In the wake of yesterday’s/Wednesday’s Minnesota bridge collapse, Tennessee officials say the bridges in the state are safe. The bridge in Minnesota that collapsed was a deck truss design. There are only five of these in Tennessee and one in Middle Tennessee.
The state department of transportation fielded questions about their inspection program while conducting one on a bridge running into Downtown Nashville.
Bridge inspector Jim Watts says they keep their eye out for the big and little things.
“We’re looking for any type of defect: any type of minor crack, major crack, loss of paint. You know, anything like a loss of paint, then we’re going to have rust.”
There are nearly twenty thousand bridges in Tennessee. TDOT inspects each one every two years and bridge piers that in water are inspected every five years.
TDOT says it’s waiting for a report showing what was wrong with the Minnesota bridge before it changes its inspection routines.
About one thousand bridges in Tennessee are classified as structurally deficient. This means the bridge has defects, like rust in its piers, that could cause it to collapse. State officials say none are critical and they inspect these bridges yearly. Almost three thousand are functionally obsolete which means the bridge may not be wide enough for the traffic it carries. Two are closed and under construction.
The state has about 100 million dollars in this year’s budget for bridge replacement and repair.
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