Yes, our prayers must go up to all those who are in need of them. And I will add mine to yours.
However, the American Society of Civil Engineers conducts periodic nationwide surveys to determine the viability of civil infrastructure, including bridges. They have consistently concluded that at least 20%-25% of the bridges in the USA are structurally deficient in some way or another, and that at least one bridge in the U.S. totally collapses each week on average.
Of course the majority of these are those on deserted stretches of country roads and railroads that have been there a half century or more. But every once in a while things happen to direct our short term attention to the overall problems. The recent explosion of an 80 year old steam pipe in Manhattan, NYC was yet another reminder of the overall problem, as was the failure of the dykes in New Orleans during the hurricanes, two years ago now.
The real issue is, of course, whether the politicians in the USA have the political will and committment to face up to these sorts of responsibilities financially over the long haul to ameliorate the problem. The health care system here is another glaring deficiency in the USA by any measure. Could be it's time to start investing less money in the military-industrial-entertainment complex and redirect some increased measure of funds to the civil-educational-health infrastructure. Seems pretty simple to me.
This particular bridge was found to be structurally deficient two years ago with a rating score of 50 out of 120. Not a passing grade. Now there will be all sorts of finger pointing and scapegoating to fix blame upon some poor souls, when the truth is that 90% of interstate roadway projects in the USA are usually federally funded, and we all know where that money's been going the past dozen years or so don't we ?
flow....
