759 Bridges In [Washington] State Have Worse Sufficiency Scores

[Kennah]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/24/washington-bridge-collapse_n_3331536.html

There are more than 700 bridges in Washington State with worse sufficiency scores than the bridge that collapsed into the Skagit River on Thursday night, according to the Seattle Times.

The collapse of the Interstate 5 bridge around 7 p.m. apparently led to no fatalities, although it did drop at least two cars into the river and sent at least three people to the hospital. It still isn't clear what exactly compromised the bridge, but witnesses have told reporters that it appeared a truck carrying an oversized load clipped one of the bridge's girders just before the structure buckled.

The Times reports that, according to federal records, the bridge in question has a sufficiency rating of 57.4 out of 100, which is well below the state average of 80. Yet 759 other bridges have even worse marks.

As Seattle Weekly noted, just this week the Seattle section of the American Society of Civil Engineers, an infrastructure lobbying group, released its report card on the state's bridges, granting an aggregate score of C-minus "due to a lack of planned funding and inadequate maintenance." The report said there were "nearly 400 structurally deficient bridges in Washington State," and that "36 percent of Washington’s bridges are past their design life of 50 years."

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Well, isn't THAT just fucking lovely. It's enough to make one look into an Amphicar, or a kayak.

[malaise]

1. Here's a great report

http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/bridges/

[Gregorian]

2. I had a prof in a 1989 engineering course who traveled the US and reported back with evidence.

1989. I sat in the lectures over several weeks and saw the crumbling state of America's bridges. The corrosion, mainly.

I've posted on this long ago. What I don't understand is why it takes a crisis for humans to wake up.

The problem that eclipses our infrastructure is still being all but ignored by the people who blindly go about their lives today. We're at 400 parts per million of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere, and it's as thought the party is raging on.

This is old news that just has been shoved on the back burner while we bomb the world by credit card.

I'm not posting to be critical of your post at all. I applaud all the threads I see on the subject now. But I post out of sheer loss of understanding just why people are so god damned slow to respond to disasters that they can't see and feel.

[Kennah]

3. I totally get what you are saying

I think people, myself included, get burnt out and just shrug it off until something like this happens--perhaps foolishly hoping we'll wake up.

Same with 400 PPM of CO2. Are we awake yet? No? OK, fine, buy some SPF 800K.