You may have heard, we had a bridge collapse up this way.
It was/is an old bridge in need of updating. But several factors have kept the update on the backburner. Most notably, I would like to point out, the waste of money the Democrats and their Progressive friends keep pouring my local tax dollars and your federal tax dollars into: Light Rail.
Does anyone here remember the American Jobs Act proposed by President Obama in 2011? The one he introduced while standing in front of a bridge in Ohio that was also structurally deficient? The American Jobs Act that Senate Republicans killed with glee and great pride? That one?
You think maybe if they had taken it seriously instead of playing gotcha politics those people wouldn’t be in the water right now?
Is it too soon to ask which Republicans will not only be fired, but go to jail for injuries and or deaths caused by their inattention to our infrastructure? Not for me, it’s not.
Nowhere in that original post or in any of its multiple updates does the original poster or subsequent updaters mention that it was not the bridges lack of structural integrity that caused it to collapse, but that one or more support beams was hit by an overweight and over sized truck.
An oversized truck slammed into the overhead span of an Interstate 5 bridge, causing an entire section of the bridge to collapse. The accident happened north of Seattle, Washington on Thursday night.
The basic information is of no matter to their hatred of those who oppose their agenda.
It will be interesting to see how your Leges respond to this fiscal emergency. If I may offer them a suggestion, take ALL the money they were thinking about offering to Oregon to build the new I-5 bridge over the Columbia and use it for their own I-5 bridge over the Skagit.
Any CRC (Columbia River Crossing) bucks to be tossed into the fathead hat will be contaminated with Portland Light Rail largesse, and Clark County, WA has said time and again it doesn’t want Light Rail.
We’re doing our conservative best down here to end this CRC nightmare, and now we have a bigger gun – your bridge failure up on the Skagit.
My suggestion, which I also sent to my state congress-critters, was to call up Ft Lewis, talk to an engineering company, and ask them to put a
Bailey Bridge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bailey_bridge
or Mabey Bridge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabey_Logistic_Support_Bridge
up. It could be up by Monday, and be crossing (slow) traffic both ways as a temporary FREE solution. Any competent CO of an engineer battalion would jump at the chance. Use THAT to buy time to design and build a proper replacement, and tell people to suck it up in the mean time.
They could put in a ribbon bridge on either side, too, for a little extra volume, with a quick bit of bulldozer work, gravel, and pavement, and be crossing a lot of people VERY soon. For FREE. And it would be a great training opportunity for the unit, as well as good PR…..
I’m betting it doesn’t happen.
My suggestion, which I also sent to my state congress-critters, was to call up Ft Lewis, talk to an engineering company, and ask them to put a Bailey Bridge or Mabey Logistic Support Bridge up. It could be up by Monday, and be crossing (slow) traffic both ways as a temporary FREE solution. Any competent CO of an engineer battalion would jump at the chance. Use THAT to buy time to design and build a proper replacement, and tell people to suck it up in the mean time.
They could put in a ribbon bridge on either side, too, for a little extra volume, with a quick bit of bulldozer work, gravel, and pavement, and be crossing a lot of people VERY soon. For FREE. And it would be a great training opportunity for the unit, as well as good PR…..
I’m betting it doesn’t happen.