US News
Collapsed US bridge was rated "deficient" (2nd Roundup)
Aug 2, 2007, 20:31 GMT
Washington - An eight-lane highway bridge that plunged 20 metres into the Mississippi River during rush-hour traffic, killing at least four people, had been rated structurally troubled by the US government, officials said Thursday.
With police saying 20 to 30 people may be missing, the death toll was expected to rise after Wednesday's disaster on the 40-year-old span linking the cities of Minneapolis and St Paul in the northern state of Minnesota.
But strong river currents and wreckage hampered divers searching for bodies suspected in the debris, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty said. About 80 other people were injured in the collapse.
US President George W Bush pledged the federal government's support to deal with 'the terrible situation' and rebuild the bridge quickly. The government offered Minnesota an initial 5 million dollars in aid to help get traffic moving again.
The disaster on the heavily travelled bridge focussed attention on the nation's ageing infrastructure, including the national highway system that is an economic lifeline.
'This is America. Bridges shouldn't just fall down,' said Amy Klobuchar, a US senator from Minnesota.
Mark Rosenker, head of the government's National Transportation Safety Board, said it was too early to say what caused the disaster. Experts will review video of the collapse and may reconstruct part of the bridge to help their investigation, he said.
Cracks were found in the bridge's steel in the 1990s, but the problem was addressed and did not worsen, state officials said.
When the span was last inspected in June 2006, its state of repair was rated 4 on a scale of 0-9, making it 'structurally deficient,' the US Transportation Department said.
But the rating signalled no imminent danger and the ill-fated span was slated for replacement only about 2020, officials said.
'It was by no means that this bridge was not safe,' said US Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, who travelled to the disaster site. 'None of those ratings indicated that there was any kind of danger here.'
About 13 per cent of the country's nearly 600,000 bridges are rated structurally deficient, Minnesota Congressman James Oberstar said.
State politicians paid tribute to rescuers and ordinary citizens who tried to help victims, including a woman who dived repeatedly into the river. One severely injured man was able to say goodbye to his family on his mobile phone before dying, police said.
'This is a horrific incident that takes your breath away and sinks your heart,' Pawlenty told reporters.
The bridge, built in 1967 and including a 140-metre section across the river, was undergoing surface repairs when it crashed.
The disaster sparked debate about the decaying state of the US interstate highway system, launched in the late 1950s by then president Dwight D Eisenhower.
Eisenhower, a US general in Europe during World War II, was inspired by the autobahns in Germany pushed by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
Officials first put the confirmed death toll at up to nine, but revised it to four early Thursday. By dawn Thursday, rescuers said they had little hope of finding more survivors in the crumpled wreckage of the steel-truss bridge.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-AgenturCOMMENT
blog comments powered by DisqusLatest Headlines in US
- 1. Mitt Romney Addresses Tea Party Summit Pictures
- 2. Seven injured as US Navy plane crashes into apartments
- 3. At least three injured in US Navy plane crash
- 4. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, others to face death penalty trial
- 5. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, four others to face death penalty trial
Older Talkback
page: 1
Maybe the over use of cars, the lack of sufficient funds due to the pointless war in Iraq and the oversized proportions of the majority of Americans has more far reaching consequences than first imagined.?
Yess, this is th President...
Govnah, I saw it on th TV...a tragedah suh!
What? Me?
Guvnah, when ah wuz Guvnah of Texass, I seem t remembah I was in chahge of pubic safety on bridges. Nevah had one fall, not a one o thim, boyh, not even th one's going t Mexico, n matta hoow much we wanted em to!
Ah also see heah whire we told ya th damn thing wuz a risk...did ya think we wuz kiddin? What'd ya doo boyh? Ya jus fergit? Ya put th funds inta health care or sumpin?
S ya git back t me and I'll hep ya all I cin, git ya sum o those haway funds y fergot t git on ya oown, OK boyh?
Yoou sound busy o thire. I'll call latah. See ya now.
No doubt!
...mean to you?
Does it mean you have until 2020 to repair it?
Does it mean GWB somehow failed?
I don't think so.
It means they were warned back in the Clinton era.
It means they ignored it.
Now folks are dead.
GWB is not to blame. (is he you worthless libnazis?)
Just like Katrina.(you worthless libnazis)
What a tragedy. It's like communicable disease: The program to eradicate it is usually defeated before the disease is defeated.
A 2005 survey states that 25 percent of civil engineering structures are deficient in the USA,including levees,dams,schoolbuildings and bridges.
Already the Katryna disaster brought to attention the sorry state of the levees .Those were inspected in the aftermeth by dutch engineers and found to be of cheap unefficient design,due to collapse during major bad weather .Complaints had already emanated from the concerned departments that the Bush cutbacks on the budget were dangerous .No attention was given to it .Even now when the budget for 2008 is being displayed it is noticed that the budget for education and health care is again reduced and military spending is raised with 10 percent .Yet the moron SP4 still is tryin to lay the blame with your previous administration.Yet it is Bush and Chenay that have reduced your federal budgets for maintenance in order to divert more money into the war in Iraq .Does this guy even know that 20 percent of your bridges are structurally deficient ?
What Comrade Tonny doesn't tell you is that monies are more than available for this kind of work, but the inverted priorities and corrupt state of civil construction in the united states makes getting new ones almost impossible. New Orleans is the gold standard, which is why Florida can manage Hurricanes and they cannot.
States, Tonny, not the Federal government, are responsible for ramrodding the infrastructure replacement process. This means that the corrupt big city and state apparatuchicks ignore this infrastructure daily.
In my state, the libnazi governor waxes on and on about clean energy (i.e. he exports it to a state where they make dirty power and then imports it to make him look good to his sychophantic constituants) as coast range roads and bridges fail repeatedly. We have spent 5 to 8 billion dollars on a failed libnazi light rail system and our roads would even be worse if Republican Gordon Smith had not put his foot down on matching funds for the rest of Oregon.
Examples? Highway 26 has NEVER been without orange pylons in the 28 years I've lived here. Hell they ought to construct permenant shops for the construction! A tunnel collapsed killing a man inside. The state KNEW it was suspect.
No Tonny, the Interstate sytem relies on the states to make it happen, and now that Congress is controlled by the liberals, let's see how efficent THEY are. Hopefully better than the libnazi running my state.
Tonny, not the bridge. America has known about this forever, but it's true the state is responsible. The feds told them about this 10 years ago, and countless other bridges. The buck stops at the statehouse, not the White House. For all his bluster, SP4 is right.
The feds tell you a structure is substandard for the purpose of informing the state to get it remedied, not to push it out 25 years. In my state, they knew a bridge had bad sheaves, but dragged their feet for almost 10 years to fix it.
The states are on the hook for road maintainence. I work for them and it's on our heads to make repairs, plain and simple. I do not know where this eurotrash gets his propaganda, but it ain't flyin here.
That's what I thought! Eurotrash...fits, don't it?
You got it! You put in a toll, build a sinking fund (not a pun) or a thousand other ways to get this done. No Bush excuses allowed. States have been successfully maintaining infrastructure for one hundred years, if their governments are on the job.
They can get dollars for a bridge to nowhere, but not to Minneapolis.
page: 1
West Virginia Working ManAug 2nd, 2007 - 21:05:50
Wonder how many bridges we've paid for in Iraq so far. End the stupid 'Bush/Cheney' War! Spend some of our tax money on US!
Report this comment