[buckalfa]

West Virginia has had more than its fair share of man involved tragedies in its history. I understand the human need for remembrance, yet the Mountain State seems fixated on its troubled past rather than focusing on what could be a prosperous future.

[Paladin2]

" ....the tragedy resulted in a new era of infrastructure safety. "

How did that Federal Policy change prevent this? :

[matthew fuller]

Remember Mothman!

[Hawthorn]

I guess the point here is that things weren’t the least bit pleasant 50 years ago at Point Pleasant.

[Flash Bazbeaux]

I knew of this from a book called “The Mothman Prophecies” by John Keel, which I read when it came out in 1975. It was made into a movie about fifteen years ago, which probably no one saw.

[Gil4]

Acting Federal Highway Administration administrator Brandye Hendrickson will speak about how the tragedy resulted in a new era of infrastructure safety.

In the 50 years prior to and including this event, there were 8 road bridge collapses in the U.S. In the 50 years since, there have been about 35. Thank you Big Brother Fed for making our roads so much safer. < /sarc>

List of bridge failures

I know it's not a fair comparison due to the increases in traffic, bridges, and reporting of these types of events, but I hate seeing the government make unsubstantiated claims of massive improvements resulting from their actions.

[GreenLanternCorps]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Bridge

Per the Wiki article, the bridge did not have an redundancy built in for failure.

When a single eyebar failed, the entire bridge went down.