Surprise!: 25 Percent Of Pa. Bridges Ready To Collapse

Every time there’s a big national disaster, the local press does their usual job of localizing — and scaring us. Just check out the highly scientific survey from NBC 10:

NBC 10 conducted a survey and asked, “How concerned are you about the safety of local bridges?”

Forty-five percent said, “very concerned,” 29 percent said “somewhat concerned” and 20 percent are “Not worried at all.”

Gee, I wonder who could make the public so concerned about bridge safety?

“It’s very scary. Don’t think I’m going over a bridge anytime soon,” Eileen Vitale, of Northeast Philadelphia, said. Everyone NBC 10 talked to said they would think twice before driving over a bridge that crosses either water or a city street.

Jean Unger, of Kensington, said she would cross her fingers and hold her breath until she got on the other side of a bridge.

Oh, right.

Anyway, 6,000 of Pennsylvania’s 25,000 bridges are “structurally deficient,” although that somehow also means they’re safe to drive on. Ed Rendell says he isn’t scared. Then again, his limo goes 150 miles per hour over the state’s bridges, so he really doesn’t spend enough time on the state’s bridges to have a very high chance of being caught in a collapse.

It’s okay, though: We’re safe down here in southeastern Pennsylvania.

Penndot has identified 30 truss bridges of the same design as the doomed Minnesota bridge, none of them in the five county southeastern region. Most of them are in western Pennsylvania, half of them in Allegheny County alone.

Rendell: One-Quarter Of Pa. Bridges ‘Structurally Deficient’ [NBC 10]
Local Officials and Experts React to Minnesota Bridge Disaster [KYW 1060]