Since 1993, according to the news in July 2008, after the “state bridge inspector found that the half-inch gusset plate at L-11 East had lost nearly half of its thickness in some spots due to corrosion along an 18-inch line, no repairs were ever ordered,” a collapse could have occurred at any time. No one picked up in July the reference to the half-inch gusset plate? How thick was a half of a half-inch? Res ipsa locquiter.

Bigger, stronger, faster. Vehicles. Athletes. Government.

In American society, government did not design and build bridges. But government did disperse money to see that projects were done. Then government tried to maintain the past, including all that government money had paid to build.

Now I would not recognize a gusset plate if I ever saw one.  I would not like to believe that for 40 years, people were not just going through the motions in their work.  How could you inspect a bridge over 40 years and not see the original design flaw of the gusset plates, which the NTSB found were too undersized to hold the bridge’s steel beams together?  People elected and appointed feared political motives in these times which would seek blame for what happened.  When you were a public servant there should be a certain amount of fear to motivate you to do a good job. 

Even if we lived in a monarchy, the question this morning should be the same.  The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported on July 29, 2008 that one gusset plate connection had “fractured partially along a line of corrosion that had gone unfixed by state transportation officials since at least 1993.”  If it had gone unfixed for 15 years, how could the design flaw itself have been missed in the first place?  No one at the time was publicly talking about the particular gusset plate critically fractured, that its width always was half as large as it should have been.  How much time did it take for the NTSB to determine that a gusset plate that was half the size it should have been had lost half of its thickness due to corrosion?  The reports had been filed since 1993, according to the news in July 2008.  In some spots.  Due to corrosion.

The gun was smoking.  All along.  In these state bridge inspectors’ reports.  Would not an inspector inspecting have seen that the gusset plate was half of its size if they were trained in their profession?  Bridge innpectors were not just professional photographers?  What standards were not applied by the human resource department of the state in hiring people at MN-DOT. 

In my past experience, I have found the one MN-DOT official I dealt with arbitrary and capricious.  One of their lawyers who had placed a lien on a man’s income because his vehicle was one of many who had struck a highway barricade.   MN-Dot wanted this guy to pay for the replacement of the barricade, no matter what prior damage had been done.  And a law was cited, without a question of due process.  The state got the money immediately, without the chance to determine fairness.  I found a behavior displayed of someone just going through the motions.  Their is not a lot of fairness any more either in politics or government.  How could an attorney  working for the state overlook a rather important issue of due process.  MN-DOT had already placed on lien on this guy and had their money.  I am sure that over the past 8 years that he has continued to go about his work, much like that unfixed gusset plate discovered 15 years ago, without ever considering the purpose, his purpose, or what it was that gusset plate was being asked to do.  When something had worked for 15 years, or 40 years, no one seemed to focus on design flaws. 

Res ipsa locquiter.  If it had worked for 25 years, the design was never in question, it spoke for itself.  The corrosion did not do it, the NTSB  concluded? 

In Minnesota, government did not design and build bridges but tried to maintain the past, a past that once was supposed to include due process.   With this report, no one ever considered the corrosion of the process.  Of government or the elected leaders. 

Bigger.  Stronger.  Faster. 

Today is the anniversary of a bridge collapse.  Most of the town held its breathe to see who would make it home that Wednesday evening from work. 

The things we take for granted.   Those were the things we tried to say Grace over. 

In the past 12 months, Minnesotans were learning that the bridge story really began with the construction of the bridge.  The study of history was always like this.  Take it from a history major.  An interest in history always started in the present day.  Inquiring minds wanted to know how something came to be.  What were the factors? 

And this story was a lot like the story of creation.  Something in my life drew me back to another day.  Another day when there was no bridge.  When there was no money or engineering to have cars and trucks and bridges.  Or reason.  Before the community decided we needed a bridge and who would all pay for it.  The creation story eventually evolved into one of maintenance.    That bridge was there the day I got my driver’s license.  I took it for granted. 

I never gave thought to who built that bridge or how it was constructed or maintained.  Or the cost.  I never had used it that much.  But I still had crossed it in the course of business travel.  It could have been me in the river.   Like any memorial day, we celebrate those of us alive.  And those of us we miss.  Including those who had come together to create that bridge so that life in the future could be easier.     

My favorite book written in the last 50 years is Sophie’s Choice by William Styron.  The underlying theme was in a story when you don’t have money, opportunity or real freedom.  Those were questions the modern Americans did not really have to consider.  OR did they?

Friday is the anniversary of a bridge collapse.  The investigation continues as to why this happen.  More and more the collapse seems to have been the result of government officials who found one particular gusset plate critically fractured that reportedly was there for more than 14 years.  The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported yesterday that one gusset plate connection had “fractured partially along a line of corrosion that had gone unfixed by state transportation officials since at least 1993,” according to evidence released this week by National Transportation Safety Board.   

Employees with the Minnesota Department of Transportation had to come to grips with decisions about which bridge to repair.  And when human life was involved, these were moral decisions that state bridge inspectors faced every day.  After the “state bridge inspector found that the half-inch gusset plate at L-11 East had lost nearly half of its thickness in some spots due to corrosion along an 18-inch line, no repairs were ever ordered.”  So since 1993 that collapse could have occurred at any time. 

Bridge inspectors did not determine how much money was in their budget this year.  When you had no control over the budget, how much real choice was there?  On the show “Law & Order,” would the prosecutor be mulling an indictment against the individuals who had failed to protect the public?  Private contractors were held legally responsible.  How about individual government employees?  Did this involve legislators? 

The legislature enacted legislation after this happened, increasing the state’s limit of liability on accidents involving this particular bridge.  I did not follow the story enough to know if the new law was broad enough to involve all state bridges.  If this had not been an inter-state bridge, if no one had died, how would the developments of the story be different? 

The state did have money, opportunity and seemingly real freedom, even if many of the people lost had not over the circumstances on how their lives ended.  For the most part, Minnesotans were discovering though time what really happened.  If this had happened in 2010 there might not have been a local newspaper that survived to cover this story. 

In Sophie’s Choice, Sophie had to choose which of her two children to save.  It was a man-made choice.  In Minneapolis–St. Paul, we had two papers that were both on the verge of collapse running out of money and opportunity.   When you ran out of money, the choices were lmited.  No one was  discussing the affect on the community with the loss of real freedom when they were gone.   

I live in a town where since last August 1, 2008 there has been a heightened awareness about crossing a bridge.  One day last November, the oldest business in the state of Minnesota had lost its identity, with little note made.  There is more awareness this week over the loss of the headquarters of a major airline.  And there was awareness over the national convention of one of the major political parties which would be here in less than 5 months. 

Most residents of the two cities seemed asleep as to whether the Minneapolis StarTribune or the St. Paul Pioneer Press would be around to cover the national convention.  A pending bankruptcy of the StarTribune Company was written about on May 4^th in the New York Post.  It has currently been denied.

The threat of collapse of either enterprise was not just the loss of a local source of news.  The news could be read elsewhere, without a local taste.  Small towns in Minnesota had been going through similiar change, with consolidated school districts for most of the last twenty-five years.  And that will be the direction of the churches in the archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis, as throughout the country, for the next decade.

What exactly did they teach in MBA programs where consolidations were supposed to be workable when smaller companies could not survive?

I had worked in downtown Chicago 18 years ago when I heard a contemporary, a suburbanite, bemoan the loss of identity of the suburb where he had grown up.  He felt that Arlington Heights was suddenly just like any other suburb in Chicago, in America. Without any flavor.  Tasteless.   Or had it been Elk Grove?

How soon would Minneapolis–St. Paul be just tasteless, without a flavor?  The loss of ethnic identity was having an effect on this generation of Americans.  As people I saw lost a sense of belonging, a sense of anger seemed to be a substitute, to those of the other party who might be responsible for the current state of affairs.  The community already seemed fractured.  But the stress fracture seemed to be getting worse.  A lot like what had happened to those gusset plates in that bridge structure that led to the collapse.