Thank you, very interesting reading! I too think it was MNDOT who failed to either recognize the danger signs or act on them expediently.
I also thought maybe we need to change how we do bridge inspections. But if you can see the danger signs in the report, then others should have too. I think the exclamation points were from a different (perhaps earlier) inspection report.
Like people said about 9/11, it seems we suffered from a lack of imagination...we couldn’t imagine this bridge collapsing!
> But if you can see the danger signs in the report, then others should have too.
It is not hard to see problem areas in something that has already fallen down. I have absolutely no doubt that the engineers who inspected this bridge did not think it would last the 10 to 15 more years that was planned (remember they were redecking the bridge, not just patching potholes or resurfacing it — that means they were not planning to replace it for many years).
The fault lays with the higher-ups in the MNDOT who bowed to political pressure to NOT spend money there so the politicians could spend it elsewhere. The MNDOT higher-ups will probably retire early or be publicly disgraced, but the politicians are probably distanced enough from the disaster to escape the voters wrath — if such a thing even exists.
Anybody want to speculate how many politicians will lose the next election over this stupidity? I take the number — zero.