A bridge that crosses the Yellowstone River in Montana collapsed early Saturday, plunging portions of a freight train carrying hazardous materials into the rushing water below. The train cars were carrying hot asphalt and molten sulfur, Stillwater County Disaster and Emergency Services said. Officials shut down drinking water intakes downstream while they evaluated the danger after the 6 a.m. accident.
If only there was someone willing to speak about the state of infrastructure in this country.
At this point it seems like the infrastructure has decided to speak for itself.
“If you fail to schedule time for maintenance, the machine will schedule it for you” is a common refrain in manufacturing. I’m consistently amazed that we fail to inspect and maintain our roads and bridges.
The cost of repairs and fines has been considered and corporate says profits will not be harmed. Current plan is to defer all maintenance and continue removing remaining safety recommendations as analysis suggests the cost benefit at the anticipated failure rate has a net positive benefit of nearly 0.07% increase in operating profit.
This sounds both made up but factually accurate.
That might be the case but this might have been one of the bridges in the 2022 flood that came through Yellowstone. The flooding was such that many bridges had their piers scoured and even a brand new bridge wouldn’t survive if its piers had been significantly impacted.
So yeah, this could be an infrastructure issues, in fact it’s likely. But that area had an unprecedented flood that we still do not know the full extent of damage done. It could have been a brand new bridge or the flooding could have exacerbated a pre-existing condition. It’s a bit early to point to the main contributing factor that led up to this event.
That said, this nation is still in need of a massive infusion of funds into the various infrastructure that has been on perpetual deferred maintenance. If this nation does not implement a sustained long-term commitment to fully fund infrastructure and put it above petty politics, then our economy, our industry, and more importantly our way of life will massively suffer.
In an event like that, I would expect a complete inspection of the piers and any other elements that may have been affected. If the bridge is damaged enough for this kind of collapse to be possible, we should be either closing it or limiting it to light traffic until repairs can be made. Stuff like this shouldn’t be left to to chance, and the fact that it seems to be that way so frequently in the US should be terrifying, and entirely unacceptable. We should be demanding better infrastructure with budgets for maintenance baked in.
Unfortunately there was just no way to prevent this!