Interstate 35 Bridge falls into the Mississippi River

[Sage]

I just found out my friend was over there when it happened. He was visiting his aunt and relatives. Although they are fine, it turns out his aunt usually takes that bridge on her daily commute, but took vacation time to hang out at home the day it collapsed. Nice timing, I say.
_________________

[CAPTAIN PLANET]

Yeah, the same sort of thing happened with a reporter from my city. She was going across the bridge before it happened, and then on her way back, it was closed, because of the collapse. It's a bridge a lot of people use every day. It's one of the major bridges in this area. If there's a possibility it was poorly built, and being used too much, that was the reason for the collapse. But, at this point, any theory could be possible, I suppose.
_________________
ard says:
I'll yank your pigtails and call you heidi
Mirage says:
ard, save the dirty talk for when we meet!

[Tullaryx]

I really don't think it's a question of whether it was poorly built. The fact it lasted 40 years means it was built pretty well. But any bridge, dam, highway, highrise and any other architectural and engineering piece of work will wear down with time and use. It's just unfortunate that this particular bridge wasn't renovated in time before its inevitable collapse.
_________________

[CAPTAIN PLANET]

Well, see, there are other bridges older than that one. There's a large blue birdge outside my city that goes across the Mississippi river that have been there since the city was built 150 years ago, and it has not had problem like that bridge.

In any case, there are about 15 other main bridges that will be inspected soon due to this incident. There are over 6000 bridges in this entire area (Minnesota and Wisconsin), but the 15 most-used ones will be inspected, so something like this doesn't happen again. Good news for us Minnesotans and Wisconsinites.
_________________
ard says:
I'll yank your pigtails and call you heidi
Mirage says:
ard, save the dirty talk for when we meet!

[Amyral]

Most of the bridges (nay, most infrastructure in general) in the US have major flaws, even the most widely used ones, that leave the potential for collapse. There are a variety of other factors that come into play, but a large percentage are in need of major repairs. One of the major reasons they don't get repairs is because it looks better for politicians to build new bridges as opposed to repairing old ones, so we get things like the Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska while major infrastructure went for decades without needed funding for repairs. Hopefully this incident will start to change that.

[Geddoe-9]