Ramifications of the incident
On August 1, 2007, 13 people were killed in a greasily incident where the 35W interstate bridge collapsed into Mississippi river. It was one of the oldest but huge bridges across the United States. The incident occurred in Minneapolis on a bridge which connects the National road across the Mississippi River. This, unfortunately, was the worst accident to have claimed a large number of lives and casualties in the US history (National Infrastructure Protection Plan, 2006). This historic incident called for a critical check-up of the roads and bridges constructions and inspections across the United States. The bridge was not the only one to collapse; other roads also collapsed and were prone to collapsing according to engineers.
The investigations concluded that the failure was due to poor designs on the road, which was constructed in the 1960s and only lasted for 40 years. It was unfortunate that the bridge had been planned to be repaired, but it collapsed before it could be repaired.
The design and construction of the bridge brought many concerns with the Government taking caution in case of other future bridge failures. The Minnesota Bridge was reconstructed since then with thorough investigations on its design and collapse, which led to great loss of lives and large numbers of victims involved.
What was learned from the incident
The collapse of the bridge raised lots of concern about the infrastructures of the nation. One of the greatest concerns was that the engineers related the cause of the bridge collapse to the poor initial design and the construction of the bridge. This was echoed by the National Infrastructure Authority with them (the authority) being concerned of the quality of infrastructure in the nation. This was also due to the large number of bridge failures experienced for the past years (LePatner, 2010).
The collapse of the bridge raised concerns on the roads and bridges construction. The quality of the roads was to be given extra care, and civil engineers were to take extra care in the designing of the roads (National Infrastructure Protection Plan, 2006).
The maintenance of the national roads was also brought to be of the essence. The roads were to be inspected often to check on their weak points, and whether they were strong enough to still hold the loads and weight on them. The question about the loads that pass through the roads was brought to reconsideration. It was upon the roads authority, to restrict excess loads through the national roads to prevent the destruction of the bridges.
Were those lessons truly learned to have positive effects elsewhere or were they just talk?
With a large number of lives lost, victims and destruction of properties, it called the concerned parties to act on the situation of the roads. It was a wake-up call for the authorities to discern the problem, which initially had been ignored of the bridge collapse. It called on the government, to act on the sub-inspection of the roads. The Nation Transportation Board did launch investigations on the safety of the roads. This was the lesson for them to act on the safety of the roads.
There was also reconstruction of the bridge with much higher technology to check on the flaws that had been made before. The Minnesota Bridge, for instance, was reconstructed with modern technology and made more durable and safe. Other roads and bridges had been checked on the national highways: as had been planned (National Infrastructure Protection Plan, 2006).
Discuss in the third person if or how the lessons learned could be better utilized from the event.
It would have been of better effect if severe actions were taken against the bridge constructors. This would have served as an example to other civil contractors in the nation. Moreover, the reconstruction and replacement of other bridges that had been identified to have weak points should have also been redone by the constructors. This would have prevented any future incidents from occurring. The reconstruction of the only bridge was not enough. Moreover, the use of technology in the infrastructure should have been replicated in all other roads for the prevention of any future incidents. This was supposed to be done but, unfortunately, it was implemented only for few bridges (LePatner, 2010).
