I'm watching the news conference, taking place the afternoon after the Minneapolis bridge failure tragedy. Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota is calling for emergency inspections of bridges identified several years ago on a list of over 160,000 bridges from around the country that were identified as being in danger of failure. This bridge was initially classified as structurally deficient seventeen years ago in 1990.
He seems to be doing the right things after the fact to investigate things that happened and other bridges. He and every single governor around the country seem to have neglected to make this a priority.
He also seems to acknowledge that before anything substantial can be done to fix anything, the funding has to still pass through the gridlock of Congress both at a Federal and State level. So before the massive amount of debris can be demolished and removed and before any structures can be rebuilt, politicians are going to have to get off their rear ends and get to work accomplishing results. Spending a little less time staring at their fancy Century furniture pieces and start writing and signing effective legislation.
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