This is one of those stories I have to be careful with. The basic story is that a milling machine toppled partly into water when a section of the river bridge it was working on collapsed.It is not the I-35W story again, and it is not blogged here as a sensational story. If anything the Minnesota connection is coincidence. It is a small story and no one was apparently badly injured.
But the story is important because there is no doubt left that a worryingly high percentage of America’s bridges are in bad shape and the lack of funding the industry faces means far too many of them will stay that way.I have just finished editing Better Roads November cover story which inventories America’s bridges. The numbers aren’t good.
So these stories will happen. This collapse is a symptom of the problem. I don’t want to scare people and make more of this than it is, but the public is largely unaware or in some cases uncaring, about the reality of our crumbling infrastructure. They need to know this is a real problem with real consequences to everyday life.
Bridges will not start falling like pieces of sky, I’m not in a Chicken Little suit here. But poor bridges need fixing. Period.
Read the entire bridge collapse story from the Worthington Daily Globe
