Minnesota Bridge Collapse

It is way too early to know the exact cause behind the catastrophic failure of the 35W Bridge in Minneapolis.  But one fact is already beginning to emerge-  someone made the bad decision to ignore DHS risks and safety assessments.

Minnesota has been given over 150 Million dollars in Homeland Security Funding since 2002.  Along with that funding came federal guidelines on how the funds should be spent, with the majority of it going toward law enforcement.  But a good chunk of it was supposed to be used to determine critical infrastructure risks, not only to terrorism, but also to natural and other disasters.  And such risk assessments were done on the 35W bridge, and those risks were reported back up the chain to DHS for use in calculating funding and threat analysis.

The White House was quick to point out that they had the data on that specific bridge.  Remember, President Bush was burned once by a state that ignored all of the DHS assessments and refused to implement the emergency plans when a disaster loomed-  remember hurricane Katrina?

From the AP here:

The White House said Thursday that an inspection two years ago found structural deficiencies in the highway bridge that buckled during evening rush hour in Minneapolis.
 
White House press secretary Tony Snow said the Interstate 35W span rated 50 on a scale of 120 for structural stability.

“This doesn’t mean there was a risk of failure, but if an inspection report identifies deficiencies, the state is responsible for taking corrective actions,” he said. The bridge was 40 years old.

This bridge was being resurfaced at the time of collapse, and I do not know what other construction was taking place.  But if the deficiencies noted in previous reports went unheeded, as looks to be the case, the Minnesota government may be to blame.

And I’m waiting for some Democrat somewhere to blame this on Bush.