failure of a structural part could bring down the whole bridge. About 11 percent of the nation’s steel bridges, mostly from the 1950s and 1960s, lack the redundant protection to reduce these failures, federal officials said.

...On Thursday, the United States Department of Transportation said it had told all states to inspect bridges similar in design and construction to the one that collapsed, or to review inspection reports. The department said there were 756 such bridges."

And here I thought everything was built redundantly here in the United States. These kind of things happen in former Soviet republics (insert joke here about Wellstone and the people's republic of Minnesota).

I know, or at least thought I knew, that the NYC bridges are massively overbuilt because they didn't have computers to gauge tolerances finely. I am sort of up on the "things falling apart" realm since I've just about finished reading the book that details how human infrastructure will collapse when people disappear [The World Without Us. Incidentally, the book is ok, really as much about the human impact on the landscape and environment as it is about end times. It is so hard to find a good end times book, is it not? Other than the Book of Daniel. Or the Book of Revelations. Ot the book of the Seven Seals]

It does make me wonder who the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel is built. Remember, this is the South. Riding proudly at the bottom of most all indicators. (although Virginia is the #1 pro-business state in the US, meaning low wage and anti-union and open season on the environment If things are collapsing in squeaky-clean Midwestern Minnesota we might be in for it. I really don't relish finding out who cut corners when. This is the same interstate, you will recall, where they had to rebuild the Mercury blvd exit section because after finishing it several years late, it turns out that water pooled in the middle of the interstate and the whole thing had to be restarted.