UPDATE at end.
Details are beginning to emerge about serious concerns about the safety of the I35W bridge prior to its collapse. Records observed by the Star Tribune
reveal that last year bridge officials talked openly about the possibility of the bridge collapsing -- and worried that it might have to be condemned.
This news is reported in an article titled Phone call puts brakes on bridge repair
Steel plate reinforcements were recommended to make the bridge safe, but this solution was not pursued. Officials denied in public interviews that money was a factor:
But at least three internal documents suggest that money was a consideration.
On Jan. 18, one day after MnDOT's Bridge Office opted to inspect rather than reinforce the bridge, Peterson apologized to an engineer in the department's Metro Design section that work put into the reinforcing project was for naught.
"We regret the additional work this has caused you and others in the district," Peterson wrote in an e-mail, "but I'm sure you agree that based on this new information it [is] appropriate that we postpone the project until we can determine if another option may [be] as safe and a more cost effective approach."
As reported earlier in the Star Tribune, MnDot decided to pursue a cheaper solution involving visual inspection. Rep. Obserstar (Democrat, MN) wants answers:
"Technology can discover microscopic cracks not visible to the naked eye and then measure their propagation and do the same with bridges," he said on the House floor. "The Minnesota Department of Transportation was offered the opportunity to use that technology and I am disappointed that the state rejected the opportunity to use that technology to test the structural integrity of the bridge that collapsed."
The technology Oberstar mentioned was offered to MnDOT in December by a California company, Materials Technology Inc. The company was seeking a $200,000 contract to use its new electro-chemical fatigue system on the I-35W bridge.
MnDOT turned it down, according to Oberstar.
It seems to many that the safety of citizens is being sacrificed in order to prevent tax increases. Governor Pawlenty has been adamant about not raising taxes. In response to a bipartisan bill that was passed to cover transportation in Minnesota, Pawlenty said "How dumb can they be?."
Literally wielding a big red VETO stamp to appease the no-tax crowd that remains hell-bent on a something-for-nothing relationship with government, Gov. Tim Pawlenty deep-sixed the bipartisan transportation bill. 'How dumb can they be?' he sneered of the lawmakers who dared approve a tax hike to fix the state's roads.
A pattern has emerged that republican's plans to drown government in the bathtub are having a serious negative impact on the health of the nation.
The Republican philosophy of spending without collecting money to pay the bills is naive. They have also spent the money wrecklessly on pork for its oil and corporate interests and on a misguided war. Although the blame for the bridge collapse cannot be, at this time, assigned to anyone, the philosophy that led to and our ailing national infrastructure it is clearly a republican one.
Update: KKJohnson requested in a comment that I add the following as an update about the situation in SE Minnesota.
Flooding of historic proportionsis happening in southern boot of Minnesota. People are dying, roads/railroad tracks are destroyed, and nursing homes are being evacuated. The infrastructure problems that the state faces are apparently increasing.
Image below complements of user Dhonig: