Minneapolis Bridge difficult to inspect
Difficult? That is the going excuse? I can imagine telling a patient that it would be difficult to stabilize his heart. We would have to use a bunch of different medicines. They all would have different side effects. I would have monitor several different things at once. That would be too difficult. The patient would make a bee line to the door and find someone who was willing to do the tough work.
If the bridge was difficult to inspect for whatever reason why weren’t arrangements made to make the job easier. There was a problem with pigeon poop and bat dropping. Why wasn’t the fire department called in to blast those areas with their high pressure hoses? There was also a problem with the motion of the bridge. Couldn’t you shut the bridge down for several hours in order to get the job done? Because this was an important high traffic bridge couldn’t we use a team of inspectors?
As a trauma surgeon, I always see danger. That’s my job. It seems like weighing the risks of not getting a quality inspection verses the benefits of knowing exactly what the problems are would be governor’s job wouldn’t it?
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From NYT:
In the past two years, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota twice vetoed legislation to raise the state’s gas tax to pay for transportation needs.
Now, with at least five people dead in the collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge here, Mr. Pawlenty, a Republican, appears to have had a change of heart.
“He’s open to that,” Brian McClung, a spokesman for the governor, said Monday of a higher gas tax. “He believes we need to do everything we can to address this situation and the extraordinary costs.” (more…)
Say the word “Republican” and I pull out my favorite quote by economist John Kenneth Galbraith: “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”
Thanks to Tom at http://undercoverblue.blogspot.com/ for publishing it on his web site.
A lot of things were overlooked in this situation. There has been talk about the bird droppings obscuring some areas of the bridge and corroding the structure. Any large structure that is susceptible to corrosion should have a bird control system in place. Simple bird spikes could have removed this whole factor.
Tom -
Thanks for your comments. You are 100% correct, of course.
All I’m askin’ is for a little thoughtfulness on the part of our government.