I-5 bridge collapse in WA state

[redfox]

I have driven this literally thousands of times. Insanity.

http://blogs.seattletimes.com/today/...-skagit-river/

[Tussiemussies]

Just saw two pictures of this on Facebook. They said no one died...thankfully...

[redfox]

An architect friend posted this, after talking with a structural engine friend of his:


"wow, sounds like an oversized load vehicle hit the bridge, damaged the truss, made it over the bridge and then the whole bridge came down. human error, not deteriorated structure this time around. really knowledgeable eye witness talking to King 5 at the moment. experienced truck driver who was just in front on the truck when it hit as he watched in his rear view mirror."

[ApatheticNoMore]

Yea crazy, for anyone not west coast familiar, the I-5 is THE major interstate running north past the Canadian border and south I don't know how far south, past the Mexican border maybe. And yes, it just decided to collapse today. I was like, I know we live in more and more of a 3rd world country and all that, and the infrastructure is falling apart, but really?!? Not just a bridge somewhere, but a major interstate. Interesting if it wasn't crumbling infrastructure.

[lhamo]

Maybe now those idiots in Olympia will stop all this silly business about "we can't raise taxes" and actually get back to the business of governing the state and making the difficult choices that need to be made so that everything doesn't just keep crumbling and disintegrating around us. It is ridiculous how our politics/tax system has come to be controlled by Tim Eyman and the Tea Party and how the part of the state that generates most of the tax base isn't even allowed to tax itself when it wants to to improve its infrastructure.

Thank god nobody was seriously injured or killed.

[Rosemary]

It was over 5 years ago that the bridge collapse in Minneapolis occurred, and they rated all the bridges in the state, and found that a huge percentage of them were in need of serious repair or replacement. Some of them have had attention since then, but I think most have likely been forgotten...

[sylvia]

This was totally unacceptable. There was a show briefly on the Discovery channel called "The crumbling of America". It showed the magnitude of outdated bridges that needed repair(which local governments pleaded with the feds to only get declined for federal assistance).The cause has no yet been determined however it is clear that structural integrity was at question here. Even if a truck is oversized the bridge must have handled it in the past many times. Now it couldn't do it anymore because it needed to be shut down due to age and wear. Thank God no one died however will it improve anything? Does someone really have to die to wake people up?

[bae]

This is a bridge on the federal Interstate system, and as such the Feds pay for 90/95% of the costs. So I might look to blame Washington DC and the idiots there who throw away our money on our war machine, before I got all upset with Tim Eyman (a fellow who writes citizens's initiatives, that the people of the State then vote on...) and the "idiots in Olympia".

[redfox]

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/201...of-seattle/?hp

[iris lily]

It's amazing that no one was killed. Amazing!