Design Flaws: The Other (Minneapolis) Shoe Drops

Conservative blogger Ed Morrissey (hat tip: Robinson/Long) writes in justifiable outrage over the liberals in Minnesota who raced to the politically convenient (for them) conclusion that the bridge collapse in Minneapolis was the result of lack of funding for proper maintenance. The actual cause of the collapse, as reported in Sunday's twin cities Star-Tribune, was a set of design flaws that made the bridge incapable of withstanding the weight of two renovation projects. Morrissey blogs with understandable dudgeon:

Early on, the information gleaned from around the country pointed to inadequate gusset plates and a design mentality of the era that eschewed redundancy in favor of sleekness. The answers were at the ready for anyone who wanted to find them -- which obviously did not include DFL leaders in Minnesota.

Of course, it was primarily conservatives--some of whom comment on this very blog--who were quick to assume that corruption in Louisiana prevented proper maintenance of the federal levee-floodwall "system" that failed three years ago in New Orleans, and who refused to acknowledge the three independent engineering investigations which concluded, with initial reports coming as early as October, 2005, that fatal design and construction flaws, not a lack of maintenance, were responsible for the near drowning of a major American city.

So both sides would prefer not to confront an uncomfortable fact: something in our system of providing for major infrastructure has gone terribly wrong sometime during "the American century."