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That’s a phrase that’s been tossed around alot lately, and I can understand why, it’s a term that implies doom & gloom. And heh, controversy and suspense is something the media loves right now so they can stretch their ratings out a little farther for this disaster. This is after all the slow news month of August. So bring on the inaccurate reporting!!

Ok first of all the fact that the bridge was designated “structurally deficient” does not mean the engineers were jumping up and done screaming “OH MY GOD!!! The world is ending, this bridge is gonna fall down right now!!!!“. No it means “heh, some stuff needs fixing on this thing, here’s the list, get to it.” And my understanding is that that was being done. An understanding somewhat supported by the fact that there were nineteen construction workers on the bridge at the time of collapse….one still missing.

So everyone can stop hyperventilating. The report never indicated the bridge had to be closed. It indicated it would have to eventually be replaced, but I could have told you that before they built it in the first place.

Gax tax, veto, blah blah blah. None of those bills would have replaced the 35W bridge, and they certainly wouldn’t have done it before this collapse.

So….before we start trying to force a smoking gun into someone’s hand, let’s start by figuring out why the damn thing collapsed first. And before we do that, how about the dead…it would be nice to bury them first yeah?? And even after that I’m sure you’ll have your choice of reasons. In addition to the NTSB, Pawlenty has asked for an independent investigation apparently. How their expertise can compare with NTSB is unknown to me but he wants to make sure we know what happened. Fair enough. I just hope they both come of with the same thing and we can move on from there.