Skagit River Bridge Collapses

Im sure you have probably seen the story on the news. I live right next to this bridge and drive (drove) over it everyday. Now traffic is horrible EVERYWHERE nearby because of the main freeway shut down. I'm going to have to wake up earlier to get to work now! Or buy a teleporter. I do bridge construction and scrap on the side, so I saw money in the water and above the water on a possible job close to home! anyway, just thought i'd bring it up here.

Pretty crazy. I actually bought the paper this morning due to this. I-5 isn't exactly rural... wth happened. I cross a mile long bridge daily. That thing breaks it gonna suck. Makes ya wonder what was missed and how. No one was killed, That is good. If it was farther south it might have been more populated. Washington state slacking? Aside from the Tacoma narrows how often do we lose bridges here? I thought Washington was decent with roads. Second I get into Idaho my car vibrates like a mofo. I always remember the patches of what I'll call "missing freeway" in Boise. Again, No serious injuries thankfully. Makes ya wonder though.

And now a day later they claim a truck it the girder. Funny, That truck isn't in the pictures. Think they are full of it. I saw no trucks in the paper pics. Did I miss something?

They said nothing about it in the paper or the local news. Just said it collapsed and showed a few vehicles in the water. Absolutely nothing oversized or odd. Passenger vehicles. Why wait nearly a day to bring on this oversized demolishing monstrosity. Makes no sense. I will scan the artical. No mention. Only "truck" was a chevy 1500. Certainly not carrying anything large. Poor guy is sitting on the hood wondering why his truck is totaled.

Yes that truck hit the bridge, and rattled the bridge enough to make possible weak points fail. And it fell in the water just as the truck crosssed. People keep saying there isn't much traffic up here in hick country north of seattle, but this is the main route for everyone from canada to seattle, and everyone inbetween. some 80,000 cars cross that bridge daily on a normal day. It is screwing up traffic bad, and it wont get better until the bridge is repaired or replaced. Possibly months.

What would happen if this happened in a major city on a major highway? Chaos. This is a wakeup call to some people. The average age of bridges in this country is 45 years. Bridges build 45 years ago and older, were build to last 50+ years. That means half of our bridges are at/beyond their expected lifespan. Bridges built today are designed with a 100+ year life expectancy. We need to start replacing bridges everywhere, but the goverments budget for road and bridge work is not nearly enough. This is a major problem in our country, that noone thinks about until something bad happens. And this problem is going to keep getting worse as time goes by, and the old bridges get older. Jack up taxes and start repairing? or Wait until they fail and deal with that problem when it comes? I don't know, but someone needs to figgure it out sooner than later.

We have so many dangerous and deteriorating bridges in this country. Think of the jobs that could provide. Meanwhile congress sits on it's...hands. Enough filabustering. Let's put America back to work.

If you think about it places like China and India and all them places have brand new bridges but we have outdated infrastructure.