Recently, the bridge that fell last year in Minneapolis, Minnesota reopened to traffic flow. It was a mini celebration for those who had regularly used the old bridge to travel on and commute everyday. You might not think that one bridge would cause a lot of problems for people unless you were someone who used it on a regular basis. Evidently this bridge was a main artery for travel in Minneapolis. People were seen waving little flags and heard honking their horns as they went over the new bridge for the first time on September the 18th, 2008.



When the old bridge collapsed over the Mississippi River last year, there were thirteen people killed and at least one hundred and forty five were also injured. If you saw it on the news at the time that it occurred, you witnessed cars in the water and some that were hung precariously over the edge of the broken roadway. Rescues took a while and as victims waited, they were praying that the remnants of the bridge would not collapse further and allow them to fall into the water as well.

This new bridge is being called a smart bridge because it has hundreds of sensors in place that will give alerts when there is a problem. Cameras will monitor the bridge so that data can be seen by a management center. Much care has been taken with the building of the new bridge so that it can be more easily maintained when necessary. The sensors will help significantly reduce the risk of a serious malfunction.

Minnesota is well known for the harshness of the wintertime there and the changing weather can have adverse affects on bridges over time. Bridges in these colder winter climates are exposed to snow, ice, and a lot of road salt. These elements can erode structures eventually and this is why the sensors are so important.

It is scary enough to drive across long high bridges for some people especially when you wonder how well a bridge has been maintained. Perhaps in the future all bridges will be constructed in the way this bridge has been. Whether the bridge is over water or over a deep canyon area, no one wants one to collapse while they are driving across. The failure of the bridge in Minnesota sparked at least a temporary rash of bridge inspections throughout the country. Hopefully, officials will see that other bridges are repaired or replaced with better construction and technology to prevent disasters from happening again like the one that did last year in Minnesota.