Money Wasn’t the Issue
Contrary to Nick Coleman’s bombastic diatribe, money and the Pawlenty administration weren’t the main contributing factors in the I-35W bridge collapse. According to this Strib article, a big portion of the blame rests on MNDoT’s shoulders:
Structural deficiencies in the Interstate 35W bridge that collapsed Wednesday were so serious that the Minnesota Department of Transportation last winter considered bolting steel plates to its supports to prevent cracking in fatigued metal, according to documents and interviews with agency officials.
The department went so far as to ask contractors for advice on the best way to approach such a task, which could have been opened for bids later this year.
MnDOT considered the steel plating at the recommendation of consulting engineers who told the agency that there were two ways to keep the bridge safe: Make repairs throughout the 40-year-old steel arched bridge or inspect it closely enough to find flaws that might become cracks and then bolt the steel plating only on those sections.
Fears about bridge safety fueled emotional debate within the agency, according to a construction industry source. But on the I-35W bridge, transportation officials opted against making the repairs.
Once again, Nick Coleman’s rush to judgment has prevented him from doing his due diligence, finding out the facts and writing a coherent column. In Nick Coleman’s world, though, those things aren’t considerations if they get in the way of writing a scathing article against a conservative.
On a more serious note, it’s obvious that MNDoT had sufficient funds to make the repairs. They simply chose a different plan, a plan that cost people their lives.
Technorati Tags: Nick Coleman, MNDoT, Tim Pawlenty, Agenda Media, Bridge Collapse
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog
August 3rd, 2007 at 11:14 am
[...] Cross-posted at California Conservative Categories: Moonbats, Investigations, Media Bias, Agenda Media, Tim Pawlenty | [...]
August 3rd, 2007 at 1:30 pm
[...] Original post by Gary Gross and software by Elliott Back [...]
August 4th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
It’s early days to say what is, or is not, the cause of the 35W bridge going down. Recovery crews are still fishing bodies out of the Mississippi.
It will be a long time, possibly over a year, before the wreckage is recovered, reconstructed and evaluated. MN DOT is certainly responsible in the sense that they were the unit with the task of maintaining the bridge.
Whether the process referred to in the news would have prevented this disaster or not is something that I don’t know: and I doubt that the learned journalists do, either.